Leading Change: Step One—Create a Sense of Urgency

Organizational Change Begins When People Believe Staying the Same Is More Dangerous Than Moving Forward

Organizations rarely fail to recognize that change is needed.

Leaders see declining performance, outdated technology, customer dissatisfaction, control failures, employee turnover, increasing costs, regulatory pressure, new competitors, and emerging risks.

They hold meetings.

They prepare presentations.

They appoint committees.

They announce initiatives.

Then very little changes.

John P. Kotter explains this pattern in Leading Change. His eight-step framework begins with the most fundamental requirement for organizational transformation:

Create a sense of urgency.

Kotter’s original framework referred to this step as establishing a sense of urgency. His current methodology describes it as inspiring people to act with purpose around a bold and compelling opportunity. The terminology has evolved, but the principle remains the same: significant change cannot occur while most people believe the current situation is acceptable.

Urgency is not panic.

It is not manufactured fear, artificial deadlines, frantic activity, or an executive declaring that everything is a crisis.

True urgency is a shared recognition that:

• The current condition is unacceptable.

• Delay carries meaningful consequences.

• A better future is possible.

• Action must begin now.

• Everyone has a role in achieving the change.

Without that conviction, even a technically sound change initiative will lose momentum.

Why Urgency Comes First

Organizations are designed to maintain stability.

Policies, budgets, reporting relationships, performance measures, traditions, incentives, and habits reinforce existing ways of working. Even when employees complain about the current system, they may resist changing it because the familiar feels safer than the unknown.

The status quo benefits from inertia.

A change initiative must compete with:

• Daily operational demands

• Existing priorities

• Limited resources

• Fear of failure

• Political resistance

• Change fatigue

• Past unsuccessful initiatives

• Personal interests

• Organizational complacency

That is why urgency must precede the remaining steps in Kotter’s framework.

Before leaders can build a guiding coalition, establish a strategic vision, enlist broad participation, remove barriers, or generate short-term wins, enough people must believe that the change deserves immediate attention.

Kotter has described urgency as the attitude that causes people to seize opportunities, avoid hazards, address important matters today, and stop allowing low-priority activities to crowd out necessary action. He later devoted an entire book, A Sense of Urgency, to this first step because organizations so frequently misunderstand or underestimate it.

Complacency Is the Enemy of Change

The opposite of urgency is complacency.

Complacency does not necessarily mean that employees are lazy or indifferent. People can be extremely busy while remaining complacent about the organization’s most important problems.

A department may work overtime every week while refusing to reconsider an inefficient process.

Executives may attend endless meetings without confronting deteriorating performance.

Managers may prepare detailed reports that explain problems without correcting them.

An organization may be active without moving forward.

Common signs of complacency include:

• Poor results are explained away.

• Problems are blamed on external conditions.

• Employees assume leadership will handle the issue.

• Management focuses on past accomplishments.

• Unfavorable information is minimized.

• Competitors or emerging risks are dismissed.

• Difficult decisions are repeatedly postponed.

• Leaders reward stability more than improvement.

• Employees have learned that change initiatives eventually disappear.

• No one experiences consequences for missed commitments.

Complacency becomes particularly dangerous when the organization has enjoyed past success.

A strong reputation, healthy reserves, established customers, long-serving employees, or historical market dominance can create the illusion that the organization is protected from disruption.

Past performance does not guarantee future survival.

False Urgency Is Not the Answer

Leaders sometimes attempt to overcome complacency by creating pressure.

They schedule more meetings, send urgent emails, impose aggressive deadlines, demand additional reports, and launch multiple initiatives simultaneously.

This can create false urgency.

False urgency is characterized by:

• Anxiety

• Frantic activity

• Constant interruptions

• Competing priorities

• Excessive reporting

• Short-term reactions

• Confusion

• Employee exhaustion

The organization appears busy, but the activity is not focused on a clear and compelling objective.

Kotter distinguishes genuine urgency from frantic behavior that produces motion without meaningful progress. True urgency directs energy toward important opportunities and hazards. False urgency consumes energy while leaving the underlying condition unchanged.

Consider the difference.

False urgency

“We need everyone working nights and weekends because senior management wants this project finished immediately.”

True urgency

“Our current system cannot reliably protect customer information, and the number of unresolved security vulnerabilities is increasing. Unless we implement the replacement and strengthen the related controls by year-end, the organization faces a growing risk of operational disruption, regulatory action, and customer loss.”

