The pursuit of profit with purpose requires patience
Students must accept that the way their career aligns with their values may well be a process of evolution.
The facts are clear: more and more funds are flowing to companies that create economic opportunities through skills and learning.
But it is clear that the pursuit of profit with a purpose requires patience.
George Serafeim is the author of “Purpose + Profit” and the Charles M Williams Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and he says some surprising things about the career purpose of graduate students. That an increasing number of business school students are interested in pursuing a career that combines purpose and profit. They understand that they can make a difference in the world and at the same time become financially successful entrepreneurs, managers, consultants or investors.
Debunk two business myths
This vision demolishes two myths about business. First of all, that business is just about making money, while the purpose is found by joining a non-governmental organization, a social enterprise, or perhaps the public sector. Such careers can be enormously rewarding. But do we think that the leaders of Moderna or Zoom, companies that have changed countless lives in the last three years, have had less of an impact than anyone else? Or that people like Microsoft boss Satya Nadella or Tesla boss Elon Musk have had less of an impact than others outside of business?
Purpose opposed to profit? Yes or no?
The second myth is that the pursuit of purpose in business is futile because it is the antithesis of profit. Combining the two can be challenging, but requiring leaders and companies to structure their operations, products, and business models differently, with higher levels of organizational and career risk, makes it very possible.
Private capital to companies that reduce carbon emissions
More and more funds are shifting from venture capital and private equity to companies that reduce carbon emissions, create economic opportunity through skills and learning, provide access to life-changing health services, and improve compliance. regulations and laws.
It is a myth that the pursuit of purpose in business is futile because it is the antithesis of profit.
For students wanting to start or invest in growth, this has been a fertile career path and likely will be for decades. Mature companies are also improving their operations and designing new products that benefit people and the planet, creating new career paths.
It is crucial to keep in mind the importance of gains as more students gravitate towards a purpose
Finding a strong product that fits the market, designing business models that scale, and creating efficiencies are just as important in purpose-driven companies as any. Sometimes this will require tough decisions and ensuring that ideals do not become enemies of progress.
It’s easy to criticize a company for charging high prices, not reducing its carbon emissions, or not paying workers enough. But managers constantly have to make difficult decisions, such as: how much and when to invest in decarbonisation technology? Will customers pay for a new, safer product? Will investors finance our expansion? Students must be prepared to deal with such questions.
The choice of 3 parameters
Whether they are looking to join a large company, start-up, or investment organization, students must choose three parameters:
– the lowest level of alignment between your goals and those of a prospective employer that they are initially willing to accept.
– the desired rate of growth in the lineup.
– the general growth of the lineup.
Graduates should think of alignment as a line that evolves throughout their career.
When students are asked what matters more to them: the level of alignment they have now or the alignment change over time? Imagine an organization that has a high level of alignment, but that alignment doesn’t grow over time. For someone interested in climate change, that might mean joining a solar energy company. Compare this to an organization that starts with a much lower level of alignment but grows, such as a natural gas producer moving toward green hydrogen.
But there may be crucial differences in the speed of change
In some cases, there will be many years with little progress, followed by exponential improvement—for example, a fossil fuel-based energy company transforming into a green hydrogen powerhouse. In others, the improvement is faster but linear, with fewer overall changes ultimately, like a traditional automaker transitioning to electric vehicles. The difference between the two extremes comes down to patience, or what George Serafeim calls “your own personal discount rate.”
George Serafeim says that he has seen students choose all three options:
– high levels of alignment with few changes.
– low levels of alignment with an immediate general change, but lower in the long term.
– low levels of alignment with overall slower, but larger, long-term turnaround.
Some prioritize initial alignment, such as offering access to healthcare for underserved populations, without worrying about whether it grows over time. Others prefer to see their efforts have a significant effect on their organization’s impact trajectory and are willing to maintain low levels of alignment for some time. There is no right or wrong; it all comes down to individual preferences.
The situation to avoid is one with a low level of roster to start with and little improvement over time.
Students should look for another job if they see a lack of leadership commitment to improving alignment, a culture of resistance to change, and pay policies and career incentives that oppose an increase in alignment. By taking this approach, students can help fuel the transition to purposeful earnings.
Importance of patience in personal development
What are the main qualities you need to instill in order to be successful at work? Hard work is one of them.
Reliability is another. But one quality that is just as important but not as often discussed is patience. It is important to be patient and keep going to achieve your goals.
Once we learn the importance of patience, we can stop worrying when things take longer than we’d like. This goes for small problems, like being stuck in traffic, as well as bigger problems, like landing your dream job.
Patience makes life easier because it reduces negative emotions like stress
Anger or frustration. When you are patient, you are calmer and more open to changes. Those who understand the importance of being patient try to remain calm and focused even in situations where waiting is not easy. Patience is an important life skill.
