Paths to Creativity – The Role of Impatience
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
Creativity is at the core of marketing. The act of defining an offering to an identified market segment through a well-crafted message should involve new thinking every step of way. To foster such creativity it helps to understand the different approaches people take to the challenge, the role impatience plays in people’s work should always be considered.
Impatience is a drive to get things done as quickly as possible. The impatient person starts with the end in mind and looks for the fastest route there – skipping steps and multi-tasking are hallmarks of their activity. If something can’t be done as quickly as they like the impatient person is sorely tempted to abandon the project and move on to the next new thing. They thrive on pressure and variety. The role of impatience in creativity is to generate a hotbed of intensity with ideas flying thick and fast.
Impatient people hate to wait. If your creative challenge requires a methodical process, with multiple necessary steps that build one upon the other, the impatient person may lose interest. To avoid this tendency, create “mini-deadlines” that keep the pressure on and lessen the temptation to stray from the task.
Much of the marketing world revolves around quick turnarounds, high-pressure, and multiple changes made “on the fly.” Impatient people thrive in this environment – when combined with a drive for achieving goals, impatience creates the pro-activity especially valuable in a 24×7x365 competitive marketplace.
Beyond maintaining focus long enough to achieve closure, another primary management challenge with impatient people is negotiating the tension created when mixing them with their opposites – people with patience. Mixing impatient people with patient people creates issues in all areas of work methods but in my experience the biggest issue is communication. For example, impatient people start at the end in communication and this leaves patient people at a loss because they need to start at the beginning so they can view the “end” in context of everything that goes in front of it. Conversely, the thorough approach of patient people leaves impatient people tapping their toes (at least) in frustration as they do anything BUT listen to the meaningless preamble provided by their patient colleagues. Managing these “oil & water” tendencies requires constant coaching to remind the different people about their counterparts’ needs.
Knowing your own approach to creativity and those of people on your team provides valuable leverage for maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts.
