Urgency Culture Is Hurting Your Business — Here’s Why.

Letting urgency overwhelm your strategy is a recipe for failure.

When it comes to the term “mindset,” you’ve probably heard a lot about concepts like the “abundance mindset” or “scarcity mindset.” One thing that hasn’t been talked about as much is the urgency mindset.

We live in a world on the move. Today’s business landscape is one of fast turnaround, quick production, and a run-to-the-goal attitude that never seems to take a break. The digital age has turned corporate goals into a series of sprints rather than a steady marathon.

This trend is easy to fall into. Businesses — including your competitors — are so visible now that it can seem like everyone is further ahead than you. Everyone is working on some big new strategy, and everyone is building up success story after success story on a near-daily basis.

Or so it seems.

You have likely heard about the “ comparison trap” brought on by social media feeds. Individuals who are active on sites like Instagram or Facebook tend to develop “FOMO” or “fear of missing out” after spending a lot of time looking at other people’s lives through the tinted lens of curated profiles. There are real psychological impacts from this kind of life-to-image comparison, and it can harm a person’s self-esteem and overall happiness.

It’s just as easy to fall prey to this trap not only as an individual, but also as a business or brand. If you are representing a company as its owner, an executive, or simply as someone who is deeply invested in its success, that same comparison trap and FOMO can quickly take hold of your perceptions and goals.

Urgency culture is the natural result of this shift. It soon feels as if every competitor and colleague is in the fast lane, hitting milestones at warp speed while you’re stuck by the starting gate. The feeling of falling behind can be paralyzing. The most common response is to push harder, putting everything into overdrive in order to “keep up” with or surpass the rest of the market.