Why Does Everything Feel So Urgent?

When every request feels urgent, leaders can find themselves trapped in a cycle of constant reaction. Strategic work gets postponed, boundaries disappear, and teams begin believing that everything is a priority.

In this episode of The Pause Before You Lead, Heather Haigh and Alicia Saint explore how urgency becomes embedded in a team's culture, why leaders often unintentionally reinforce it, and how slowing down can improve both client service and long-term results.

If you've ever wondered why your team is always putting out fires or why the work that matters most never seems to get done, this conversation is for you.

As you listen, consider this question:

What keeps getting pushed to tomorrow, and what does that reveal about what your team is prioritizing?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Would anyone notice if it came up? Right. Would anyone notice? Would we notice? What would it impact?

SPEAKER_03 0:05

What would it cost us? What would we lose? What would we gain? Well, and and you know, we're talking about firefighting and and treating everything as urgent, but I think there's something really empowering that says if you look at the list and you say these are the things we keep getting pushed, it's like, should they have been there in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Right? Like, like, are we just saying we're gonna address that stuff, but we really don't have any intention of addressing? And that's not to say that's good or bad. Like there's no judgment in it. I think it's just to it's to be really just sit and be honest with what's happening in our how we're operating. Are we aware of how we're operating? And in the thing that I that I think, you know, you mentioned boundaries. I think I think sometimes teams don't feel safe to slow down to pause and just kind of check in what's actually happening right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Hi, and welcome to the pause before you lead. I'm Alicia Saint and I'm Heather Haig. Together, we've both led teams inside large organizations, and over the past decade, we've coached and partnered with hundreds of leaders and teams navigating complexity. We've seen, felt, heard, and supported leaders through the challenging and sometimes really messy parts of leadership. And while a lot has changed, many of the patterns that quietly take leaders off track just keep showing up.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

We work with leaders who don't want to lose momentum, but who know that clearer thinking is what makes momentum sustainable. This podcast is for leaders who are moving fast, leading teams, and making decisions under constant pressure. And leaders who know there's a better way to think, lead, and respond in those moments.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Each week, we bring you real conversations drawn from our work with leaders and teams, where speed matters, stakes are high, and the quality of your thinking shapes everything. So in each episode, we're going to pause just long enough to think more clearly, to see what's really going on, make better decisions, and build high-value teams.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Whether you're listening before the day takes over, on your way to work, or in the middle of a full day, this is your pause without losing momentum. So before we begin, take a breath and join us.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

I'm Alicia Saint and I'm Heather Haig. And together this week, our topic is uh is everything really a fire? I know we often operate like everything's on fire all the time. And so it's a we're inviting you to pause for a moment in this week's conversation to ask yourself, is everything really on fire? So Heather, I know you've got a great story for us this week around this topic. So invite you to kick us off.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

