On 5/16/2013 11:52 AM, ENWP Pine wrote:
I agree that patience is a very important virtue in some situations, such as
when we coach newbies or seek consensus among many people. But it's sometimes
not a virtue, such as in many crisis situations. As a metrics and performance
enthusiast, I feel that it's possible to have an appropriate mix of patience
and impatience, and people should be appropriately accountable for their
performance.
I suppose it depends what implications you attach to those words, but I
would not recommend using "impatience" when what you really want is
"urgency". In my experience, the self-discipline that goes into everyday
patience can actually remain a virtue in crisis situations as well, as
it may help you remain clear-headed and make better decisions than you
would if you let the circumstances overwhelm your ability to think
rationally. And as Fred points out, a big part of my message relates
especially to making emergencies out of things that are not.
I also do not believe that patience is in any way incompatible with
accountability. Patience does not require ignoring commitments,
discarding performance evaluation, or even disregarding agreed
timeframes. However, it does mean that the results of the evaluation
should be well-considered and any consequences appropriate to the
circumstances. Impatience tends to drive us to choose excessive
consequences, like a lot of the "somebody should be fired" kind of talk
over things that are honest mistakes.
--Michael Snow
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