The second statement explains:

• The current condition

• The risk

• The consequence

• The required action

• The timeframe

Urgency should clarify priorities, not merely increase pressure.

Fear Alone Does Not Create Sustainable Change

Leaders may believe that the fastest way to create urgency is to frighten employees.

They may emphasize:

• Job losses

• Financial collapse

• Regulatory penalties

• Competitive threats

• Public criticism

• Personal accountability

Threats can produce immediate attention, but fear alone rarely produces sustained commitment.

People who feel threatened may:

• Conceal bad news

• Protect themselves

• Blame others

• Resist leadership

• Avoid reasonable risks

• Provide superficial compliance

• Leave the organization

A credible case for change should address both:

The danger of remaining where we are

What will happen if the organization does not change?

The opportunity created by moving forward

What can the organization achieve through successful change?

Kotter’s current formulation emphasizes mobilizing people around a compelling opportunity and a clear vision of a better future. Urgency is therefore not limited to escaping a crisis. It can also arise from the possibility of accomplishing something important that the organization cannot achieve under its present methods.

The strongest message combines consequence and opportunity:

“If we continue using the current process, costs and errors will increase. By redesigning it now, we can reduce processing time, improve customer service, strengthen controls, and free employees to perform higher-value work.”

Urgency Must Be Based on Reality

Manufactured urgency eventually destroys trust.

Employees will recognize when management:

• Exaggerates threats

• Manipulates statistics

• Invents deadlines

• Conceals alternative options

• Uses a crisis to justify a predetermined decision

• Presents assumptions as facts

Once employees believe leadership is manipulating the case for change, resistance increases.

A defensible sense of urgency should be grounded in reliable evidence, including:

• Financial trends

• Customer complaints

• Market data

• Regulatory findings

• Audit results

• Employee turnover

• Operational delays

• Error rates

• Cybersecurity incidents

• Benchmarking

• Forecasts

• Risk assessments

• Missed performance targets

The purpose is not to overwhelm employees with data.

It is to make the present condition difficult to deny.

Start by Defining the Current Condition

A vague change message produces vague urgency.

Statements such as these are weak:

• We need to modernize.

• We must become more efficient.

• Our culture needs to improve.

• We need stronger accountability.

• We must embrace innovation.

Most employees will agree with these statements and then return to their regular work.

Leaders should define the condition precisely.

For example:

The average invoice requires 18 days to process, compared with the organization’s five-day target. Approximately 12% require rework, and late-payment penalties totaled $180,000 during the past year.

Or:

Thirty-eight percent of the Internal Audit findings issued during the past two years remain unresolved, including seven high-risk findings whose original completion dates have passed.

Or:

Student enrollment has declined for four consecutive years, but staffing, facilities, and administrative costs have not been adjusted proportionately.

Specificity creates focus.

Explain the Consequences of Inaction

People may recognize a problem without believing that immediate action is required.

The leader must explain what delay will cost.

Possible consequences include:

• Lost revenue

• Higher operating costs

• Regulatory sanctions

• Customer dissatisfaction

• Employee turnover

• Fraud exposure

• Control failure

• Cybersecurity incidents

• Declining market share

• Reduced public trust

• Financial instability

• Inability to achieve strategic objectives

The consequences should be credible and proportionate.

Avoid statements such as:

“If this is not fixed immediately, the organization will fail.”

unless the evidence genuinely supports that conclusion.

A stronger statement might be:

“Without corrective action, the current enrollment trend will reduce annual revenue while the district continues carrying largely fixed facility and staffing costs. That imbalance will progressively reduce operating reserves and limit the resources available for instruction.”

This allows people to understand the connection between the present condition and the future risk.

Make the Problem Visible

Organizations frequently tolerate problems because they are hidden inside reports, averages, departmental boundaries, or technical language.

Leaders can make urgency more tangible by showing:

• A customer’s experience

• A failed transaction

• An audit trail

• A process map

• A trend chart

• A control failure

• A comparison with peers

• A demonstration of an outdated system

• A timeline showing repeated delays

• The financial effect of the problem

A spreadsheet may show that processing delays increased by 20%.

Watching an employee navigate twelve screens, use three spreadsheets, send two emails, and re-enter the same information four times makes the problem real.

Change becomes more urgent when people can see and feel the consequences.

Use External Evidence to Challenge Internal Assumptions

Organizations often normalize their own weaknesses.

Employees may believe:

• Every organization has the same problem.

• The process cannot be improved.

• Customers are satisfied enough.

• Competitors face identical limitations.

