The following is another in a new series of columns that will provide answers to small business questions. The new question and answer column is written by Dr. Leonard Bertain, Ph.D., the president of The Bertain Consulting Group of Oakland, CA a consulting firm specializing in the improvement of business processes and business re-engineering. Dr. Bertain's book, "The New Turnaround", contains a fictionalized character known as "Dr. Elbie". Should you have a question regarding business management issues, write or fax them to Dr. Elbie, Bertain Consulting Group, 3758 Grand Ave., Suite 25, Oakland, CA 94611, phone (510) 653-6355 or lbertain@bertain.com Dear Dr. Elbie: I read an article that you wrote where you mentioned the concept of "urgency" and you implied that this was not only an important approach to management but that "urgency" has its roots in our Western civilization. In fact, someone mentioned that it had its roots in our agrarian history. Care to comment? Comment: I would. I have been advocating this for so long that I don't know when I first mentioned this to anyone. But my philosophy goes something like this: "a manager can maximize his/her effectiveness of getting things done by looking for crises to create a group sense of urgency." Once the crisis has been identified then it is an easy job to convince people that a sense of urgency must be applied to get the job done. I was almost shocked when the March-April issue of the Harvard Business Review was published and in an interview with Lawrence Bossidy, CEO of Allied Signal, he bragged about his "burning platform theory of management." He believes that the job of the CEO in an organization is to find situations that create this sense of urgency. So at least two of us believe this. He calls this "the burning platform theory" because on the oil platforms off the coast of Texas when the foreman on one of the platforms yells "fire", no one gets ready to jump too quickly. They wait until they can see the fire and then they might jump. You see, the waters are infested with sharks and no one is going to jump unless they absolutely have to. They aren't going to jump until they see the fire. So Bossidy believes that the CEO has to continually keep abreast of the activity of the company and serve as the alarmist that a "sense of urgency" needs to be applied to a particular situation. I really believe that this is an almost mandatory approach to getting things done and I even have a theory as to why it is. I believe that "urgency" has its roots in our agrarian ancestry. As farmers, there is never enough time to get all the jobs done that need to get done. Many of the jobs on the farm are planned. We plant seeds at a certain time. We cut the hay when it has the right feel. And we let the bull into the field when the cows are in heat. But when the river rises in the winter and it begins to flood the lower forty, we have a sense of urgency and must react. When there is a fire in the barn, again, you have to react quickly to get the cow and her calf out of the barn before they are killed in the fire. This is the way farming has been forever. Mother Nature doesn't follow the farmers plan and he ends up reacting when she creates alternatives. The Romans took care of the farms around Rome and the sections to the north in the Po River Valley. They farmed as long as they didn't have wars to deal with. When war came, they dropped their plows and went to war. They dealt with the war, then came back to the farm. This dealing with uncertainty is part of our heritage. The sense of urgency and our ability to respond to it is something that is natural to the way we are. This sense of urgency has a number of other interesting corollaries. One that I like is the "Bertain Theory as to Why Tradeshows Exist." I believe that tradeshows exist because CEO's figured out a long time ago that they could never get Engineers to get products completed unless it was to go to a tradeshow. They certainly wouldn't do it because it was a profitable product to add to the company portfolio. And they wouldn't get it done to round out a product line. But to go to a tradeshow. Wow! That was important. To the CEO, what difference did it make. The sense of urgency was created and that was "to get the product completed in time to take it to whatever tradeshow existed around the time that you wanted it done." I remember all the new products that were introduced at Comdex one year. As I made the rounds to all the booths, I asked the Presidents of each of the represented companies whether the new products would have been completed without the urgency created by Comdex. I don't think any CEO disagreed with my thesis. The sense of urgency is a very powerful force in a company and CEO's should be prepared to use it to get things done. But the "sense of urgency" is a switch that is either on or off. It is not like a "variac" that is used to control voltage to a fan. Urgency is either "on" or it is "off". Unfortunately, there are a number of CEO's who use the "sense of urgency" as a routine modus operandi. It is the way they run the business. They are always in a panic. The people know it so they don't react any differently when there is a real sense of urgency. If the switch is on, it is on and you can't get any more work out of your people. They are at the limit of their patience when the switch is on and "crying wolf" or "fire" doesn't do it any more. There is a trick to all of this and that is knowing when to turn the switch on. But there is a trick before that. You have to have an organization that is not running in a state of panic. You have to have an organization that can react when you turn on the switch. And that organization is one that we think has all of the characteristics of the High Performance Work Culture or the organization that has made the Quantum Leap. Dr. Elbie's Corner is copyrighted by Leonard Bertain, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998. Dr. Elbie's Corner is a monthly article published by the Bertain Consulting Group, in the CEO University Website @ Bertain.com or CEOU.com. This article is reprinted from May 1994.