Quite often, one of the first obstacles to reconfiguring a business into a Patient Organization through the 7Q7P methodology is revealing to the owner of the company that he is not already at the helm of a patient organization. This is an understandable, yet nonetheless harmful misinterpretation of one or more aspects of their business which allows them to mentally remodel it to fit a layman’s definition of patience.
More often than not, these misidentifying marks of patience are consistent indicators of fatal flaws within a business. These complications must be eliminated in order for a company to be recast as a Patient Organization. With that in mind, here are four likely reasons that your business may not be as patient as you think it is.
1. Your business is slow.
Because your business is slow-moving, and important decisions are made only after protracted deliberations are made at all levels, your organization may possess a reassuring veneer of patience. Unfortunately, this is a simple misclassification of one of the many consequences of having a flawed set of business processes that have persisted and proliferated to the point where they now characterize the company.
Despite what the name might suggest, a Patient Organization is identifiable by its efficiency, which extends to all of its decision-making processes. As a result, actions within a truly Patient Organization are often approved and undertaken with blinding quickness. So, please don’t mistake the sluggish nature of your business for patience. It’s far more likely that your organization is fraught with inefficiencies that have crippled its momentum.
2. Your business avoids conflicts and challenges.
If people within your company routinely postpone hard decisions and avoid obstacles, you might be tempted to erroneously categorize this behavior as patience. In reality, this is cowardice masquerading as patience, as it prevents the staff from pressing onward, and restricts the business from progressing.
True patience in this scenario is best exemplified by organizations that embrace challenges, chart a path to success, and then patiently endure the difficulties that emerge during the course of pursuing the goals they established during the planning stage. Because the organization has true patience, its employees can act confidently, and not shy away from adversity.
3. Your business is passive.
If you think of your business as a calm, tranquil place where not much action takes place, then your business isn’t patient; your business is passive. Not only is your business passive, but if it is conspicuous by its lack of motion, excitement, and aggression, it is just as likely that your business is unsuccessful.
A Patient Organization can never be passive, because a truly patient organization has taken the time to define the roles and responsibilities of everyone that plays a role within it, and also taken the time to make sure everyone within the organization believes in its mission and is a valuable contributor to the company. Because the blueprint has been drawn through acts of true patience, the players within the organization are comfortable within the framework of their positions and are free to exhaustively perform their duties, motivated by the assurance that their actions are vital to accomplishing their company’s goals.
4. Your business puts up with jerks.
As businesses grow, they invariably acquire mass, and that mass includes new employees. Instead of being motivated by the purity of the founders’ original, world-changing intentions, many of the employees collected by these organizations will be driven by a slew of self-serving desires, including monetary gain, the achievement of status, or an opportunity to gather experience before moving on to other jobs. None of these desires is fundamentally bad, but many of these desires can interfere with the development of interpersonal relationships within the workplace and sew discord. Stated plainly, many organizations have become havens for jerks.
Despite your noble belief in the process of rehabilitating employees, there is no amount of rehabilitation that will turn a jerk into a model employee, and this variety of patience is actually a self-defeating exercise in perseverance that will send your company on a downward trajectory. Cut ties with jerks and replace them with pleasant employees that can help you reshape your business into the true definition of a Patient Organization.