Let’s see how patience is important in life:
– Patience can transform your relationships
An impatient person is often restless, easily irritated, and doesn’t hesitate to say things that might hurt other people. Impatience clouds our reasoning and can cause us to behave rudely or inconsiderately. Consequently, an impatient person is likely to offend other people with their behavior. Therefore, if you worry about your relationships, you must be patient and focus on the good qualities and individual traits of the people around you.
– Adopt an empathetic approach towards people.
One way to learn the importance of patience in our lives is to take an empathic approach to people. Empathy can help you understand other people and their circumstances so you don’t feel impatient with them. By knowing the importance of patience in life, you will be able to build and maintain strong relationships.
– Patience transforms your potential
Too often, people mistakenly assume that wealth or great physical strength are the only measures of a successful life. However, more than physical abilities or material wealth, it is patience that guides people to greatness in their respective fields.
Hellen Keller could not hear or see, but she achieved her desired goals by virtue of patience. She knew that by patiently working toward her goals, she could fulfill her aspirations.
If you follow sports like soccer, you know how important extra players are. Those substitutes on the bench are perfect examples of patience. They know they are good enough to go out on the field and play well. Many times, a substitute thinks that he could have saved a pass better than the players on the field. However, the understudy doesn’t mind waiting in the wings and remains confident and focused. When he gets a chance to play, he welcomes it and plays a great game. Substitutes can do this because they understand that patience is important.
Benefits of patience
We can enjoy the following life-changing benefits if we learn to be patient:
– Long-term vision
By understanding the importance of patience, we can maintain an unwavering focus on our long-term goals. Temporary setbacks like a delayed promotion, not qualifying for a tournament or exam, or enduring train and flight delays do not affect a patient person much.
– Mental and physical well-being
We can see how patience plays an important role in our mental and physical well-being. By understanding the importance of patience in our life, we can learn to stay in control of our emotions and avoid negative feelings like anger, frustration, helplessness, etc.
– Ability to make a sustained effort
Patience gives people the perspective to focus on long-term strategies. You may have noticed that patient people have a reputation for perseverance. This is because they work to achieve their goals despite setbacks and delays.
– Peace and popularity
Patience allows us to analyze things and situations beyond their face value. The wit, calm, empathetic behavior, and self-control of patient people can make them very popular. It also gives them inner peace and the ability to keep smiling despite challenges.
A first conclusion
It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of patience in life. Patience is sometimes called the mother of all virtues.
The importance of being patient in business
With the digital age at its height, everything has become faster, simpler and more convenient. Nowadays, when we’re hungry, we don’t have to go through the laborious process of preparing the ingredients, mixing or sautéing them in a pan, and washing the dishes afterwards. A few taps on our phones is all it takes to get our food delivered within an hour.
If we miss someone and want to see them right away, we no longer have to wait for one or both of the schedules to clear up or travel long distances to see them. We have Skype and FaceTime.
With advanced technology, we enjoy instant gratification and have come to expect it as a basic right. At the same time, unfortunately, we are slowly forgetting what it means to be patient.
Patience is a skill that we should all possess, and it is mathematical that when someone has patience it is also that someone who can propose what he wants… and ultimately… have what he wants. Hence, patience is considered a basic element to be successful.
Patience helps us achieve our goals
The road to success is long. It is not something that can be achieved overnight. It is rather a process of slow but promising growth that, with enough perseverance, reaches the threshold of success.
What most people don’t realize is that at the moment they are about to succeed, they can’t take it anymore, they end up slacking off and, therefore, going back on that attempt they had so much hope and illusion about.
They start to doubt. They start to fear, and that’s when they really fail. Those who expect immediate results are unlikely to enjoy the sweet taste of success.
Patience gives us time to think strategically
When we practice patience, we let things, both within and outside of our control, play out before we react. As everything follows its course and falls into place, we have a clearer and more strategic vision. This gives us enough time to analyze the situation, think about possible next steps and solutions, as well as their results, and make the best possible decisions in our favor.
Patience gets the best of us
Did you know that Michael Jordan has missed over 9,000 shots and lost almost 300 games? If he lacked patience, he wouldn’t have become one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
Failure fuels our search and patience prevents us from giving up. By being patient, we learn from our mistakes, get better at what we do, and finally achieve the greatness we’ve strived for all along.
Patience makes us better leaders
As leaders, we need to work with people to help them develop their skills and bring out the best in them. Some of the people we work with will be easy learners. However, some of them may take a little longer to gain knowledge and skills and make mistakes along the way. If we want to be good leaders, we must be patient with them. We should wait for them to flourish while instilling everything we know into them.
Some of us are patient by nature. Some of us are not. It’s important to recognize this and stop when we exude impatience. We must make a conscious effort to be more patient.
There are possible ways to exercise the virtue of patience that increase your ability to succeed.
From childhood we are told that patience is a virtue, but we are rarely taught to practice it.
Patience is not something we have; it is something we do consciously. Patience is like any other hard-earned discipline: the more we practice it, the more patient we become.
