Healthy impatience
If patience is a virtue and we live and work at breakneck speed, should we give up our virtue for the sake of profitability? The surprising answer is probably no. If you and your employees have a healthy sense of impatience, you’ll refuse to get stuck, because when people put their egos aside and don’t have to be the ones with the answers, they can reach out for help and quickly disengage. And it gets results—in fact, American Express is just one company that rates its managers on healthy impatience.
And the focus isn’t just on impatience. This is also for health.
Unhealthy impatience vs. healthy impatience
Just like me, you’re probably all too familiar with the feeling of unhealthy impatience: the panic, the racing mind, the pressure-based decisions, and the overreaction. We lose our consciousness and get caught up in the chaos of now, now, now! A client told me today about a political leader who was the target of a back channel attack. What did the politician do in response? He used the bully pulpit in his office to make a complete denial of the fake attack that most people didn’t know about in the first place. His overreaction gave his attacker a free megaphone and attack credibility. If only he had shown healthy impatience and taken the bold step of going slowly and possibly not reacting at all.
Healthy impatience takes time to slow down, think, and reflect. If you don’t have these tools in place, you’ll be moving too fast to realize how or why you or your organization got stuck—if you can even identify that it got stuck in the first place! Since stagnation is often a motivation for people to choose coaching, I actually think that healthy impatience is one of its foundations. Coaching gives you space and time amidst the urgency of everyday life – you create a safe haven for your own clarity and vision. Your coach holds this sanctuary and provides a mirror for reflection as well as offers tools to build your own alignment and leadership skills. Remember, healthy impatience doesn’t mean having all the answers. It’s about committing to break free, build forward momentum, and bring in key resources to do just that!
Copyright 2010 Michelle Randall. All rights reserved.
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