A few months ago, in October 2023, I noticed a strange pimple on my nose that bled after I washed and dried my face. I checked with my doctor who said to see a dermatologist. I didn’t panic, but I made an appointment as soon as I could. (An urgent reaction.) The diagnosis was squamous cell skin cancer. Since I caught it early, my doctor was able to treat that type of cancer successfully, and not have it spread throughout my body.
I spent most of November and December getting treatment and recovering—my nose is healing nicely. My big problem right now is choosing the “right” daily sunscreen for me. (I tried one this morning and I look like a ghost. I’ll post that image on this newsletter’s permanent link on my site so you can see and laugh along with me.) I’m calm about the various sunscreens, even though this one is not right for my daily use.
I used both urgency and calm to be effective in my problem-solving.
Most of us practice urgency and calm in our daily lives, not just when we have immediate problems we need to manage.
I use deadlines so my various repeatable work does not surprise me. For example, I schedule my newsletters in my calendar so I can be calm about my work (and to be effective in my communication with my readers.) That allows me to be calm about my work.
I also use timeboxes to create small actions. That allows me to make progress on large projects, and notice when I’m falling behind. I create a sense of urgency and calm to be most effective.
However, some of my clients stick with calm until they have an emergency. Too often, they panic. I don’t see that as effective.
Prevent Emergencies with Both Urgency and Calmness
Risk management allows us to prevent emergencies. When I noticed a change on my nose, I made an appointment right away to see a dermatologist (an urgent reaction). As I healed, I remained calm, even with the wound care and bandages. That’s why I have a great outcome and I get to sample sunscreens.
But too many of my clients don’t notice a change fast enough. Often, that’s because they’re using traditional and easily obtainable measures, not the measures that offer meaning. By the time they realize something is wrong, they need to go directly to urgent and then emergency actions. The time for practicing calm is over.
How can we practice urgency and calmness? Consider these ideas:
- Notice what matters, not what’s easy to measure. If I had ignored that pimple-thing on my nose, the cancer would have spread and led to a bad outcome.
- Act when the problem is small. Because I acted promptly, with some urgency, my dermatologist was able to do the surgery and I had a good outcome.
- Choose the best long-term outcome over the expedient outcome.
Once my dermatologist did all the surgery, I had two choices for how she closed the wound: a longer-healing time with better long-term outcomes, or a shorter healing time with an uncertain long-term outcome. I didn’t care very much about the healing time, but I care a lot about the longer-term outcome. That’s why I chose the better long-term outcome. I hope to be around for a very long time, both personally and professionally.
Now, my biggest problem is to choose the right sunscreen so I don’t look like a ghost. I have some urgency because even though it’s winter, I need to use sunscreen every day. And I can be calm, because I know with practice, I can solve this problem. I can live with that!
Announcements…
The book Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility is done and available everywhere you buy books or take them out of the library. I was thrilled to be able to do most of the work myself. If you, too, are tired of fake agility, read this book and use the tips to increase agility in your projects.
I’ve added options to the quarterly writing workshop. See that page for one-on-one, and two kinds of private workshops to bring into your organization. I’ll open the registration for the public Q2 workshop shortly.
Read More of Create an Adaptable Life
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Here are other links you might find useful:
- Create an Adaptable Life Blog to see the blog, not just the newsletter.
- My Books
- My Workshops
- Managing Product Development Blog
- Johanna’s Fiction
Till next time,
Johanna
© 2024 Johanna Rothman