SHOT
Focus on the IMPORTANT stuff, not the URGENT stuff.
CHASER
Yes, yes, how many times have we heard this advice!
Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, surely did not mean to launch an $8 billion industry devoted to productivity when, in a 1954 speech on the importance of faith, justice, and shared values in front of the World Council of Churches, he observed that urgent problems are rarely important, and important problems are rarely urgent. In fact, it wasn’t even his original thought!
Stephen Covey—one of the OGs of productivity—would later lift this observation and turn it into a 2×2 matrix, imploring us to resist the tyranny of the clock and make room in our days for work that actually matters.
But how often do operations and insights teams actually get to do this? The answer is rarely, if ever. All else being equal, the urgent—meeting deadlines, delivering client requests—will ALWAYS bulldoze the important—strategic thinking, process improvement, innovation. The arc of client-facing work always bends toward urgency.
Trying to brute-force your way through that work is a losing strategy. The solution is simple: take people off the assembly line and give them the responsibility to work on the important stuff.
INSIGHT
You can’t build teams that are resilient and capable of growth without making this a constant focus. It means giving people the time and space to tackle important work, unencumbered by the constant drumbeat of production. These “dedicated improvers” don’t just add value—they’re the ones who find ways to cut down inefficiencies, build sustainable processes, create new training programs, and prevent the company from lurching from one fire drill to the next.
This isn’t a “nice-to-have,” nor is it a luxury only available to large teams. Teams driven only by urgency are teams that burn out. Freeing people up for even a few days a month can transform operations from a reactive pressure cooker into a high-performing function where great work gets done and people feel valued.