• The current performance is acceptable.

External information can disrupt those assumptions.

Useful comparisons include:

• Industry benchmarks

• Peer organizations

• Customer expectations

• Regulatory standards

• New technologies

• Competitor performance

• Independent assessments

• Audit findings

• Professional leading practices

If the organization requires 30 days to perform a process that peers complete in five, the comparison can create urgency.

If comparable organizations have automated a control that remains manual and unreliable internally, management must explain why the existing condition is acceptable.

Benchmarking should not be used blindly. Organizations differ in scale, complexity, risk, and resources.

Its purpose is to challenge the belief that the current condition is inevitable.

Listen to the People Closest to the Work

Executives do not always see the most significant operational problems.

Employees may already understand:

• Which steps create delays

• Which controls are routinely bypassed

• Where customers become frustrated

• Which reports are unreliable

• Where fraud could occur

• Which policies no longer reflect practice

• Which technology creates unnecessary work

A leader attempting to create urgency should not begin with a completed solution and then ask employees to endorse it.

Begin by asking:

• What prevents us from succeeding?

• Where are we losing time or money?

• What risks concern you?

• Which process causes the greatest frustration?

• What do customers complain about?

• What information does management not receive?

• What should we stop doing?

• What will happen if we do nothing?

Listening serves two purposes.

First, it improves the accuracy of the case for change.

Second, it allows employees to recognize that their experience is part of the organization’s decision.

People are more likely to support change when they help define the problem.

Leadership Behavior Must Communicate Urgency

Employees judge priorities by watching what leaders do.

A leader cannot credibly claim that change is urgent while:

• Missing project meetings

• Delaying decisions

• Failing to provide resources

• Exempting senior executives

• Allowing deadlines to pass

• Rewarding the old behavior

• Continuing to use the outdated process

• Ignoring unfavorable information

Kotter’s later work on urgency emphasizes that leaders communicate the need for change through their actions and behavior, not merely through speeches or written messages.

Leadership behavior should demonstrate:

• Consistent attention

• Timely decisions

• Visible participation

• Resource commitment

• Willingness to remove low-value work

• Accountability

• Openness to bad news

• Personal adoption of the new expectations

Employees will not treat change as urgent when leadership treats it as optional.

Eliminate Competing Priorities

Organizations commonly announce a major transformation without stopping anything else.

Employees are told to:

• Maintain all existing operations.

• Complete prior initiatives.

• Attend additional meetings.

• Produce more reports.

• Implement the new system.

• Improve customer service.

• Reduce costs.

• Avoid overtime.

Everything becomes a priority.

When everything is urgent, nothing is.

Creating urgency requires leadership to identify what will receive less attention.

That may involve:

• Ending obsolete projects

• Reducing reporting

• Postponing lower-value initiatives

• Reassigning personnel

• Simplifying approval processes

• Providing dedicated time

• Increasing resources

A leader should be able to answer:

What are employees authorized to stop doing so they can perform the work required by this change?

Without that answer, the change will be added to the bottom of an already full workload.

Urgency Must Reach Beyond Senior Management

A few concerned executives cannot transform an organization by themselves.

Employees at different levels must understand how the issue affects:

• Their work

• Their customers

• Their department

• The organization

• The community or stakeholders served

The message should therefore be translated for each audience.

Board members need to understand:

• Strategic and governance consequences

• Financial exposure

• Risk

• Required oversight

Executives need to understand:

• Organizational priorities

• Resource requirements

• Cross-functional implications

• Accountability

Managers need to understand:

• Operational changes

• Staffing effects

• Performance expectations

• Barriers they must remove

Employees need to understand:

• Why the current process must change

• What will be expected

• How the change affects their work

• How they can contribute

Repeating one generic presentation to every audience is not enough.

Do Not Confuse Agreement with Urgency

Employees may agree that change is necessary without being prepared to act.

A survey may show that 90% believe the current process is inefficient.

That does not mean 90% will support:

• New responsibilities

• Changed reporting lines

• New technology

• Greater transparency

• More demanding performance standards

• Loss of familiar authority

True urgency is demonstrated through behavior.

Evidence of urgency includes:

• Employees volunteer to help.

• Managers raise problems early.

• Decisions occur faster.

• Departments share information.

• People challenge obsolete procedures.

• Resources move toward the initiative.

• Employees make time for implementation.

• Leaders accept personal accountability.

The question is not:

Do people agree that change would be helpful?

It is:

Are people acting as though the change matters now?

