Importance of being patient

I mentioned one of P's, passion, in one of the previous articles. This post is about the other P, patience. These days I have started to value patience more than ever before. The reason: I realize that this is a long journey, and being impatient will do me no good.

Does this mean that one should not have milestones? How does BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) fit in this picture? And what about the regular inquiries into how far are you with your business plan / execution?

I believe milestones are very important. There has to be an element of intrinsic motivation to go down the start-up route. You work for yourself and the investors, so deadlines shouldn't be the catalyst for getting work done. Why have deadlines at all in that case? I think that it is important otherwise you might be walking down the wrong path for far too long. 

I am not a fan of management jargon and find it suffocating when people use it to cover absolute lack of content. Collins and Porras define a BHAG (pronounced BEE-hag) as "...an audacious 10-to-30-year goal to progress towards an envisioned future.". I like the idea that the authors did not call for a 1 year BHAG which is what annoys me when I see it used by some leaders. I like to think that you are either delusional or just haven't really set yourself a BHAG if you think it will be achieved in a year.

I have a BHAG, which I will announce through the blog in due course, and I think milestones will be the short term yardsticks that will help me course correct on the way. What is required is patience, prudence, and persistence. For me the biggest challenge is patience and that is something I am becoming better at as I walk this road. Inaction in the guise of patience is something one needs to be cautious about. 

I still have not finalized my team. This is the one place where I would prefer it take a long time rather than take hasty steps. I have heard a few stories over the last 2 years where the wrong team was the reason things fell apart for a start-up. I do not want my experience to be a lessons learnt exercise.The team that I currently envision (and hope it materializes) would be in it for the right reasons and it would be easier to navigate the challenges that we will face. Hope to get this completed by early next month when I start the next phase of my 'experiment'.

PS: Things are looking promising on multiple fronts. Looking at projected financial situation is not pleasing, but the contentedness is something I will have to start baking in for those projections to look better :).