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Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Patience is a virtue.
Amazon began as a bookstore in a garage.
You can repeat these proverbs a thousand times, but the message doesn’t really stick in your mind. Entrepreneurs are programmed to want change and progress. That is why, despite adversities, we start businesses and create latest products and services. But despite the fact that our rational brains tell us that good things take time, the emotional side screams for overnight success. The founders have mass-market desires and unicorn dreams.
It has to do with uncertainty. To remain patient in business, we must accept a degree of uncertainty – an indefinite time period during which nothing is guaranteed; when we work hard and probably give it our all, and the return on investment is unclear.
I launched the first version Jotform in 2006. It took almost two many years to expand from one to 660 employees; from zero to 25 million users worldwide. Patience has enabled us to grow slowly but sustainably and dynamically. But it was a challenge. In a startup world obsessed with speed, I often needed to remind myself of the cold, hard advantages of strategic patience. If you wish a reminder today, here are the advantages of a more thoughtful pace of business growth.
Holding the reins for the long haul
At first I lived in Brooklyn Heights. At sunrise, I went to a local Starbucks and worked for a few hours on my startup idea, a drag-and-drop web form company, and then spent the day at the office in Manhattan. When I finally began a sole proprietorship (me), I needed to take on all the responsibilities – product design, UX, marketing, customer support, and more. I learned every aspect of the business inside and out – until the hats began to overwhelm me and I knew it was time to expand the team.
How did I know it was time to rent? When I noticed: A) a specialist in a specific role could do the job higher than me; and B) we kept their entire first-year salary in the bank. But those early days were a crash course in every aspect of business. It wasn’t obvious at the time, but in hindsight I see that it made me a stronger entrepreneur. When it got here time to rent, I knew what I used to be looking for.
I also had full control over our company and its long-term vision. If I wasn’t a bootstrapper, I could be under pressure to scale and reply to investors. Slow growth has allowed me to persist with my original vision: developing products that make our users’ lives easier, whether that be online forms or newer products like spreadsheet tools or PDF editors.
It wasn’t easy again. I needed to make sacrifices, akin to returning to my native Turkey to chop costs. But in the long term, I could retain full creative control of the company, which is why I became an entrepreneur in the first place.
Fostering creativity and collaboration
The advantages of patient leadership trickle right down to teams in terms of creativity and collaboration. David Sluss, professor at ESSEC Business School in France, examined nearly 600 professionals and found that when leaders demonstrated patience (as reported by employees), self-rankings of creativity and collaboration increased by an average of 16%. What’s more, productivity increased by 13%.
Stress may be a motivating factor. The pressure of short sprints like hack weeks can result in bursts of creativity. However, leaders who are obsessed with immediate results stifle creativity.
There are two kinds of motivators in the creative process – external and internal. How Harvard Business Review notes that the latter is much more vital. So how can leaders develop intrinsic motivation? At Jotform, our teams work in interdisciplinary teams. Each team is an independent unit. They set their very own goals and deadlines. They generate creative designs and solutions that they share with colleagues during weekly demo days. While extrinsic motivators – job security, compensation, etc. – inevitably emerge, allowing teams to pursue their real interests, meet deadlines, and challenge themselves, this creates intrinsic motivation.
For leaders, the key is to focus on the most vital issues, from key performance indicators to expenses. Don’t rent a big office with bells and whistles if it is not crucial. In this way, you give your team members the freedom to act independently so that they will manage the rest on their very own.
Making employees feel heard
There is also a strong argument for patience on an interpersonal level. By this I mean not rushing your interactions, but really listening to the people you’re employed with. It takes effort. Echoing the sentiment of David Foster Wallace’s inaugural address, This is water, requires disabling default settings and the presence of other people; put yourself in their shoes. In my experience, this sort of conscious attention is contagious, even in the office. Employees reply to this. They walk away from slow conversations feeling heard. They feel appreciated and how tests shows that when employees feel appreciated, revenues increase.
Being present for people is not only about the bottom line. Coming back to Wallace’s essay, it could change your on a regular basis life experiences for the higher. But it is also true that slowing down and listening to team members is a type of strategic patience. This requires an upfront investment, but reminding yourself of the end goals – smooth and sustainable growth – will hopefully function motivation when your willpower inevitably wanes.