The Tyranny of Accidental, Artificial Urgency

The more I talk to mid-level managers, the more I see one particular barrier to their success and the success of their teams. This barrier has an impact both internally and externally, and both up and down the reporting structure.

Frequently, I’m helping my clients to discover how they are both impacted by and contributing to the tyranny of accidental, artificial urgency. I’ll share some of the common discoveries with you today.

But first, why does it even matter?

Both hands-on technicians and business leaders create their most value (and often find their most fulfillment) when they can perform what Cal Newport calls “deep work.” When that deep work is interrupted by an issue that’s merely pretending to be urgent, that interruption erodes both their productivity and their satisfaction.

From my conversations, here are three common sources of accidental, artificial urgency:

1️⃣ Using synchronous channels for non-urgent conversation. When you call someone’s phone at an unscheduled time, when you pop your head in their office and ask, “Hey, you got a minute?” you’re using a synchronous channel – one that expects the other person to give you their attention right now, at your convenience. Even if they feel the freedom to delay the full conversation, you’ve still broken them out of any deep work so they can concentrate on evaluating whether your interruption is worthy of even more of their time.

2️⃣ Using asynchronous channels for urgent conversation. When you pose a question via email or as a comment in an online ticketing system, you’re using an asynchronous channel. These systems organize incoming messages into conversations and queues for people to process later, at their own convenience. When you use only one of these channels to pose questions that legitimately require a rapid response, but you don’t supplement that truly urgent message with another notice on a synchronous channel, you begin to create conditions that expect the other party to treat every asynchronous message as potentially urgent, just in case.

3️⃣ Expecting no distinction between communication channels. When you treat all communication channels as equally valid for all kinds of messages, you hurt productivity in two ways. First, you make it easier for yourself to get pulled out of your own deep work by artificial urgency. Second, you place an unnecessary expectation for the recipients of your communication to interrupt their deep work to evaluate urgency.

Like each of my clients, you’ll need to find your own schedule for processing your asynchronous communication, and then set expectations with the people who typically contact you. And you may need to learn some of your system’s advanced tools to detect asynchronous messages that are likely urgent and automatically trigger notifications only for those.

But the better you can distinguish urgent and non-urgent requests and send them on appropriate channels, the more you’ll allow yourself and your broader team to be productive and fulfilled at work.