Patience

There are times when things are not moving as quickly as we would like them to, and we have to choose between pushing the people around us to go faster or being patient and allowing things to finish at their own pace.

The business world is full of impatient people, and for good reason: time is money. The longer it takes to get something done, the more it costs, and if an opportunity is time-based, that opportunity might be lost. This is the reality of being a professional: everything has a deadline, there is never enough time to do everything you want to do, and there is always someone somewhere who is disappointed with the progress being made. It is not surprising then, that most professionals are often under immense pressure to perform, and with this pressure can come an enormous amount of stress.

Depending on the person, dealing with the stress of a high-pressure environment may be invigorating, or it might be demoralizing. While some people might love the sensation of being overwhelmed and having to perform at their very best just to survive, many people would rather things be more manageable, so that they can have a life outside of work.

Most reasonable people would agree that having a life outside of work should be our goal, as we should be working to live, and not living to work. However, in practice, when faced with the pressures of the daily grind, we can quickly throw the very idea of work-life balance out the window, even to the point where we don't feel comfortable taking the vacation days that we are entitled to take.

Everyone is free to choose to manage their lives and careers however they like, but major problems can arise when a colleague who enjoys and thrives in a high-pressure environment interacts with a colleague who is overwhelmed and barely hanging on.

Imagine a person that loves having loads of work assigned to them, craves deadlines that are too short, and generally would much rather be working than sleeping. One evening, this person realizes they need something from a colleague at the end of the workday, and they email their colleague asking for what they need but get no immediate reply. They then send a text, but still no reply. They call on the phone, but their colleague doesn't answer. It's easy to see how this person can get frustrated, as they have something they need, and a colleague is not providing it to them.

What this person doesn't realize, however, is that it's the end of the workday, and people have lives outside of work. Even if they want to work all night, most people have family and friends they would like to get back to after giving most of their waking hours to their job.

If a colleague isn't moving fast enough for you, first consider whether you are being fair in imposing your schedule of when things need to get done on them. Ask yourself what the real expectations are for the job, and whether your colleague is or is not meeting expectations. If your colleague is meeting expectations, but you are still not happy with the pace with which they are getting things done, ask yourself if you are being reasonable.

When people want to maximize productivity, they tend to work long hours, and expect others to work long hours as well. When it comes to gauging productivity, there are generally two schools of thought: productivity is measured by hours worked, or productivity is measured by what is produced. The former definition tends to lead people to the conclusion that they should work more hours, the latter definition tends to lead people to the conclusion that they should work more efficiently.

Consider a situation where you and a colleague each have to prepare separate reports for different but comparable geographic regions. The report is of a standard format, but the data has to be gathered, analyzed, and presented in a document with tables, graphs, and charts. Today is Wednesday, and the deadline is Monday morning at 9 am.

As you review the work you have to do, you realize that you will barely have enough time, and that you will probably need to work nights and weekends just to get close to having something presentable by Monday morning. You then furiously get to work, going as fast as you can to get as much done as you can. Around 5 pm, your colleague tells you they are leaving for the day. You ask them if they're worried about the Monday 9 am deadline, and they say no, which leads you to think that they're not taking the deadline seriously.

As the end of the week approaches, you realize that you have to work the entire weekend to have any hope of getting your report done. You complain to your colleague about the unfairness of the deadline, and the fact that it requires that you both have to work the weekend. Your colleague then replies, "I'm not working the weekend." In shock, you say, "Aren't you worried about getting the report done by Monday morning?" and they say, "No, not at all," and now you are convinced they are not taking the deadline seriously.

After working the entire weekend, and having barely slept since Wednesday, you finally send your report at 8:59 am, with only a minute to spare. You then notice that your colleague actually sent their completed report on Friday afternoon. You open their report and it's beautiful, thorough, concise, and complete.

Now, which one of you was more productive: you, or your colleague? The answer is you were both equally productive, assuming your work was of equal size, scope, and quality. Now, which one of you was more efficient with your time? The answer is clear: your colleague is much more efficient, as they got the same amount of work done in less time.

In light of the fact that the true measure of productivity can only be gauged by output, and not hours worked, the very idea of not having patience with a colleague who is moving too slowly is called into question. Rather than impose our idea of how fast things should be moving onto other people, we should think objectively about what needs to be done, by when it needs to be done, and allow people to work at their own pace. If they miss their deadline, then there is a coaching opportunity, but that coaching should not be to work longer hours, but instead be on how to work more efficiently.

Just as we should be patient with our colleagues, so too should we be patient with ourselves. Being hard on yourself because you think you're not working enough hours misses the point of productivity in business: it's not the hours you work to meet a deadline, but what you deliver by the deadline that matters.