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How To Transform Meaningful Work Into Urgent Work
Most of my workday is spent running from one urgent problem to another. When we deem something as urgent, it requires a swift response. The following story had happened to me when I first started my tenure in Corporate America. It has repeated many times in different forms over the years. You’ve probably experienced something like this yourself.
An executive called a 7:30 AM meeting. It was urgent, critical. The email even sported one of those high-importance flags. Ten people spent almost two hours on the call. Why? Because someone in power said so. What made it critical? Someone invented a solution. We gathered for the urgent call in search of a problem. We left the call with a laundry list of action items. Three weeks later, we gathered around again. We concluded that solution, while interesting, was a solution in search of a non-existent problem.
Nothing useful came from that three-week experience. Soon after, it dissolved from the collective corporate memory. The experience always stuck with me. A dozen or so of us had put aside what was hopefully meaningful work in favor of urgent action.
This kind of thing happens all the time in our professional and personal lives. We cling to urgent work and urgent tasks instead of focusing on meaningful work. There are a host of reasons why we do this.
