On Urgent, Important, and Immediate

For a period when I was young, handsome and in the army — and at least two of those three actually happened — I had a terrific Executive Officer (XO), the second-in-command at my unit. Let’s call him Isaac.

From time to time, soldiers would appear at Isaac’s door with urgent or important matters. This would usually happen along these lines: a knock on the door, someone bursts in without waiting for an answer, and very quickly says something like “XO, it’s urgent! Joe called to say…”

Every time, Isaac would stop what he was doing, hold his hand up, palm out, to quiet down the hyperventilating soldier who burst through the door, and in a very calm voice ask: “is somebody dying?”. From time to time, the military being what it is, the answer would be yes. This was a life or death situation. Someone was, in fact, dying. Of course, in those rare cases Isaac would immediately jump into action and do what needed to be done. Most times, though, the answer would be a silent no. What started as urgent turned out to not be urgent after all. If this was the soldier’s first offense — that is, the first time he or she used the word Urgent to describe a non-life-or-death situation — Isaac would ask them to return later that day to discuss the matter. Repeat offenders, however, didn’t get off so easily. Base restrictions would appear. Leaves would be cancelled. And sometimes worse.

That was Isaac’s way of respecting the Urgent, and making sure that everyone who worked with him do the same.

Thankfully, business isn’t the military, and we don’t expect to be facing life or death situations. Still, the too-frequent use of Urgent and Immediate can have adverse implications in business, too.

An essential part of being a good, disciplined manager is the ability to set priorities for yourself and for your team, and understand what needs to be done now, and what can wait. Do you need to drop everything and reply to this investor’s email in the next five minutes, or is it better to wait until you’re done with your current task and reply with a clear head? Does the team need to work the weekend to complete the product design, or will they be more efficient if they pick up Monday?

Sometimes the answer is yes, it needs to be done immediately. There is a real deadline, real urgency. In that case, obviously drop everything and do what needs to be done. Most times, though, the answer is it can wait. Don’t stress yourself unnecessarily, and don’t burn your team for false priorities.

The problem with using Urgent and Immediate too often is they lose their meaning. When used continuously, your team becomes desensitized to these terms. If everything needs to be done immediately, nothing will. If everything is urgent, nothing is.

Don’t get me wrong: This isn’t a license to slack off or not work hard. It’s just a way of saying you should work hard on what really matters, and not let yourself and your team be distracted by falsely-labeled urgencies and wrong priorities. That way, when a real urgency arises, when the time comes to exert that extra effort, everyone knows it’s not a drill. That it really does need to happen immediately. Thus, use Urgent and Immediate sporadically. Don’t be the boy who cried wolf…

And if you happen to come to me with an urgent matter, be prepared for me to channel Isaac, and have a good answer to the question: “is somebody dying?”