In a previous blog entry, I listed six characteristics I believe are essential in the people who fill these important slots on an organizational chart: optimism, passion and drive, curiosity, belief in change, a talent for networking, and communication skills. I’ve just come across a new book that has convinced me to add another trait to this list: a sense of urgency.

The book I’m referring to is, naturally enough, entitled A Sense of Urgency. At 128 pages, this book is a quick, but important read. Its author, John Kotter, is emeritus professor at Harvard Business School and a world-renowned author on the topic of organizational transformation. In a previous best seller, Leading Change, he set out a six-step process for making change happen. The first step in that process was creating a sense of urgency. In an interview published on-line in Strategy+Business, Kotter says he believes achieving and maintaining the required sense of urgency is the area most companies fall down when trying to create change.

I’d guess most of us have experienced this problem at some point. We know our company is facing challenges that dictate change yet we can’t bring ourselves–or motivate others–to move beyond our comfort zone of doing things the way they’ve always been done. Trying to create new products or services or be innovative in our business processes is always threatening to some portion of people within an organization. And if a really big change, such as developing a new business model, is in order, then we’re really up against the powerful intransigent forces of those who fear change and cling to the status quo.

The older the organization and the greater the success it has had, the harder the battle is to generate a sense of urgency, sometimes even in the face of overwhelming evidence of the need to transform and innovate. But obviously, most organizations, when faced with a real crisis, can quickly a sense of urgency. But Kotter advocates a “permanent” sense of urgency, not just urgency in the jaws of a crisis. He describes it as the gut level feeling that acknowledges that the world out there has enormous opportunities and hazards. It is behavior that’s very alert for both opportunities and threads on a daily basis.

Innovation leaders and intrapreneurs are in prime positions to keep a sense of urgency alive and well within an organization. This means keeping your own sense of urgency thriving. As Kotter puts it, it’s about getting up every single day and believing that you must do something that will help change your organization for the better.