In the fast-paced environment of today’s highly regulated healthcare industry, urgency often appears in compliance work as a driving force behind productivity and success. Not all matters are urgent though, and creating a false sense of urgency can backfire in the form of heightened stress, burnout, and ineffective decision-making.
Given that our audience generally assumes urgency based on our job titles alone, it is critical to be able to distinguish between genuine urgency—and a manufactured one.
In this article, I’ll explore circumstances that create a false sense of urgency and provide some strategies for overcoming this challenge. Having this skillset can keep you from losing the trust of your healthcare leaders and improve your ability to navigate the compliance program through the politics of healthcare.
A False Sense of Urgency
So what is a false sense of urgency? It’s self-explanatory, but to illustrate what it looks like in the field, consider the following situational examples…
The Overuse of “Urgent” Communications. The practice of labeling every task as urgent, even the ones that aren’t true emergencies.
Setting Arbitrary Deadlines. This conduct involves setting deadlines for others without a clear rationale or consideration for the actual time needed to complete the task.
Micromanagement. The practice of demanding immediate updates or engaging in continual oversight on tasks that don’t warrant such attention.
Procrastination. Waiting until the last minute to address important tasks.
Perceived Competition. Believing that success hinges on outpacing others in a race to achieve what is an internally-imposed goal.
While not an all-inclusive list, they do have a common theme—they all represent manufactured emergencies.
A False Sense of Urgency and The Politics of Healthcare
The problem with creating a false sense of urgency is that it negatively affects your ability to navigate the compliance program through the politics of healthcare. For example, let’s look at overuse of urgent communications. This approach is similar to the story in Aesop’s fable—The Boy Who Cried Wolf. If you’re labeling every task as urgent, it dilutes the significance of your true emergencies. The end result is that your audience will tune you out at a time when you need it most.
Also, if your audience is receiving emails consistently marked as urgent, but the matters are trivial in nature, you may experience difficulty in building strong relationships. That is because the overuse of urgent communications creates unnecessary stress felt by others. It also causes them to question if your professional judgement is one that can be trusted.
Strategies to Avoid Creating a False Sense of Urgency
So what can you do to reduce your chances of creating a false sense of urgency? Below are six strategies that can help.
Prioritize Tasks Objectively. Take the time to prioritize tasks based on their true importance and deadlines. Avoid inflating the urgency of every task so as not to dilute the significance of genuinely time-sensitive matters. Ask yourself is this deadline important to serving your needs, or that of the organization?
Evaluate Your Consequences. Before labeling a task as urgent, consider the actual consequences of delayed completion. Is your deadline related to a government audit, or revising an internal document? Not every task carries equal weight and recognizing that will help you prioritize effectively.
Set Realistic Deadlines. Establish deadlines that are reasonable given competing demands for time. This will allow for adequate time to complete tasks effectively.
Impose Buffer Zone Deadlines. Add in a buffer zone to your project timelines. For example, if your actual deadline is June 30th, seek to have it completed by June 15th. This will help you account for unexpected delays or revisions that are needed to your work.
Communicate Clearly. Articulating clearly about the expectations for timelines, deliverables, and the rationale behind urgent requests can help avoid misunderstandings about urgency.
Judiciously Label Communications as Urgent. Reserve the "urgent" label for situations that genuinely require immediate attention and pose heightened risk to the organization.
(Note: For some additional strategies, consider checking out two companion articles I wrote last year: How to Maintain a Calming Presence when Responding to Compliance Issues and How to Take a Big Picture Approach to Compliance Work.)
Pulling it All Together
Distinguishing between genuine urgency and manufactured pressure is essential for maintaining productivity, and fostering a healthy culture of compliance throughout the organization. In the long-run, having this skillset can also help you effectively navigate the politics of healthcare.
Keep in mind that in order to avoid creating a false sense of urgency, you’ll need healthy dose of self-awareness about how you are interacting with others. By following the above-noted strategies though, you will not only improve your self-awareness, but also experience an increase in buy-in to your compliance program.
