We have had a year full of surprises and lock downs. Some organizations have made this the best year ever. Some will not survive through the next 3 months. One of the things putting these two organizations apart is patience.
Patience is a virtue that the best have. Don’t confuse patience with procrastination. Under turmoil and insecure times your people and your customer are on alert and looking for any sign of you not being on top of the situation. If you don’t show that you know what you are doing, if you don’t have the patience to make well though decision, they will panic. You also lose your create new solutions, when you start running with everyone else in the stampede. Losing your patience is about letting stress and fears to take over! They run the situation, not you. They create the stampede which will kill your business.
Patience is a skill like many others. There are simple processes to use. When you show patience, you also tell to people’s subconscious mind, that there are ways to move forward in a positive way. The first act is to implement processes which help you to look for innovative solutions. The second step is to create a preliminary road map for that situation. These need to focus on two questions, why and what. Once you have patiently studied those, then you can start to look for how. That is one core element of patience under turmoil, not rushing to how before the why and what have been carefully thought through.
During turmoil the why is even more important than during normal times. Making it crystal clear to everybody, why the organization does exist is a must. Just think about lunch restaurants. I’ve seen those, who have lost a lot of their business, because they focused on how (serving the buffet) they were operating. Then there were those, who went after the why (helping people to get good tasking meals) and they created new solutions to serve their customers. It is very human to join those, who speak out loud how everything is going badly. Our brain is wired to follow warning and warn others. Your patience is about taking control over your brain!
As said, patience is a lot of processes. When the crisis hits us, it is difficult to create proper processes. You still need to do it, if you don’t have them right now. If you are in good position today, it is equally important. Nobody knows what the next crisis is going to be. Processes which help you to maintain patience and hence be innovative will come useful when the next crisis, pandemic or economic or ??? will come. It all starts with going to the root cause of your operations. Make it clear, what is your ”why”, what customer problem (restaurant could answer to hunger) you are helping? Don’t settle to the firs (to have a restaurant), or even to the second easy answer (to serve buffet lunch).
Learning to use patience in a good way is about emotional intelligence. It is about choosing which emotions we give power to and through that then support ways of thinking. Some of us, but only about 1/3, is naturally doing this. The rest of us need to work on this, in order to make it work. The written process and work flow will help to act with patience, even it is not our natural behaviour.
Building tools and skill to calm your mind down when stressed is good for your business. It is also good for your health. If you are not sure how and what to do, I can help you. I have helped over a thousand entrepreneurs. I know what and how to do. Ask me, it doesn’t cost you anything!
Your partner in making success happen, Kari I. Mattila, emotional intelligence advisor
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