Impatience

On most things I’m much more patient than I was earlier in my career. Hard to believe for some, but yes, my sense of urgency has been even higher at times past.

But on at least one note, I’m less and less patient. That’s being asked the same question over and over by an individual or group. Drives me nuts, and from there, things digress into who was most offended. Unfortunately for me, I rarely get to show how offended I am, because it gets fired back at me as “why are you so frustrated?”

Demonstrates a “Nickism” (bumper stickers created by friend and former Mayor Nick Tennyson). He always says there is only room enough for one person at a time to stand on “principle.”

Unlike many people I meet, I do a lot of introspection. I’m think I’m less and less patient at answering the same questions from the same people, because (1) I sense more than ever how much it takes to execute change and how important it is, and (2) while I am as intuitive and opinionated as anyone, in my work at least, I can’t ask people to use that as my primary decision-making rationale. So here, we make information-driven decisions, with intuition and opinion as a seasoning.

People who ask the same question over and over (I truly think they forget that they have already asked that question and received an answer) appear to make decisions on intuition and opinion, with a little information as seasoning. Elected officials can often give that impression, but they are far more information-driven than they are given credit for.

But those “one-way street” people I talk about… I’m probably being generous to suggest they even put information on their decisions as seasoning. Oh and by the way, people think I’m thin-skinned?