Patience, patience, patience . . .

Before I begin, a comment to my team - this is not an open invitation to miss delivery dates in the future. This is my way of saying I understand why things happen and a reminder that our bonus' are still tied to our outcomes. See you at the project review. Thanks!

If you work in any complex environment that includes any amount of R&D and pushing the envelope, you will find that patience is a virtue. Knowing how to balance patience and the drive for results is one of the most important skills in a technology CEO. We all have results to deliver that is often monitored almost exclusively through our financial performance. We can tell our investors that we have a miracle in sales that is about to happen, but until you deliver it, you are only as good as your last quarter. For this reason, many CEO's are forced to drive for the quarter versus allowing a seed to grow into a plant, grow fruit, and fully ripen. That is a painful process when someone is demanding the revenue from fruit sales.

The reality is that the best product outcomes are innovative. There is a team behind those products that push the envelope and is trying something that has never been done before. No one innovates in a straight line. No project that blazes new ground goes exactly as planned in a straight line mapped perfectly on a Gantt chart. There will be trial and error. If you have the right team, they will figure it out and they will deliver. You need to take their original commit dates, add a buffer, and support them through good and bad. If you do this well, they will meander a little from plan, but in the end they will surprise you with something that is often better than what was originally conceived.

If you pressure them, brow beat them, and lose your mind in front of them over missed dates, then you will squash innovation. The pressure will also force the team to pick fruit before it is ready, and in the end you will get a product that fails to excite the market and sometimes destroys your brand.

With patience, you need to stay close to the project and guard against scope creep. The meandering of innovation can sometime take the team off course. There is an art to guiding the team to stay focused on the original outcome while not becoming someone who is shutting down the innovation which allows a product to become great. Too much creep, and the team will deliver something that is a failure in the market. Too little freedom and the team will have unsolved product issues that will likewise fail in the market. Your role is to constantly show that you care, that the product outcome is critical to the business, and that they have your support and understanding that allows them to innovate and make mistakes. In a supportive environment with the right amount of CEO guidance, the effect will be like the right amount of water and sunlight for a plant. You will get the best possible outcome as fast as possible. The job of the CEO becomes a job of managing growth expectations and board confidence through this process. In the end, investors will thank you for it as long as you are good at what you do.

Since we are all Type A, patience is painful. My coaching to you, find outlets to vent your steam that is not work related. Bite your tongue at work and then go to the gym and work it off. I find that I get in the best physical condition when I am accelerating innovation. You choose the best way for you to let that Type A need to take over out of your system without taking it out on the team. Everyone will thank you for it.

In the end, I promise you that if you balance guidance and patience with the right amount of pressure your outcomes will be great in the end.