Someone at the webinar last Thursday asked me a great question about a sense of urgency. How can we instill it in the mind of our clients? A quick answer is: you could do it by using old persuasion tricks but in the current context, you have a 0% chance this is going to work. It’s not your job now to create a sense of urgency for your clients. It’s your job to understand what their urgency is. But what you have to do is actually to create a high sense of urgency for yourself, because this is one of the common traits of successful people. When in place, it has a terrific impact on performance. Not surprisingly, executives with a high sense of urgency lead and drive their business to better results. They think and work relentlessly until their vision and their goals are achieved. They just don’t accept the status quo. They hate and fight complacency. Their sense of urgency is an integral part of who they are. Many years ago, I declared war to mediocrity, and I have to admit I’m not happy when I see people settle for mediocrity. Either in their lives or in their business. It’s like to surrender. Some people are afraid to take action and to step outside of their comfort zone. For somebody, mediocrity is still better than failure. This leads to giving up. In business, settling for mediocrity is like accepting just good-enough or average results and performance. In this situation, people use to blame external forces (the market is tight, customers are bad, too many competitors, you name it) rather than taking full responsibility for the results. After a while, mediocrity becomes the norm. At that stage, people create an unconscious and dangerous vicious cycle where complacency takes place and shifts the mindset. On the other hand, fighting mediocrity keeps people on the alert. They strive to get better and build better results. They don’t settle. To escape mediocrity, you have to be committed to doing what is necessary instead of what is easy. Pushing up the sense of urgency is instrumental for success and to get things done. It’s uncomfortable and tough but necessary to achieve extraordinary results. If you don’t, you will end up sitting still until the storm is over. And believe me, this strategy doesn’t end well. Successful people have learned this. It’s your turn. Andrea Petrone