Impatience is a Virtue

One summer, I worked in a large buffet restaurant that welcomed up to 500 guests per day. As front of house, it was my job to accept just enough walk-in guests to keep the restaurant full. Accept too many, and throngs of angry guests would gather around me, angrily awaiting their table.

The golden rule was to assume 1.5 hours per guest. This worked like a charm until it rained. As the sky unexpectedly opened, the group of waiting guests would grow to thirty or more whilst existing guests lingered at the buffet for double the time to avoid facing the bad weather.

Every rainy day brought two types of waiting guests: the Angries, who repeatedly shouted at me until their table was ready and the Patient People, last seen quietly rifling through their bags for pre-packed snacks and games to keep their children entertained.

The worst part? My colleagues and I had no choice but to serve the Angries first. I wanted to reward the Patient People, but the longer the Angries waited, the more Angries they created — others would join the fray. Serving the Patient People only left me with more shouting guests on my hands, making the experience unpleasant for everyone.

I was also taught to be patient, but I often reflect on that summer full of Angries and wonder whether it’s always the best option. There’s no denying the uncomfortable truth that those willing to speak up sometimes get ahead.

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When to be patient

First off, it’s worth acknowledging that there are times and places to be patient. In these moments, impatience can really set us back, yet it can be hard to take our time.

When the solution isn’t obvious

Patience ensures we take time to work through a problem properly. Whether it’s a manager giving the team adequate thinking time, or the team iteratively experimenting on a problem and being patient for success, patience is highly likely to improve the end result.

Tim Cook believes patience is one of the critical ingredients of Apple’s successful innovation culture. He explains that for each product Apple created:

“we started long before other people did, but we took our time to get it right. That’s because we don’t believe in using our customers as a laboratory. What we have that I think is unique is patience. We have the patience to wait until something is great before we ship it.”

Impatient problem-solving leads to patchy solutions.

When it’s something new

Has your teammate done this before? Have you done it before? Whether it’s something new to us or new to others, we owe everyone time to learn, and it can be easy to forget that even the most confident team member can be flummoxed when faced with something new.

And it’s no wonder: the data shows we’re not particularly patient when it comes to setting aside time for learning in the workplace. Josh Bersin, a Research & Advisory firm for corporate learning, puts the average time employees dedicate to learning during a 40-hour week at just 24 minutes.

And as the old saying goes, “third time’s the charm” — sometimes we might need to hang in there for one more attempt before we get it right.

When it doesn’t need to be perfect

The best leaders always expect high standards, but that’s different from expecting perfect.

When standards fall short, leaders have a judgement call to make: how important is it to push for more? Often, perfect is over-engineered and patiently accepting ‘good enough’ is the better outcome. Showing patience for a team under pressure can be the difference between the team attacking their next project with gusto and walking away altogether.

When to be impatient

Growing up, we’re never taught to be impatient, but there are times where the more patient among us are missing a trick.

Be impatient to see learnings applied 

Patience to allow people time to learn is crucial, but once that time has passed, we should be impatient to see the learnings applied — albeit imperfectly. Making the effort to apply knowledge shows willing and builds momentum, creating a virtuous cycle of teaching and learning within teams.

No opportunities to apply new learnings? Teach them to someone else. The protégé effect shows the fastest way to absorb knowledge is to explain it to others.

Be impatient for action, not results 

Impatience should be directed towards inertia, not towards outcomes we can’t control. Results are a product of using actions to propel us in the right direction — pushing for regular action is the catalyst for change.

The best leaders are impatient for action to be taken, moving the team forward faster, but patient for results, not forcing a solution. This is not the same as acting hastily — as performance coach Dan Beverly explains, a considered choice should be immediately followed by action. This is the “do-it-now” mindset: if you’re already thinking about it and it won’t take long, do it now, not later.

Be impatient when your contract is broken 

The Angries at the buffet restaurant (rightly) felt that they had not been adequately forewarned of the snowballing wait times and spoke up about it. As a result, their situation was fixed faster.

Whenever someone lets down their side of the bargain, we have the right to speak up and should do so promptly, rather than waiting patiently to see if it fixes itself. How we speak up is a different matter — shouting rarely helps us be heard as much as we might hope.

Impatience gets a bad reputation as it’s often rudely expressed. It doesn’t have to mean shouting, getting angry or manipulating — it’s about clearly and calmly communicating our needs and expectations so they don’t get forgotten.

Next time you’re waiting hungrily for your seat at the buffet, know you’ll be waiting longer if you stay silent.

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