The Role of Internal Audit

Internal Audit can contribute significantly to the first step of organizational change.

It should not become the owner of management’s transformation initiative, but it can provide independent information that helps establish the need for action.

Internal Audit can:

• Quantify the control weakness.

• Identify recurring findings.

• Compare performance with criteria.

• Validate management’s data.

• Analyze root causes.

• Demonstrate the effects of delay.

• Identify governance barriers.

• Report unresolved risks to the Audit Committee.

• Evaluate whether management’s proposed case for change is evidence-based.

For example, Internal Audit may report:

Management has closed 14 corrective actions based on revised policies, but testing found that only five of the revised controls had operated long enough to demonstrate effectiveness.

That fact may create urgency more effectively than a general statement that the remediation program needs improvement.

Internal Audit should maintain objectivity.

It should not exaggerate risk to support management’s preferred change.

The Role of the Audit Committee and Governing Board

Governing bodies can strengthen or weaken urgency.

They strengthen it when they:

• Ask direct questions.

• Demand credible data.

• Establish accountability.

• Monitor progress.

• Challenge repeated delays.

• Protect Internal Audit.

• Provide resources.

• Keep significant risks visible.

They weaken urgency when they:

• Accept unsupported assurances.

• Permit deadlines to move repeatedly.

• Focus only on presentation rather than performance.

• Allow high-risk findings to remain unresolved.

• Treat corrective action as management’s private matter.

• Fail to distinguish activity from results.

A governing body should ask:

• What evidence demonstrates the need for change?

• What happens if we delay?

• Which assumptions support the forecast?

• Who is accountable?

• What resources are required?

• What competing work will stop?

• How will progress be measured?

• When will we know that urgency has declined?

Urgency should be governed, not merely announced.

Common Mistakes When Creating Urgency

Announcing the solution before establishing the problem

Employees hear that management has already chosen a system, structure, consultant, or reorganization before explaining why change is needed.

The initiative appears politically predetermined.

Using exaggerated crisis language

Constantly declaring emergencies causes employees to stop listening.

Relying exclusively on financial data

Numbers matter, but employees also need to understand operational, customer, ethical, and personal consequences.

Blaming employees

Urgency should focus on the condition and opportunity, not humiliation.

Presenting only negative information

Fear without hope creates withdrawal rather than commitment.

Failing to address past failed initiatives

Employees remember abandoned change programs. Leadership must explain what will be different this time.

Allowing senior leaders to opt out

Nothing destroys urgency faster than visible exceptions for powerful people.

Confusing meetings with progress

Discussion is not implementation.

Launching too many changes

Competing initiatives dilute attention and credibility.

Declaring victory too early

Urgency must continue after the initial announcement and early successes.

A Practical Process for Creating Urgency

1. Define the problem or opportunity

Describe the current condition clearly and specifically.

2. Validate the evidence

Confirm the reliability of data, assumptions, and forecasts.

3. Explain the cost of delay

Show what is likely to happen if the organization does not act.

4. Describe the better future

Give people a credible reason to believe the effort will be worthwhile.

5. Make the issue visible

Use examples, demonstrations, stories, process observations, and data.

6. Engage stakeholders

Ask employees, customers, managers, auditors, and other stakeholders what they see.

7. Align leadership behavior

Require leaders to demonstrate urgency through decisions, resources, and accountability.

8. Remove competing priorities

Make room for the change.

9. Establish immediate actions

Urgency must produce behavior, not merely awareness.

10. Monitor the level of urgency

Watch for fading attention, renewed complacency, false urgency, and change fatigue.

Example: Creating Urgency for an Internal-Control Transformation

Assume an organization has repeated weaknesses in its procure-to-pay process.

The initial management message might be:

“We are implementing a new purchasing system to improve efficiency.”

That statement is unlikely to produce genuine urgency.

A stronger approach would explain:

• Duplicate and erroneous payments totaled $420,000 during the prior two years.

• Vendor-bank changes are not independently verified.

• Three audit findings remain unresolved.

• Manual processing creates an average 16-day delay.

• Employees spend approximately 5,000 hours annually correcting exceptions.

• The current system will no longer be supported after next year.

• A redesigned process can reduce payment errors, improve vendor service, strengthen fraud prevention, and release staff capacity.

Immediate actions might include:

• Appointing a responsible executive

• Creating a cross-functional project team

• Establishing a vendor-change control immediately

• Validating the complete vendor population

• Defining the future process

• Reporting monthly progress to the Audit Committee

The urgency is based on evidence, consequence, opportunity, and action.

