What does it mean to have a sense of urgency?

How many times has someone said to you, “I’m not getting a sense of urgency from you”?

And how many times has it happened because work wasn’t getting done on an accelerated timeline?

For me, the answers are more times than I can count and none, respectively, which always used to leave me confused. Earlier in my career, I may have thought said out loud to anyone who would listen that this was the stupidest thing I ever heard. I couldn’t possibly understand why anyone would complain when getting the results they need.

I don’t know if maturity or work experience in the client service space deserves the bulk of the credit, but I have a clarity now I didn’t have back then. And I’ll let you in on what I’ve observed about people.

People care more about the experience than the product or service itself.

A key component of this idea is making the client feel like you understand their pain.

You can say you get it all you want but until you show you get it, your clients won’t be confident you have the situation under control. Kind of ironic you have to show a bit of crazy/frenzy to convince people you have things handled, but that’s the world we live in.

The same concept applies to job interviews. I said it before and I’ll say it again. If people don’t like you, they won’t work with you or buy work from you, no matter how many apt qualifications you have.

When thinking about how best to explain this I come back to parenting as the closest example. Every day I work with clients I find an absurd amount of similarities to the experience of raising children. My two kids are 5 and almost 3, and they love when we make a big deal about something good they did or some boo-boo they have (real or imaginary makes no difference). Even if you don’t have kids of your own I’m sure you’ve seen this. Celebrating key project milestones and commiserating over pain points of a flawed business process…same thing.

So next time you hear someone say they’re not getting a sense of urgency from you just know they’re trying to tell you nicely to show them a little more emotion so they can see you feel for them instead of you just telling them what to do.

Of course don’t get carried away though because then you just look like an amateur…

Click this link (3 ways to show a sense of urgency)