healthy impatience
If patience is a virtue and we live and work at breakneck speed, do we have to give up our virtue in the name of profitability? The surprising answer is probably no. If you and your employees have a healthy impatience, you will refuse to get stuck because when people put their egos aside and they don’t have to be the ones with the answers, they can ask for help and get unstuck quickly. And it generates results; in fact, American Express is just one company that rates its managers with healthy impatience.
And the focus is not solely on impatience. It is also in health.
sick impatience vs. healthy impatience
Like me, you’re probably all too familiar with the feeling of unhealthy impatience: panic, mental racing, pressure-based decisions, and overreactions. We lose our attention 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 completely deny the fake attack, which most people were unaware of in the first place. His overreaction gave his attacker a free megaphone and credibility to the attack. I wish I had shown healthy impatience and made the bold decision to go slow and possibly not react at all.
Healthy impatience requires time to slow down, think, and reflect. If you don’t have these tools, you’ll be moving too fast to figure out how or why you or your organization is stuck—if you can even identify that you’re stuck in the first place! Since being stuck is often a motivation for people to choose coaching, I actually think of healthy impatience as one of its foundations. Committing to coaching grants you space and time in the midst of the urgency of everyday life: you are creating a safe haven for your own clarity and vision. Your coach has this refuge and provides a mirror for reflection, as well as offering tools to develop your own alignment and leadership skills. Remember that healthy impatience is not about having all the answers. It’s about a commitment to get unstuck, to move forward, and to call on key resources to do just that!
Copyright 2010 Michelle Randall. All rights reserved.