Example: Creating Urgency in a Public School District

A district may be experiencing declining enrollment but continue operating as though student counts will recover automatically.

A weak message would be:

“We need to become more financially efficient.”

A credible case for change might show:

• Enrollment has declined for four consecutive years.

• State revenue is tied to student counts.

• Staffing has declined more slowly than enrollment.

• Several buildings operate substantially below capacity.

• Deferred maintenance continues to increase.

• General-fund reserves are being used to support recurring expenditures.

• Without structural changes, reserves will fall below the Board’s target within three years.

The opportunity might include:

• Redirecting resources toward instruction

• Consolidating underused facilities

• Protecting class sizes

• Strengthening career programs

• Stabilizing long-term finances

• Improving services at remaining schools

The Board should not use fear to force a predetermined closure plan.

It should make the condition transparent and involve the community in evaluating the choices.

How to Know Whether Step One Has Been Achieved

The organization has not created sufficient urgency merely because:

• The CEO made a speech.

• The Board approved a resolution.

• A consultant prepared a report.

• A project manager was appointed.

• Employees completed a survey.

• A new slogan was announced.

Step one is working when:

• People openly acknowledge the problem.

• Leaders stop minimizing unfavorable information.

• Employees understand the cost of delay.

• The change receives resources.

• Low-value work is discontinued.

• Managers make timely decisions.

• Departments cooperate.

• Employees begin acting without waiting for repeated direction.

• Significant resistance is based on substantive concerns rather than denial of the need for change.

• The organization is prepared to move into Kotter’s second step: building a guiding coalition.

Urgency is therefore not primarily a communication product.

It is an organizational condition.

The Hard Truth About Change

Many leaders want employees to embrace change without confronting the conditions that make change necessary.

They want optimism without transparency.

They want commitment without participation.

They want rapid implementation without eliminating competing priorities.

They want urgency without discomfort.

That does not work.

Creating urgency requires leaders to expose the gap between:

• Current performance and required performance

• Current capability and future need

• Current risk and acceptable risk

• Current behavior and stated values

That gap may be uncomfortable.

The discomfort must be directed toward constructive action rather than panic, blame, or denial.

Step One Determines Whether the Remaining Seven Steps Have a Chance

Kotter’s eight-step process begins with urgency because every later stage depends on people believing that change matters.

Without urgency:

• The guiding coalition lacks authority.

• The vision receives polite support but little commitment.

• Employees do not volunteer.

• Barriers remain in place.

• Short-term wins are not prioritized.

• Momentum fades.

• Old habits return.

Kotter’s research into organizational transformations identified inadequate urgency as one of the recurring errors that undermine change efforts.

An organization cannot communicate, manage, or institutionalize a change that people do not believe is necessary.

The Bottom Line

Creating a sense of urgency does not mean creating a crisis.

It means helping people see, understand, and feel that:

• The current condition cannot continue.

• Delay has consequences.

• A better future is achievable.

• Leadership is committed.

• Action must begin now.

True urgency is:

• Evidence-based

• Focused

• Constructive

• Widely understood

• Supported by leadership behavior

• Connected to immediate action

• Sustained over time

The first responsibility of a change leader is not to announce the plan.

It is to make the need for change undeniable.

Only then is the organization ready to move forward.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the first step in Kotter’s eight-step change model?

The first step is to create or establish a sense of urgency. It requires enough people to understand the need or opportunity for change and become motivated to act.

Is urgency the same as creating fear?

No. Fear may generate short-term attention but can also cause concealment, defensiveness, and resistance. Effective urgency combines an honest explanation of the consequences of inaction with a compelling opportunity for improvement.

What is false urgency?

False urgency is frantic activity that creates anxiety and motion without focused progress. It may involve excessive meetings, constant deadlines, conflicting initiatives, and continual crisis language.

How can leaders overcome complacency?

Leaders can expose credible performance gaps, present external benchmarks, make problems visible, engage employees, demonstrate commitment through their behavior, and establish immediate actions with clear accountability.

How should Internal Audit support organizational change?

Internal Audit can independently validate conditions, quantify risks, identify recurring failures, analyze root causes, and report unresolved concerns. It should support evidence-based decision-making without taking ownership of management’s change program.

How do leaders know when sufficient urgency exists?

Urgency exists when people begin changing priorities and behavior: resources move, decisions accelerate, difficult issues are raised, departments cooperate, and employees actively contribute to the initiative.