Sense of Urgency... WTF does that mean?

WTF does it mean when someone says “I’m worried about your sense of urgency”?

First, it is a Judgement.

Like any judgement it is just a placeholder for some really difficult work [1].

Actionable feedback starts with observations. So what observations can lead to this vague, unhelpful, judgement?

Unstated Expectations.

I’m writing this because at the moment – one of the squads on the team I serve, is struggling with delivery. In a conversation with the head of engineering, we were discussing what we thought the reasons were and what we should be doing about it.

I really liked a lot of what he was saying, but it wasn’t going quite far enough.

So, I uttered the useless words of “we are aligned for the most part… but there is a misalignment on the sense of urgency”.

What I should have said / done is to list out his recommendations and do the “yes and” exercise. Where the “and’s” were the gaps between his suggestions and the slightly more intense variations I had in mind. I also wanted him to want something… which is one of the most dangerous judgements you can have[2].

Next time someone questions my “sense of urgency”, there is a great chance they can be significantly more clear if we request that judgement to be decomposed into its actionable parts.

[1] Judgements are not actionable. Judgements are like puzzles where the sender has to do work to solve the puzzle in order for anyone else to truly understand what is trying to be conveyed. However, judgements are not bad so long as they come with a promise to do the hard work of solving / breaking them out into their actionable parts. For action to be taken you must break the judgment down into observations, your feelings, any additional context, guiding principles, unmet needs, and ultimately requests.

[2] One of my engineering managers was talking about skip levels, and was clearly frustrated with my stance at the time (which was that I’m open to them, but I didn’t have the capacity to actively seek them out). I asked what her expectations were since she was clearly upset, and she said “I want you to want to do them”. Here I am years later, and I’m still not 100% sure what to do with that. So I’m careful when I find myself in that same spot… when I want someone to want to do something, I have to flip that on its head and quickly solve that judgement puzzle as it is one of the most dangerous since it isn’t about someones actions… it is about someone’s desires, which we have no jurisdiction over.