It's um it's interesting because I if we just look at teams that are serving clients, so teams that are very client-focused, and I work with a lot of teams that are very client-focused. I think it's easy to start to feel like when you are delivering an exceptional client experience, that any phone call that a client puts into your office needs to be handled as an emergency, as a fire. And not necessarily that all calls are equal, but more that desire to give that exceptional service starts to create this responsiveness that's really reactionary. And that reaction can get in the way. So I'm thinking about a team specifically who was facing this challenge where they they they knew that they wanted to tackle some larger, bigger projects on their team, some efficiencies in the business, things that where they knew they could put in better systems that could make things run more smoothly. But those priorities kept getting put on the back burner because clients calling in were constantly, well, this has to be dealt with right away. This has to be dealt with right away, this has to be. And so that urgent response to every single call meant they never took the time to actually sit and think through what space would be available to us if we streamlined some of these efficiencies in our business. Because right now, there's a lot of old systems and they are very time consuming. And so if we keep operating with these time-consuming old antiquated models, that's slowing us down. And the reaction to the client calls being a priority meant they would never take time away to sit down and map that out. And so month after month, quarter after quarter, and in and unfortunately, year after year, some of these same challenges would surface and you could feel the frustration of the team, like we really need to tackle this. But the fire, the constant firefighting got in the way. And there was this feeling that they couldn't possibly leave the desk to be able to tackle that because that would interfere with their client experience, right? Of being always available. And, you know, I'm speaking about one team in this moment, but it's not exclusive to that team. I've consistently seen that challenge with any type of team that's operating with a with a very client-centric, client-focused dynamic, that often the reactionary of the unplanned day-to-day gets in the way of the bigger picture strategic moves that could have real change for both this way the system's operating, but also those clients they're trying so hard to serve.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Mm-hmm. And I think when you when you share that story, thank you. That's that's a great story. I'm substituting client could be internal client, right? Yes. It can be, you know, if you're in a support function, right? I used to run customer service. There was just constant. I mean, if you asked, like, like, let's take a step back and really look at the bigger picture and what no, because there was every day there was just, you know, another customer, another sales team, another operations team, whatever. There was just constant fires. And so, yeah, I think you can substitute client for an external client, an internal client, you know, a demanding senior boss. It's just when everything feels like it's on fire. How do you A, how do you prioritize B? How do you hold to those prior, those priorities? How do you create those boundaries? And I know you've got another good story for us around that. When it feels like every day you come in and within the first five minutes, your whole to-do list is blown up, right? It's like, well, I thought I was gonna have time for that, but clearly that's going on tomorrow's to-do list.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

Well, and and it's interesting because uh I was just having a conversation the other day where um this idea of, you know, not what do you put off, but what do you keep putting on the to-do list tomorrow? And what's the impact of moving it to tomorrow to tomorrow? Right. And I think that that that is such an interesting observation. If we can, if we can step outside of the urgency, step outside of the fire and say, where's the stuff that we just keep rolling down the list? Right. It's it's there on each day's to-do list, but it just keeps getting bumped to the next day, to the next day, to the next day. And you just sort of think about energetically what's the impact on you know, our own energy and how we feel about our productivity to see those same things get moved from one day to the next, to the next, to the next. Like just I know the impact that has on me. When I have certain things and I just keep moving them onto the top of the next day's to-do list, the impact that that has. And when a team is experiencing that, you know, there's a couple of things that happen. One is the frustration of we're just not getting to those things. But the other is you start to doubt whether those things are really important, either by the leader or by the team, when things keep getting pushed, right? So we there's sort of this like there's the who we we want to be, but how and then how we're actually operating.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

And I think there's a really cool even thought with that is you flip it on the head, on its head a little bit and go, as a leader, if you pause for a moment and just really think about your own, you know, your own to-do list, let's say, over the last month, and whether it's your own or the one you're creating, co-creating with your team. And wouldn't it be cool to look in at the end of the 30 days and go, what to your point, what do we keep pushing out? What do we keep rolling, you know, into the next month or into the next quarter? And then to pause and really ask yourself, how important is it? Really? Really?

SPEAKER_03 9:43

Is it a nice thing? It is really important. What are we going to do differently so this doesn't keep getting pushed?

SPEAKER_02 9:49

And why? Why is it keep getting pushed? What is getting put ahead of it each and every time? Because that's where you start to see the fires. Everything's on fire all the time. Why? Because maybe you don't have the processes put in, you won't slow down long enough to put the right process in place, you won't do the right training, you're not helping onboard people, you know, adequately or sufficiently, or people are burning out because they're overwhelmed. Like there's so many reasons that could be at play in the system. And that could be, I really love that you brought that forward. That could be a really powerful piece of data that could help you to just like pause and go, wow, I'm really seeing this. What's underneath uh what's getting put ahead of it? How important is it really? What happens if we took it off the list completely? What if we just said we're never notice? Would anyone notice if it came out? Right. Would anyone notice? Would we notice? What would it impact? What would it cost us? What would we lose?

