Why Patience Makes Perfect in Business

In today's busy marketplaces, speed is often celebrated by businesses as it allows companies to compete with others quickly, launch new products in a timely manner, and scale operations efficiently when needed. While speed may be important in some scenarios, patience is often an understated yet powerful driver for long-term business success. With patience, companies of all sizes can fine-tune their strategies, grow sustainably, and make thoughtful decisions that can lead to success and growth for years to come. 

Patience and Strategic Decision Making

Well-thought-out business decisions are rarely made quickly or in a rush. Often, big business decisions take time to mull over as directors, CEO’s, and managers want to examine the issue or problem at hand from every angle before settling on a path forward. Patience plays a key role in this process. With patience, businesses are able to practice strategic decision-making. Leaders can gather the needed information and consider the options before making critical business decisions. Patience allows leaders to analyse risks, consider long-term consequences, and research thoroughly before taking action. 

Strategic decision-making skills that are used by businesses are also used outside of business settings. For example, individuals who enjoy travelling to new places often use strategic thinking skills. For travel, this can include researching routes, comparing costs, gathering quotes, or researching their destinations before setting off. This information can help travellers make strategic decisions not only before their trip, while planning, but also during their trip when needed. 

Similarly, people who enjoy playing strategy games, like poker, often use strategic thinking. For example, a poker player may spend time researching and learning skills or even researching their opponents before a tournament. While playing, poker players can use strategic thinking skills to analyse the hand they’ve been dealt or to consider their opponents' strategies and tactics. While some poker players wager in person, many play online, and strategic thinking plays a key role in either scenario. When playing online, bettors often check traffic from all poker sites to find reputable, popular sites for the best overall experience. Beyond poker and travelling, sports teams also use strategic thinking, especially coaches. A sports coach may use strategic thinking to consider players' strengths, weaknesses, or injuries before deciding on who should play during an upcoming game, or they may consider a certain tactic during a game after analysing their opponent.  While strategic thinking can be used outside of business settings or in business settings, patience is always key. 

Without patience, individuals may be tempted to make quick decisions without thinking through the risks. This can lead to wasted resources and long-term consequences, especially for large businesses. Instead, patient decision makers are able to weigh up the pros and cons and make informed decisions, often leading to business success and growth through strategic choices. 

Managing Risk and Uncertainty

Risk and uncertainty play a role in operating any kind of business, and patience is a key tool that can be used by leaders to mitigate potential pitfalls. While it’s hard to avoid risk and uncertainty completely, smart businesses often use patience to manage these potential hurdles. 

For example, if a small business encounters what they consider an emergency situation, patience may let them take a step back and consider their approach instead of making a rash decision that they may regret later. Consider a small tour company that has one manager and only one employee and has only just begun their business journey. If this company were to receive a few bad reviews, back-to-back, the team operating the business may consider this an emergency situation because their business may be affected. In a panic, they may be tempted to type out a few quick replies to the reviews that were not well thought out. However, if they practice patience and take some time to consider the reviews, they can work together to formulate a polite response to the review that may mitigate some of the damage. Additionally, they may thoughtfully form a strategy to email or contact the customer and apologise or even ask for more information about what went wrong so that they can change their operations and better their business for the future. Instead of making a quick, hurried decision, a little patience could be the key for a small business like this to grow instead of floundering. 

Developing Trust and Relationships

Beyond strategic decision-making and risk management, patience can also help grow trust and build strong relationships in business settings. Trust is crucial for businesses, whether it’s building trust between an operator and its customers, building trust amongst employees, or even investors. However, trust does not come quickly. Instead, trust needs to be earned over time, and it takes patience to build trust. For example, there are a wide variety of ways to build trust between a business and a customer, but many of them don’t happen overnight. These strategies take time to develop and implement. 

Companies that focus primarily on financial gains or growth and ignore the need to build trust amongst key stakeholders risk losing their market share, as most consumers, employees, and investors want to trust a company that they work with, purchase from, or invest in. Instead, companies that are patient and want to build trust over time often listen to consumer feedback, take on suggestions, build healthy working environments, and focus on sustainable growth over time. While this approach may take longer and require patience, it can lead to larger rewards in the long term. 

Patience in Leadership

Every business has leaders, and while each leader has their own unique style, often effective leadership requires patience. Leaders work hard to guide teams, whether small or large, and navigate tough business decisions day after day. 

For many leaders, one of their greatest tasks is guiding and supporting their employees. This can take patience, as learning and growing do not happen overnight. People need time to learn new things, develop new skills, and gain confidence. If a leader is impatient, it can create a stressful work environment where staff and employees feel pressured to perform when they’re not ready. This can lead to burnout and has the potential to reduce morale and productivity overall. 

Instead, leaders who are patient are often able to create a workplace environment where learning and growth are encouraged. These business leaders typically understand that employees and team members need to take time to learn new things, and that while mistakes might happen, it’s all part of the learning process to build a strong and better team for the future. Overall, a patient leader can foster an environment that supports innovation and employee well-being. 

Conclusion

Overall, patience is a key tool in business. It is not a weakness or a drawback. Instead, it’s a strategic strength. With patience, businesses can make strategic decisions that support future growth, they can manage risks with finesse, leaders can build strong teams, and companies can build trust. While there are scenarios in business when quick decisions and fast action are needed, thoughtful, patient choices often lead to sustainable growth over time.