When asked for their top challenges in leading organizations, many executives and managers will 
share, “a lack of urgency and a lack of a culture that feels a sense of urgency” at the top of their lists.
While recently conducting an intense Business Acumen workshop for a group of business executives from multiple business units of a large conglomerate, the topic of creating a sense of urgency came up as a critical challenge so we discussed in the context of further developing the Business Acumen skills of the team. Out of 24 participants, 20 of them had lack of urgency in their top five. For over an hour, we focused on the top five reasons why they felt having enhanced Business Acumen skills would increase a sense of urgency within the leaders, managers, and individual contributors of their businesses.
Below is a synopsis of what we discovered during the workshop as the five primary reasons why enhanced Business Acumen skills can create an enhanced sense and culture of urgency.
Understand the strategy
When managers and contributors understand the business strategy of their organization, they will have a greater sense of urgency because they are able to create better alignment for execution around the strategy. No matter if that strategy is Product Leadership, Customer Intimacy, or Operational Excellence, people within an organization use the strategy as a rallying cry and move quicker to executing the strategy and achieving success primary because they have a direction and value proposition that is clear to follow. Organizations without a strong strategy or without the Business Acumen skills to understand strategy are often lost or complacent which translates into a lack of urgency.
Understand the key metrics of financial performance
EBIT, EBITDA, ROIC, ROS, ROA, and ROE are just a bunch of letters without strong Business Acumen skills. When organizations have the Business Acumen skills to understand these critical financial metrics, they are able to drive toward them with in increased urgency because they understand what’s important and more importantly how to drive them.
Pressure on driving the levers that drive the metrics
Once the key financial metrics of a business are understood through enhanced Business Acumen skills, that then puts pressure on leaders and contributors to drive the metrics by understanding the levers that impact the metrics. For example, if a company is focused on Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (EBIT), leaders and contributors will understand that the key levers driving EBIT are holding or raising prices and increasing efficiencies in the costs of goods sold and operating costs like sales and marketing to generate more operating profit. Understanding these levers creates a tremendous sense of urgency because they a very clear and most importantly very manageable if decisions are made and executed quickly and in sequence.
Creates accountability
Having strong Business Acumen skills creates accountability because expectations are clear and concise. If there is strong accountability, then there is a sense of urgency to fix situations that are underperforming and to move quickly to take advantage of opportunities that are going to support the metrics of success leaders are accountable for.
Provides a line of sight to competitive benchmarks
Business Acumen skills provide foundational knowledge on how to understand and benchmark competitors. If there is a competitive benchmark that has been identified that indicates trouble ahead, then there is an increased sense of urgency to solve the competitive challenge. In addition, the opposite is true. If there is a situation where a competitor is missing an opportunity, there is a sense of urgency to so whatever it takes to close the gap and take advantage of the opportunity.
