Are we chronically impatient?

[duncan drennan]

I have just put up a new post on my blog trying to explore how patient we South African business people are. I'd love to hear your comments, which you can post here or on the blog itself. Here is an extract,

So what is the problem? Could it possibly be that we in South Africa are chronically impatient? Why are we not willing to wait and allow change to take effect?

I would postulate that most people are risk and change averse, that is, they like stability. Each change, each new plan, creates instability, and this makes everyone unhappy. New training, and unhappy workers means lower productivity. Lower productivity equals fewer results, which again equals a committee to solve the crisis in (prisons, health, policing etc.).

[Dave A]

Some interesting thoughts.

I think the problem is people impliment a change, and then sit around waiting for results.

Jim Collins talks about building momentum. When you are building momentum, you don't stop adding to the flywheel.

Kettle watchers get impatient waiting for the kettle to boil. Momentum builders make toast, feed the dog and put out the trash while the kettle is getting up to speed.

And there's a vast difference in results too!

[duncan drennan]

Kettle watchers get impatient waiting for the kettle to boil. Momentum builders make toast, feed the dog and put out the trash while the kettle is getting up to speed.

I really love this analogy!

I was at a seminar today and the guy was talking about the time it can take to do a certain software task (compiling code), and how much effort they put into reducing this time - so that less time can be spent at the coffee machine

After reading your post my mind put the two together, and I realised how many people there are who will just wait for the software to finish - they won't "make toast" as you put it.

Thanks for the comments, here and on the blog

[entoserv]

So what's wrong with being impatient? It gets results - pronto.

[duncan drennan]

So what's wrong with being impatient? It gets results - pronto.

Might I gently suggest that you're missing the point?

The idea behind the blog post was that it may take longer than we allow for the results of a new way of doing things (a new system) to start to show. Have a look at www.engineersimplicity.com/blog/

[entoserv]

Might I gently suggest that you're missing the point?

More in a rush

Yeah. Sometimes stuff takes longer than you'd like.