We use the Predictive Index tool at Stoneridge to get a glimpse into the personalities of our prospective candidates as they look to join the team. There are 4 key measures to Predictive Index where you can be above or below the mid-point – similar to the many other personality assessment tools:
- A = Dominance
- B = Extraversion
- C = Patience
- D = Formality
I want to focus today on the “C” measurement – the measurement of a person’s patience. Having an impatient person as part of your team is a double-edge sword, so let’s talk about the pros and cons of impatient people and I’ll make my case why the pros outweigh the cons.
Pros of the Impatient
Impatient people want to make things happen. They are not comfortable sitting and waiting. They don’t need a lot of time to collect their thoughts and discuss something with everyone in the organization. They want to be in a constant state of motion.
In any business, you need people who can get things done. The most successful businesses have a lot of people in the organization who want to make things happen and get things done. You need impatient people throughout the organization – leadership team members who push their teams to move forward; managers who can stay on top of what their teams are doing and individual contributors who get the real work done. Impatient people are drawn to other people who have the ability to be impatient – they want to work for a leader who is a driver and wants to keep the organization moving forward. Managers are often saddled with so many team members that they need to be able to juggle the priorities from their team and keep the moving forward. The best managers know enough about what their team is doing that they can provide direction when they need it. An impatient manager is often one who desires to know more about what their team is doing so they can be a resource for their team.
The productivity level of the impatient person is just higher than a patient person. They are not happy if they are not getting work done. In business, you just need work done and impatient people love nothing more than to check something off their task list.
Cons of the Impatient
The three biggest cons I see with impatient people are:
- They often prioritize getting something done over getting it right
- They don’t always involve other people in their plans in an effort to go faster
- As managers, they expect things done quickly and can’t handle excuses, even when they are legitimate
As mentioned in the previous section, impatient people want to make things happen. The challenge with that is that when they go two weeks without making something happen, they start to get edgy and want to make anything happen. Let’s examine these three problematic traits of impatient people.
Impatient people can focus on getting something done over getting it right. That brings up another debate on “what is right?”. There are certain times when perfection is needed – if you’re building hardware or software for medical diagnoses, getting it right is far more important than getting it done quickly. In many other areas of business, there is value in getting something done and iterating on it. Personally, I’m a big believer in the idea of failing fast – trying something and then making it better once you see people using it. That isn’t always a great trait if you are in a role where precision is required. Consider the role of the impatient person – you probably don’t want them in a role where precision is highly valued – look for someone with a high “D” score for that. If your company takes the motto that something done well quickly is better than something done perfectly slowly, impatient people will fit your company culture well.
Impatient people can be so eager to get something done that they don’t seek help or feedback when they should. If you’ve read anything about change management, you should know that spending a little time getting feedback from the impacted team goes a long way in getting them to buy into the ultimate change. I would encourage you to reiterate that message to your impatient team members. Although it will slow them down, the long-term value is greater if they can get feedback and mindshare before they run off to get something done.
In their eagerness to get things done, impatient people can create head-on collisions with other team members. They often want to run over the more patient people who are taking too much time to get something done. As a manager of an impatient person, you will need to provide coaching to the team member to help them understand their tendencies and how that pace can impact the person with whom they are collaborating.
I’m sure you have all had an impatient manager in your career and that can be a challenge. The far end of the spectrum impatient manager wants tasks done yesterday and doesn’t tolerate any excuses. Honestly, those people don’t last very long in manager roles if they have someone above them who sees that type of behavior. The more run-of-the-mill impatient managers will push their team to get things done quickly, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. If you can push your team in a thoughtful manner, you will get better results than if you let them set their own deadlines. Impatient managers often don’t have interest in hearing excuses and sometimes the excuses are not valid. You may have to coach impatient managers that not everything will be done on-time and there will be cases where legitimate excuses delay a task. The best managers set challenging goals and expect them to be achieved. They are willing to listen if a goal was not achieved and make an assessment of the issues involved. If your impatient manager can do that, they can be very successful.
Choosing the Impatient
Every team needs a balance to be successful. You can’t have all dominant people in a group and similarly you wouldn’t want an organization of 100% impatient people. That said, over-weighting your team with impatient people can provide your business a lot of value in the long-haul. As I mentioned above, impatient people want to get stuff done. They are willing to put themselves out there, make mistakes and iterate on how to make things better. They are people of action, and if you want your business to grow, you need impatient, action-oriented people.
Impatient people are more demanding. As implied in their name, they have very little patience for frustration in the workplace that emanates from co-workers, customers or technology. You need to build a frustration-free workplace in order to attract and retain those impatient people. If you don’t, they will be looking for a job that gives them the freedom to achieve on their schedule.
We have been fortunate at Stoneridge to have a lot of impatient people – I don’t say that as a knock on the team. I say that with pride. It’s impatient people who have helped us grow the organization from 3 to over 200 in 8 years. Impatient people are more likely to be risk takers and if you really want to grow a business, you need those people who are willing to take risks, fail fast and continually try to make the company better.
EricNewell.com 