SPEAKER_03 10:51

What would we gain? Well, and and you know, we're talking about firefighting and and treating everything as urgent, but I think there's something really empowering that says if you look at the list and you say these are the things we keep getting pushed, it's like, should they have been there in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Right? Like, like, are we just saying we're gonna address that stuff, but we really don't have any intention of addressing? And that's not to say that's good or bad. Like there's no judgment in it. I think it's just to it's to be really just sit and be honest with what's happening in our how we're operating. Are we aware of how we're operating? And then the thing that I that I think, you know, you mentioned boundaries. I think, I think sometimes teams don't feel safe to slow down, to pause, and just kind of check in what's actually happening right now.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

I've got a great, like, can I just share a really cool story that I think relates to what you've just brought up? I had uh a friend at work, uh, a friend at work. A friend, and uh she's Clarity. And so, you know, as someone who works from Clarity, right? She she can work slow, right? Methodical, very logical, really looks for data. Okay. And there was this moment in when she where she was working where things were very chaotic. Very chaotic. And and it was it was like this for some time. And so when there was the chaos, she was the only person in clarity, because I guess, you know, again, it wasn't we didn't have the analysis, but my guess was there was a lot of impact. And so she was trying to slow people down a little bit and go, like, and she was asking questions like, okay, what are we really trying to get at here? And what's the root cause? And and anyways, it ended up becoming such a friction for the team because they were like, Well, why aren't you working as frenetically as we are? Why aren't you treating everything like a fire and is you know, everything's on fire? Why are you acting so calm and cool and collected? And it was so interesting because everyone's like started turning on her because they're like, Why aren't you acting like the rest of us? And she's like looking at them, going, because you're all crazy. Like you're just running, you're just running in 18 different directions, you know, and she was, but yet because people weren't really even weren't valuing what she was bringing, which was the calm to the to the fire, or you know, maybe bringing the water to the fire, if you want to say it that way.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Right? The power of the pause.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Where are we running to? Why are we all running in different directions? What are we running from? What are we running to?

SPEAKER_03 13:45

Oh my gosh, so many, so many great questions you just presented, just in that in that brief little right, like like yes. And it it is interesting how the interpretation of someone else's urgency, yes, right, like in that moment, how we can, if you're operating the same operating model that I'm operating in, my assumptions are one thing. And if you're operating in in a model that's different from my operating model, my assumptions are not, and probably in both cases we're wrong, right? Yes. Like not all impacts love to be in overwhelm and in chaos. In fact, a lot of impacts don't like that, even though together that can be created. And sometimes we see clarity people who are taking on a ton of stuff too, and they're in a different operating model of overwhelm. And so, right, like you can it, it's it's not uh all likes or likes at all differences or differences. That being said, I think what it's hard, I think, as a leader to recognize is that your firefighting is creating a dynamic within the system that everyone thinks that is the way the model needs to operate.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

And so if you're peer-to-peer, you might be able to do the clarity kind of slowdown thing and invite and still get pushback and stand in that with calm. But if you're a member of a team where that urgency firefighting model is the model, you're not likely to put up your hand and challenge the status quo of that because it's like, well, that's obviously how this team operates. So it really comes to the leader to say, what and I like what if we slowed down in this moment? What's it what's at risk if we take a pause to assess? And I think that that that just that it doesn't have to be we're gonna stop everything for two days and go and have a team offsite and be completely not available. It doesn't have to be long period stretches, but it does have to be this invitation that the leader needs to lead to say, let's just slow down for a moment and assess that how we're operating is in the best interest of the client, the team, the stakeholder, like all the systems that we're operating within. This this firefighting is this good for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Well, and I'm just thinking again of of an image that came. You know, if you're in that firefighting and you're standing over there and you're putting out that fire, but meanwhile, there's a much bigger one that's raging behind you, but you you're so busy going, well, that's the first one that I saw. And so everyone's pointed that way. Meanwhile, what's coming behind you is, you know, 10 times worse. Or, you know, the whole idea of like just running through the burning building. Well, what happens when you get to the other side? Like there's nothing left, right? So yeah, it's it's um, yeah, the real importance of the what as a as a leader are you role modeling and also the the impact on well-being because the nervous system is so activated when you're operating that fight and flight kind of mode of firefighting, right? And it's it's it's hard to even think about stopping or slowing down to take a breath or to take a pause because your whole system is activated, right? And as a whole, just think about the collective system, how much energy is happening, right? When that's happening. And I'm just imagining that story back, and there's my girlfriend sort of sitting in the middle with this, like, you know, like a zen thing happening and every the frenetic energy can't take that in, right? It's like, what is happening over there? Like that can't work. Because you're just in you're in reaction, right? You're in so much reactivity, and it just narrows perspective, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:42

