I don’t know about you, but it feels to me like I finally have my footing in the new year. As chaotic and heartbreaking as many parts of the year have been on a collective scale, it does feel like we’re actually underway. Not just a backlog of 2025 still being caught up on. Here we are. We’re established.

In our time together on the page today, I want to talk about something that I think is shaping the way so many of us are working.

Urgency.

I know your organization is under pressure. I expect that. I know that to be true for all great people doing great work. And I understand that political timelines and decision-making timelines can run up against grant cycles and program deadlines and a thousand other things that make everything feel like it needs to happen right now.

The water we swim in asks us for urgency.

But here’s what I keep coming back to: at the base of what that urgency is really asking for is efficiency. Outputs. Impact. And there’s a way to deliver on all of that without the tightening. Without that fear-driven speed that makes it harder to see possibilities, harder to make connections, harder to do the kind of work we actually got into this to do.

Fast, Not Urgent

I want to be really clear about something. The way I work with clients, we move quickly. We move effectively and efficiently. But we skip the urgency.

There’s a difference between urgency and pace. Urgency is fear-driven speed. What I’m talking about is strategic pace: grounded, trust-based movement. And once you have that trust? Things still happen quickly. Just without the pressure that makes it so hard to do great work.

Through a story-driven strategy, we create a system that feeds itself. We do the deep listening work, and from that listening, you have all of these beautiful stories that you can create communications assets with, advocacy assets with. These are the types of stories that really move decision makers and funders. You have an evergreen bank of stories.

But you also have all of this information from communities about what they want and what they need. And when you have that, you can build strategy off of it. Because then you know what programs need to be put in place, or why people aren’t accessing the programs that are available, and how to improve them. The strategy gets to be really based in the needs and desires and wisdom and wants of the community.

And that community also includes your teams. Your staff, who are the experts in what they do.

When we create strategy from there, you’ve got buy-in. And when you have buy-in in a strategy — as we all know — it doesn’t just sit on a shelf. It becomes embodied.

What Urgency Actually Costs You

I see it over and over. The pitfalls of urgency aren’t hypothetical. They’re showing up in your organizations right now.

Extractive storytelling. When the deadline is tight, organizations turn to gathering stories to meet a deliverable. There’s no relational container. No feedback loop. No repair if harm happens. The storytelling itself feels extractive. Communities feel used. Stories become marketing rather than strategy.

When you have listening and storytelling built into the process itself, into your strategy itself, you never have to worry about that last-minute scramble. You’re building a foundation where patients and clients and community have buy-in and have input. You have stories you can pull from that are authentic, that resonate, that feel real and true. Because we all know that yuk feeling when we’ve heard an over-polished, over-marketed story. 

Staff burnout and moral injury. Urgency creates a challenging work environment. Reactive decisions. Last-minute pivots. And your staff start feeling disconnected from the work they came to do.

Turnover is very costly, and so much important wisdom is lost when there’s high turnover. A big reason for that turnover is because staff feel like they’re not able to do the work they got into this to do. When we build strategy with the input of staff and the input of community there’s so much more connection, so much less occasion for burnout or that moral injury we never want to subject our staffs to.

Shallow strategy. Surface-level themes. Simplified narratives. Top three findings reports. They’re shallow. And they don’t always land well with the community — if they even reach the community. Deep listening makes it so that any strategy document that emerges is a mirror of the wisdom and the knowledge of staff and of communities. The urgent approach misses the opportunity to go deeper. And when you go deeper, so much more arises, and so much becomes easier.

Doing the work twice. Urgency feels efficient, but often when we do things under urgency, we end up redoing the engagement. We need to do community repair work or rebuild trust later. There’s strategic confusion. Staff disengagement. Slowing down to do the wisdom gathering and story gathering and then building from there prevents all of this and makes it so that you only do the work once.

Interdependence Can’t Be Rushed

I always come back to this idea of entangled health. All of our health is intertwined with the different parts of our health, with each other’s health, with the systems we live within. And the reality is that interdependence can’t be rushed.

Having a strategy that works takes that deep listening and that time set out at the beginning to get to the bottom of what needs to be heard, what needs to be listened to, what needs to be turned into strategy, what needs to be left behind. That time spent at the beginning saves so much time in the end and sets you up with operations and systems where you don’t have to worry about scrambling in the future.

When funders reach out and want to hear testimonials you have them, because you’ve listened. When a great grant opportunity comes out of nowhere with a one-week deadline it doesn’t feel like a terrible scramble. You’ve got a clear sense of where you’re going, how the community’s involved, how the community has informed it. Funders drool over that kind of thing. That’s the work that philanthropy is so eager to fund right now.

Some Questions to Sit With

Where are we confusing urgency with importance?

What are we losing by defaulting to an urgency strategy — because it is a choice?

What are we afraid will happen if we slow down? Slow down so that we can speed up?

So often the choices we make in urgency aren’t the choices we would’ve otherwise made. They aren’t the choices that reflect the work we want to be doing.

If you’re feeling pressure right now, I invite you to move strategically, not reactively. To see where there are opportunities to take a beat and deeply listen. To make a choice you’ll thank yourself for in the long run.

Because when you have that foundation you know where you’re going. Your community knows where you’re going, and they’re going with you. Your staff knows. Everyone has buy-in. And you’re moving along with so much less friction.

Fast. Efficient. Impactful. Just not urgent.

If any of this resonates and you want to spend some time together thinking about how this might work for you, I’d love to connect.

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Okay, let’s get serious about bringing story & strategy into your organization. Below are a few ways we can partner, and, of course, you can reach out if you want to collaborate in a remixed sort of way:

+ Story Lab Sessions: Tailored strategy mapping to chart your organization’s storytelling journey, followed by a comprehensive brief with guidance to implement the findings from our session. These sessions are perfect for organizations ready to take their first steps or needing focused guidance on specific initiatives.

+ Story Hour: Real-time support, guidance, and peer learning through a suite of trainings and regular calls. These group sessions provide ongoing support and practical insights for implementing storytelling initiatives in your organization

+ Customized Collaboration: Long-term, tailored support for comprehensive organizational transformation. We’ll work closely together to integrate storytelling deeply into your existing processes. This is designed for organizations looking for in-depth support designing, implementing, and learning from storytelling initiatives.

+ Intensives & Retreats: Individually designed intensives for your staff retreats and training blocks to engage your staff in a process that centers their experiences and connections to their work through story. Great for organizations looking for a unique, connective experience for their team.

Entangled Health can be in your ears, too! Listen to the show wherever you tune into podcasts.

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