Patience & the Groundhog

The groundhog saw his shadow yesterday, so that means six more weeks of winter. Right? Great. Wonderful. Awesome.

As you can probably tell, I’m not that enthusiastic about more snow and cold weather.  However, there is not much I can do to change the length of the seasons, or to convince Mother Nature that she needs to bring us some warm, sunny weather instead of the snow currently coming down and covering the ground at an alarming speed once again as I write this blog.

What I can control, however, is my response to the innate desire to speed up the seasonal process, and see the snow-covered brown grass turn a bright, lush green. However, it has been said that the words “Dawn” and “patience” are never used in the same sentence, unless of course it is someone (usually my husband), lamenting my lack thereof.

In business, cultivating the skill of patience, while a project, program, or initiative progresses naturally is essential to its success. For instance, when you and your leadership team developed the strategic plan for your organization, how far out did you plan? Two years? Five years? 10 years? 

As time went by, did you find yourself wishing or doing something so that the process would move a little faster than those two, five or 10-year time frames? I think you know what I mean...

In an article for Research Technology Management in 2009, Parry M. Norling wrote: “[p]atience and impatience are partners in innovation if applied in the right mix and at the right targets.” In other words, acquire the skill of knowing when to act quickly, but not impatiently, and do so only with the data and research to support your actions. Acting impatiently just because things aren't moving along fast enough for your tastes only sends you down the road to failure.

Using that perspective, I believe I’ll look around and find the beauty in the quickly falling snow, rather than cursing the groundhog, who really isn't a meteorologist anyway.

Happy Monday! 

Reference:

Norling, P.M. (2009). In innovation, is patience a virtue? Research Technology Management, 52(3), 18-23.

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected management professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is the author of the Management in Motion blog, and has written a number of articles for RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association on the topic of childfree living.