Recently, Steve was writing an agenda for a meeting with a leadership team. They were tired and a little grumpy. He was looking for an exercise, a question, a quote, that would stimulate a good discussion and remind his team about their core purpose, moving them closer to some energy reserves.

Steve did what he often does in these situations – when he is stuck and cannot access momentum, that is. He sought a fresh perspective, using a video‐conferencing service to connect with someone outside his organization. Immediacy 101.

He texted Reshan to see if he was free and able to talk for a few minutes. Finding that he was, he set up a video chat with him. Zoom's platform made such connections easy; so easy, in fact, that on some weeks, Steve would speak to people on Zoom more frequently than he spoke to colleagues with whom he shared a physical wall. Steve simply had to send Reshan a link, and in turn, Reshan simply had to click on the link. Then, as if they had both walked into the same room, they were face‐to‐face and able to talk.

As the initiator of the conversation, and asking permission, Steve could record the conversation in case he needed to reference it later or transcribe part of it. And Steve was able to seamlessly share his screen to seek feedback on the work he had already completed.

After probing for context – Who are the leaders in the room? What are they hoping to accomplish in the next few weeks? What challenges are they facing? – Reshan suggested a question that would encourage Steve, and his team, to focus on…immediacy:

Thinking of yourself as a learner, a leader, some combination of both, or additionally as a participant in modern society, what do you need to have just‐in‐time (or at the right time) in order to operate effectively?

By widening the team's frame of reference, Reshan posited, they might be able to visualize their current struggles in a new way, from a new height, giving them some much‐needed energy. This was the verbal equivalent of having them get up and walk around, find a new room or space, lay down some new velcro on which to stick stray observations and experiences (teaching, in short).

And it worked.

When Steve discussed the topic with his team, they perked up. Their answers showed a keen awareness of the importance of immediacy in their lives, both personal and professional. They expected most institutions with which they dealt to be highly responsive – and not just days or weeks later. Some of them mentioned Twitter, of course, and how they had seen people tweet both critiques and praise of everything from coffee shops to airlines to the colleges they were visiting with their children. Often, these short text bursts informed future choices made by members of the team.

They booked trips, even complicated family trips, much closer to the actual trips themselves. Deals popped up that way; reservations, even at exclusive restaurants, were often cancelled last minute and opened up last minute. And don't even get them started about the joys of shopping on the Internet rather than in physical locations. They bought what they needed, often more than they needed, and returned the excess or the unwanted almost as seamlessly.

And then Steve used one of his favorite teaching moves – he asked the group to reflect on how their excitement about immediacy in their personal lives could translate into their work as leaders.

Most of us in the room had come late to email – it started in college, graduate school, or our first job. And the joys of immediacy described above had happened for all of us at an even more recent point of time, maybe only the previous few years or even months. What would it mean, Steve wondered aloud, for us to lead colleagues and learners who had never known a world in which they could not instantly connect to people, products, services – a giant digital brain? How should we lead a generation raised on immediacy? And how should we lead other generations, those not raised on immediacy but who have recently converted?

Pull on immediacy's dangling thread and you see that it unravels almost endlessly, spooling itself over much of modern life and its leadership. Here's a short list of items, adapted from the above conversation and similar ones like it, that you might reconsider if you want to take immediacy seriously:

• When you send out the agenda for your next meeting.
  • How can you time its distribution so that it not only suits your needs and purposes, but also shows up optimally in the participants' workflow prior to the meeting?
• How you follow‐up after a sales call.
  • What information will you include to show the customer that you were listening and understanding what he or she was saying?
• What you do with the slides for your next training.
  • Will you record the presentation and then make it available to people outside the room?
• How you supplement your next support call.
  • Will you provide additional videos or additional instruction?
• How you articulate and spread your leadership decisions.
  • Should you use a social media platform to broadcast your leadership decisions?
• When dealing with a colleague or client.
  • How many just‐in‐time moves can you make in each moment, when most relevant, to support his or her evolving understanding? Are you helping others to access information at the right time, experts at the right time, you at the right time?

These challenges and opportunities require that we flip our thinking. It is one thing to consume the fruits of immediacy (as Steve's colleagues did and do). It's one thing to produce within contexts made possible by immediacy (as did our hypothetical traveler described earlier). It's another thing entirely to change the infrastructure of interactions, large and small, that allow you to generate immediacy for others.