To be successful, we need patience when it comes to employee relations, business negotiations and communications, as well as achieving the strategic goals we have set for ourselves. Also, we have to keep our cool amid the big and small twists and turns that come with life. Only by being patient can we truly learn from the obstacles that stand in our way.
Here are eight benefits of practicing patience
1º) Positive rewards
Impatience is a bad habit, and so is patience, but in a positive way. When we lack patience, we are unable to delay gratification beyond the moment, which fills us with frustration. Frustration is the emotional energy that drives you to “quit.”
When we are impatient, we are unable to work towards our business goals in a dedicated manner. We start to quit to start over, and we repeat this pattern over and over again.
Changing a habit requires strong motivation
We have to be guaranteed the rewards that will come from adopting a more mature response. Patience can reward us with positive recognition, increased sales, increased customer satisfaction, higher profits, or a promotion we seek. Whatever the measure of accomplishment, it surely is the sum total of patience plus hard work.
2º) Making intelligent decisions
When it comes to making good decisions, patience is your most formidable resource. Many people in business are looking for an edge over their competition and ways to improve their performance. If this is you, don’t be disillusioned enough to believe that clear business plans and the best talent are a substitute for the virtues necessary to guide and steer a business in the right direction.
Patience is one of those virtues. When we are patient, we steer clear of negative stories that can cloud our judgment. “What happens to us” with disastrous results is typically human, but it is also completely destructive to our ability to make sound decisions.
When we are patient, we have the attention to stop and focus on the present moment. By being in the moment, we can make wise decisions that take into account the big picture and the small one.
3º) Build reputation
Successful entrepreneurs set themselves apart from the rest by mastering the skills that lead to success. Patience gives us courage. It gives us the ability to constantly work towards our goals. And when we consistently achieve our goals, we build our reputation. Great reputations are built through perseverance, not giving up.
It is when we persist, despite the odds, that we achieve the desired levels of success that we seek. Any endeavor that could potentially become a great success requires that we dedicate ourselves to long and hard effort. This is only a possibility when we are patient with our progress, no matter how fast or slow it goes. Therefore, you should strive to be the last entrepreneur/company standing, and others will see you as responsible, trustworthy, and their first choice for doing business.
4º) Self-control
Patience puts us in direct control of ourselves. And there is no more powerful aid to success than self-control. When we are patient, we give ourselves time to choose how to respond to a given event, rather than being emotionally hijacked by our emotions. It allows us to stay together no matter what is happening. With self-management we build confidence in our ability to cope with whatever comes our way.
Lack of success or progress can almost always come down to a lack of patience. The most basic reason for impatience is lack of control. When we lack control, we lack understanding and insight. When we lack understanding and insight, we lack the ability to plan, communicate, and set realistic expectations. But when we reclaim control over these problems, we can enjoy the rewards that patience can bring.
5º) Tolerance
Patience increases our tolerance threshold. It gives us the foresight to expect obstacles in our way and deal with them diplomatically. When we expect challenges, we respond with more courage, strength, and optimism. We understand that emotional discomfort is part of any obstacle and we accept that the curves of life are a natural part of the economic cycle; therefore, we do not add any additional suffering, bitterness or revenge to the mix. Instead, we roll up our sleeves and do the work we need to do.
The more easily we accept blows and learn to tolerate the quirks of other human beings and the unpredictable ebb and flow of success cycles, the less stress we experience and the more resilient we become.
6º) Hope
Patience brings hope. It brings a continual renewal of belief in our desired goals and the heights we strive to reach. When we have hope, we have a natural resilience and the will to keep trying because we are confident in the possibility of a good outcome.
As we succeed, little by little we come to understand that delay does not equal denial.
7º) Positive team culture
Being patient leads to noticeable results. The main focus and priority of any entrepreneur, leader or company should be the attitude or emotional tone of their culture. If our business culture is right, all the other elements necessary for success, like great customer service, will just happen. Developing a culture of engagement can only come through patient devotion to what you are trying to achieve.
Being patient, then, increases our chances of achieving what we want. When we are patient, we are better people, managers, and business leaders. We patiently treat other people with a sense of decency, which in turn increases the chance that they will respond in kind.
8º) Excellence
Patience develops excellence. Talent is long-earned patience. At the center of all true success is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement and the confidence that by persisting and being patient, something worthwhile will be achieved. In this way, genius is nothing more than a greater propensity for patience.
We develop our potential with patience. Through patience we can offer our distinctive brand of excellence to the world. This is no small feat, because the world desperately needs the best of what each of us has to offer.
Building a brand and reputation takes time. We cannot plant a seed and expect it to bloom overnight. Success always begins with patience and a commitment to put in the due diligence necessary for excellence.
However, patience is not easy to come by. You must be the type of business person who makes sound decisions based on solid values instead of impulsive reactions. Patience is the one virtue that serves us well as entrepreneurs. Patience takes time and conscious effort to master, but impatience can lead to death.