I have a theory about this. In product development, we often connect “urgency” to regrettable urgency. We imagine the salesperson making an urgent feature request to close that “amazing logo” (with little regard for long-term strategy or platform health), or the last-ditch effort to make a quarter, hit unrealistic investor expectations, or paper over execution failures with a flashy win.

We spend a lot of time arguing for more strategic, slower-burning bets over reactive, short-termism. And in many cases, the ship has already sailed, and there’s not much we can do about it.

In other words, we equate urgency with being anti-strategic, when in fact time and the impact of timing on outcomes are a huge part of strategy.