Urgent versus important

I began my career in the most corporate arena of all – IBM in New York in the 80s. We dressed up in dark suits with white shirts and even the women wore bows around our collars.

We would dress up to play a role – it was like we left our personality at the door. It was so very serious. I was working in a marketing support role and would often be asked to work weekends and late at night to deliver the support materials for executives. It seemed very important.

A university friend of mine was coming to visit NYC for a weekend and I was asked to work that same weekend. He was a great mate and I was absolutely torn and undecided as to what to do. I ended up telling my employer that I could not work that weekend and had a great weekend in the city with my pal. But I had a terrible foreboding sense of guilt that I had let my employer down, that it was a career limiting decision.

Now 25 years on, I know that IBM does not remember the weekend that I did not work (management probably didn’t even remember 25 days later) but my friend would have if I had not spent the time with him. He would remember that he travelled all the way to New York and I was too busy to see him. (He is now the Godfather to my daughter).

Sometimes, when we are in the thick of things it is hard to get perspective. We rush to the urgent for the sake of the important. It is so often the case in much of what we do. Rather than looking for the route to the cause of an issue, we rush to find a solution to make the problem go away without tackling the source.

I know that the source of much of our innovation has come from the fact that we look at the fundamentals of the issue or problem rather than looking for a quick fix.
In the long run it is about the process of consistently addressing important issues for the long-term good, rather than the urgent.

Naomi Simson is the 2008 National Telstra Women’s Business Award winner for Innovation. Naomi was also a finalist for the Australian HR Awards and a finalist for the BRW Most Admired Business Owner Award in 2008. Also in 2008 RedBalloon achieved a 97% Hewitt employee engagement score. One of Australia’s outstanding female entrepreneurs, Naomi regularly entertains as a professional speaker inspiring middle to high-level leaders on employer branding, engagement and reward and recognition. Naomi writes a blog and has written a book sharing the lessons from her first five years.

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