Almost everything in life seems to require speed…decide now, do now. There’s an energy of urgency impelling us onwards. It flows through our daily life and our life in organisations.
We can, of course, choose to step out of the stream of urgency. Yet shouldn’t we be learning to work with it more effectively, learning to respond appropriately to the truly urgent.
Urgency can put us into the mindless mode of snap decisions and swift action unsuited to the situation. Sometimes it works out okay, often not. It’s all a bit roulette and that’s a game we can’t afford to play.
There’s much at stake. Big challenges, whether on a global scale or in organisations, are generally characterised by complexity and increasingly confound past experience.
Our response, in either scenario, requires reflection not knee-jerk, dialogue with a group of diverse thinkers, a willingness to engage with and trust our higher intuition rather than just the data.
Sensing into a situation, meditating on what might be needed, connecting with a higher wisdom that can be found when we create deep inner stillness as a practice may sound too far out for some. Yet, unfamiliar territory like that we are increasingly venturing in, requires a less conventional, more conscious approach. Why wouldn’t we trust our heart as well as head to guide us?
In these times of urgent issues surely one of the great services we can bring through our leadership is an openness to leading in a different way, to sensing into the future, and to creating a better world for all.