Tomorrow Is for the Defeated

Your mother has been kidnapped, how quickly would you work to save your mother’s life? You would have an extreme sense of urgency. This type of urgency needs to be present in your business as your competition is always lurking and wants to kick your ass at any moment.

Kobe Bryant knew this on and off the court and it’s a valuable lesson, that life happens in a blink of an eye and to leave a legacy takes urgency and doing the work that others won’t.

In today’s connected world, things happen at an increasing rate. The next big trend is always around the corner and then a few years later — poof — it’s irrelevant. The competition outworked, outsmarted and produced more, because they were bloodthirsty and worked with a high sense of urgency. Where is AOL or Blockbuster today? I’ll tell you where, gone -due to moat mentality and the lack of urgency to move into new leading edge distribution channels.

To be a a leader, you must make uncomfortable decisions at uncomfortable times with a sense of urgency to continue, but to finding other raceways to promote and distribute your products to produce more revenue is the goal. Time really is $$$. Forget the excuses. We all hate excuses. Wake up each day and -1st conquer the tasks that directly lead to more revenue. 2nd, with a sense of urgency, perform the tasks on your to-do list that lead to a more efficient business and that drive costs down, increasing you company’s value.

Typically, delaying a task or decision is not acting with a sense of urgency, but be careful. At times, waiting can be beneficial. Maybe you need to wait for certain market forces to resolve themselves or a client cannot see you immediately. These are understandable, but procrastination of action can slit the throat of your business as the longer you wait the easier it is for the competition to catch up. It’s a sprint and you have got to get out of the starting blocks quickly to win the day, the month they year increasing market share.

Procrastination is a vile word, relating to tasks that need to be performed and decisions that need to be made; yet you simply push them aside to play Call of Duty during the afternoon or go for drinks with a buddy that only wants to include you in on their drama. If this behavior is typical in your life, let me introduce you to failure. Repetitive daily failures will begin to devour you and your company, making you less and less competitive until you’re MySpace only surviving on scraps in the shadows of Facebook and Twitter.

I often see a tendency to procrastinate on critical business decisions due to uncertainty, instead of powering through analysis and gut instinct for a decisive conclusion. This is urgency. If the decision results in a failure, ok -fail fast and cut losses, but be moving. Learn from your mistake and try another route, but keep pushing and trying new processes, product features, distribution, etc. Embrace pushing forward and following your gut through calculated risk and eventually you’ll begin to pin your ears back, bear down and power through your procrastination with a sense of urgency that will ultimately edge your market.

Meetings, are another key area where people lack a sense of urgency. Most attendees are late and still talking on the phone when they stroll into the conference room. The rest of the team members probably have no idea why the meeting was called or what needs to be accomplished. Fix this! If the meeting starts at 3:00 then start it starts at 3:00. Not 3:01 or 3:10. This sends a message where an urgency and importance will arise that says, “We are not meeting to discuss. We call meetings to decide.” Sure a discussion needs to happen, but a decision must be reached, or valuable time and resources are being wasted. Meetings are like surgery: get in, evaluate, labor and get out quickly.

Everyone respects and admires people who go out and take it, which truly equates to living on the edge, leveling up and working harder & longer at their given craft than their peers. Your company culture must be the same. Does anyone respect the person who sits behind a desk and constantly watches his Facebook feed? Hell, no!

Personally, you need to have a sense of urgency to succeed in today’s expeditious business environment, but integrating and developing this urgency into your employees and company culture is key to real market success.

RIP Kobe,

Mattox