It really narrows perspective. It does. And I think there it takes courage sometimes to be the voice that slows things down. Yeah. So recognizing that this sounds simple, but isn't always easy. I've had a number of conversations with leaders and just sort of invited them when they come to those frenetic meetings where everyone's on fire and everything's intense and everything's urgent and everything's a priority. What role can the leader play in showing up with a sense of calm? And even if it's something as simple as to start the meeting to say what's the desired outcome of this meeting? Because that kind of just takes this moment for rather than, well, there's this and there's this and there's this and there's this and there's this, and there's it's like, okay, let's just take, let's just take a moment. What needs to be the takeaway from this conversation? And when invited to pause for that moment, sure, there is gonna be pushback initially because people are like, this is strange, we've never done this, this doesn't like, this isn't how we operate. The slowdown feels like what? But to your point, if you're if you're only focusing on the fire that's directly in front of you, are you observing everything else around you? Are you seeing beyond the immediate moment to what's ahead? And really in a team that has become so influenced by the leader's energy, it really falls to the leader to to start to lead that shift, even if it's not your, you know, your natural operating model. And as an impact person, I know that when I feel like there's a lot of pressure, I like to let's just go, let's just go, let's just go, let's just go. But what happens if I operate and I put that pressure on everyone around me, right? Things start to fall apart because the the breathing space actually creates greater clarity to decide what are we going to prioritize? What boundaries, if any, do we need to set? And how will we sustain them once we set them? And you mentioned that there was there was an example of this, I think. Um I remember a leader saying to me, you know, you teach people how they're how you want to be treated. And so if I kept taking on more and taking on more and taking on more and taking no one was gonna assume I was drowning. So the boundary or the the the you need to be willing to say, like, I'm gonna put my phone on, call forward for a period of time so I can tackle the thing that's most important to my role right now. And people can leave a message and people can wait for a response. But if I've taught everyone I'm instantaneously gonna react with everything that you throw at me at the moment, I'm always available, I'm always on. Like I have to help them unlearn it because I set that model. Right. And so the beginning is awkward and uncomfortable because I'm changing the rules based on expectation I set. The only way to get some breathing room in any of this and to be able to actually start to focus on what matters most versus everything being a fire is to start to put some boundaries in, to start to set some guidelines that say, you know, here's how we're gonna handle these kinds of these things are fires, these things are important, but not fires, these things actually aren't that important, right? So we can start to almost bucket some of those things, but you can't do that if you're trying to organize that with your mock 10 with your hair on fire.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

Like the pause has to happen first.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

