Patience as strategy: how think tanks are winning the long game
By Stephanie Nicolle
Impatience and frustration with the status quo motivates policy players to act. But patience determines how they act. Amartya Sen addressed one side of this debate in a chapter from An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions: ‘The Need for Impatience’. He blamed patience for society’s tolerance of poor progress. Quoting The Devil’s Dictionary, he described patience as “a minor form of despair, disguised as virtue.”
I agree that impatience drives why we act. But the case for patience is equally compelling. Think tanks that strategically channel patience are both discovering a path to achieve their goals and creating the conditions to sustain their wins.
Playing the long game
Playing the long game is an invitation for policy actors to ‘play’ with purpose. It encourages think tanks to make strategic decisions that align with their end goal: building systems that are evidence-informed, equitable, and inclusive — and sustainable.
Patience is key to playing the long game. Think tanks must exercise patience to “forge and heal relationships, rebalance power, and create new norms… even in the face of missed goals, injuries, or a string of losses in the short term.”
