If patience is a virtue and we live and work at breakneck speed, must we sacrifice our virtue in the name of profitability? The surprising answer is probably no. If you and your co-workers have a healthy impatience, you will refuse to get stuck because when people put their ego aside and don’t need to be the one who has the answers, they can reach out for help and quickly disengage. And it gets results — in fact, American Express is just a company that rates its managers with healthy impatience.
And the focus isn’t just on impatience. It’s also about health.
Unhealthy impatience vs. healthy impatience
Like me, you’re probably all too familiar with the feelings of unhealthy impatience: panic, racing thoughts, pressure-based decisions, and overreacting. We lose our mindfulness 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 about it? He used the rowdy pulpit of his office to completely deny the false attack that most people were completely unaware of. His overreaction gave his attacker a free bullhorn and credibility for the attack. If only he had shown healthy impatience and taken the bold step of moving slowly and possibly not reacting at all.
Healthy impatience needs time to slow down, think and reflect. If you don’t have these tools, you will act too quickly to see how or why you or your business is stuck – if you can even see that it’s stuck at all! Since being stuck is often a motivation for people to choose coaching, I actually see a healthy impatience as one of its foundations. The coaching commitment guarantees you space and time in the midst of the urgency of everyday life – you create a safe haven for your own clarity and vision. Your coach holds this port, providing a mirror to reflect on and tools to build your own alignment and leadership skills. Remember that healthy impatience is not about having all the answers. It’s about the commitment to get out of a jam, move forward and use the most important resources to do so!
Copyright 2010 Michelle Randall. All rights reserved.
Thanks to Michelle D Randall