What's like a question really wouldn't when you were talking about that? I can just feel myself slowing down, right? Is going from like that survival mode, um, like everything, my hair's on fire, to okay, you know, that Eisenhower um matrix, like what is Actually urgent. What actually is urgent it needs to be done immediately. What's urgent it needs to be done soon, you know? What can be deferred, what can be delegated, and just being able to move from that place of everything's an emergency, we're in survival mode, to a place of still the need to solve what solve today's emergencies and leave time and space and capacity and resilience for building tomorrow. That's right, like and I don't know what that balance is, and I'm sure it's different for every single team. But the the opportunity is there is balance. It's not just solving yesterday's emergencies, today's emergencies.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Yes, and yeah. Well, and I think if you're in that high speed, everything's on fire, you know, client is first system, you cannot think strategically. You cannot think bigger picture. You cannot like because you're so stuck in that mode. So there's gotta be something that sort of helps the whole team get a little bit calmer, a little bit more regulated to be able to identify for them, for that team, what uniquely are the priorities and what uniquely are the ways they want to operate. And there will still be some fires. It's not to say you're getting rid of all the fires, but it's to say somehow everything became a fire. And so we need to slow down to actually figure out what the real fires are and what's the stuff we've just been operating in a specific way for such a long time. We don't even notice what's a fire and what's not. Right. So that like I feel like that that ability for people to think more and with more intentionality to decide if there's boundaries that need to be set to clarify if we're using the matrix of, you know, urgent and important, urgent but not important, important but not urgent, right? And then the stuff that doesn't matter at all. Why are we even doing this, right? That bottom quadrant, why are we still holding on to this? You can't do that exploration operating at the pace you were operating when everything's being treated as fire. There has to be the bridge between a different way of operating and how you're currently, and that bridge, I think, starts with the pause and the leader needs to model that.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think as you're saying that, I'm also noticing it's not just on the leader, right? It starts with the leader. And noticing what's the energy that I'm creating? Am I operating like everything's on fire? Right. What am I rewarding?

unknown 24:57

Right?

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Do I reward yeah, do I reward those people that have the to-do list and they've got 10 things off and it's not necessarily the most important, but they got a lot done. Um and then as a team, are we really clear on the priorities? And and sitting with your team and saying, wow, like, is this working for anybody? Because it's not working for me. How about the rest of you? And every I everyone would just put up, you know, to say, yeah, so it's not okay. And and what are those little p key pieces of data like we just discovered in our discussion? What are those key pieces of data that might you might be able to use to start to bring some evidence to the team to the conversation that says I'm noticing? Yeah. I'm wondering about, I'm curious about. We keep saying this is important, and we yet we never get to it.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

Well, there's the what the what are we keep what are we putting off for sure? And also the there have we defined what we see as productive as being constantly reactive? Like there, like, is there is there an identity piece about who this team is and the way in which we serve our clients or the way in which we serve our internal partners, the way in which we operate as a as a team, as a collective, that needs to change to be redefined because maybe what we've been valuing and rewarding is not what we need for the team of the future. Like this isn't this isn't who we need to be operating from here. And so I also think that there's some caution around it being a bad or assessing of bad patterns of before. But instead to say, what do we want to keep about how we've operated? What do we want to change about how we've operated? And to your point about data points, like the more we can see how we've been working, what's what's been deferred, what is getting prioritized or falling through the cracks, the more you understand about that through through the slowing down, the faster you can move into a new or shift into a new momentum. So I think that there's some identity questions there that come in, right? Through a reflection. Do we need to be defined how we've previously defined ourselves?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Is it working? Right. So powerful question. Is it working? All right. Well, again, we always have a lot to offer uh in our conversation and on our topic about, you know, is it working? Is it working to operate like everything is an emergency, everything is on fire? And if it's not, hopefully from today's discussion, you've heard a few thoughts or a few questions to encourage you to take a pause and just imagine what what is the energy, what is the culture?

SPEAKER_03 28:00

What am I creating and is it working?

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

Well, and that redefining the identity, right? That calm leadership is not passive.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Right. The the the person in the middle, the zen person, right, is actually what you need.

SPEAKER_03 28:17

Can bring some clear thinking, some strategic thinking, some prioritization, and new ways of the world.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Where are we going? Where are we headed? Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

Thank you, everyone. Have a great week.

unknown 28:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

See you next week.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

And remember, pause before you lead.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

That's right. And we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Thanks for joining the Pause Before You Lead. If this conversation sparked something for you, share it. Because more leaders need space to think clearly in the moments that matter.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode and let us know what's on your mind. We shape these conversations for you.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

Before you move on to what's next, pause just for a moment.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

And notice what might change if you led from here.