Accenture poll indicates that tough times tend to provide a sense of urgency that can serve to facilitate change initiatives and motivate innovative problem solving.
I firmly believe that once you begin using forces outside of your control to explain poor or disappointing performance, you begin to rationalize that performance and you help the team become more comfortable with it. Here’s one instance where a reaction to outside forces may work to your advantage. An appropriate sense of urgency is critical to your success. According to John Kotter “At the very beginning of any effort to make changes of any magnitude, if a sense of urgency is not high enough and complacency is not low enough, everything else becomes so much more difficult.” Considering that 70% of change initiatives fail, let’s use every advantage we have to move our teams forward.