Last week, I travelled to the Queensland Gold Coast from Byron Bay. While on the Motorway, I stopped to get fuel at a large fuel service centre.
After spending $70+ to fill the petrol tank, I went to wash the dead bug marks off my car's windscreen - but all four of the petrol station's wash buckets were bone dry....and....only two of the four had the long-handled washer/scrubbers. I asked the customer service attendant 'why?'
In a surprised voice he said, "Oh! I didn't know they were empty." And he took an empty bucket and walked to a place where he could draw water to refill the wash buckets.
Bottom line: those wash buckets had been empty for hours, while this attendant sat reading a book or “whatever”. Complacency is much more common than we think. Employee and business owner/manager complacency is a huge problem in both the city and regional areas and will result in crumbling business for those companies that allow it to spread. People gravitate toward doing whatever alleviates their anxieties and worries, and they will go to great lengths to avoid discomfort.
Often, complacency is invisible to business owners, managers and leaders, as well as the employees in its grip. You, too, may be complacent and not even realise it. That’s because success produces complacency and, for peace of mind, we often focus on success instead of our failures or gaps.
This problem is augmented by our tendency to replace a true sense of urgency and purpose with frantic activity and unfocused anxiety—what we call a false or misguided urgency.
False Urgency
When organisations suffer from a false sense of urgency, they experience a great deal of energised action, but it’s driven by anxiety, anger and frustration.
There’s activity, but little focused determination to win—and to do so as soon as possible.
With false urgency, you will frequently witness:
· Running from meeting to meeting,
· Sending lots of emails,
· Writing unnecessary reports,
· Juggling lower priorities,
· Compulsively making lists that are never completed.
The danger here is that participants and observers actually believe their increased activity is productive.
With thanks, Business Coaching, September 18, 2009.
