In management and business, time is everywhere. Everything happens over time, so time could be seen as the essential element of all change. We all know what time is, but if someone asked us to define time, we would be hard pressed. Even though time is something hard to define, it is critically important to every organization. Creating the right time culture is something we all need to think about. This article reviews the origins of our current concepts of time, how views of time can be different and provide some insights into how we could manage time better by looking at an unlikely source of inspiration: A study on time and the Lakota Indians.

1. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
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BEST PRACTICE
Lessons from the Lakota:
Time lessons for today’s managers
In management and business, time is everywhere. Everything happens over time, so time could be seen as the essential
element of all change. We all know what time is, but if someone asked us to define time, we would be hard pressed. Even
though time is something hard to define, it is critically important to every organization. Creating the right time culture is
something we all need to think about. This article reviews the origins of our current concepts of time, how views of time can
be different and provide some insights into how we could manage time better by looking at an unlikely source of inspiration: A
study on time and the Lakota Indians.
by Bryan Cassady (KU Leuven)
What is time?
We all talk about time, but do we know what time is? This question
has been asked by philosophers, scientists and business people for
years. Perhaps the best and most succinct answer comes from St
Augustine. When asked the simple question: What is time? He
answered: “If no one asks me, I know; but if any Person should
require me to tell him, I cannot”1.
A standard dictionary definition doesn’t help. Webster’s definition of
time is: the measured or measurable period during which an action,
process, or condition exists or continues2. Perhaps time cannot be
defined, but described.
•
Time is: Nature’s way of keeping everything from
happening all at once.
•
Time is: An imaginary term created by the rich and
powerful to limit your activity
•
Time is: Enjoyed when it’s your own and often wasted by
other people
•
Time is: A measurement of life created by human beings to
keep a standard in their lives3
Even if we can’t define time, most business people would agree time
is important, time is something that moves in one direction, time is an
uncontrollable fact of life4. In this article we’ll see that time is less of
a constant and more something we create together.
At a country level, company level, department level and in the
smallest units of business life we create time cultures and definitions
of time. How we do this defines us and our organizations. Our
concepts of time determine how we work, when we work and often
how effectively we work.
Given the importance of time in organizations, I believe we need to
start thinking about time, and what it means. If we want to manage
effectively, we need to think about how time is defined in our
organizations.
In this article I will argue: the current view of time in most
organizations is the same as the one created back at the start of the
industrial revolution. We view time as money, and our ability to
control time as critical to business success. It is important to
remember, the nature of work has changed since the time of the
industrial revolution. In this context, we need to take another look at
our time culture and make sure we have the right ones for our
organizations.
Together we’ll find some answers in some unlikely places.
Culture codes
As any manager knows, what in unsaid is often more important than
what is said. There might be talk about the importance of family
values at work, but if the company culture says you need to work an
80 hour week to succeed, there won’t be many managers leaving
early in the afternoon to watch their kids play baseball.
As human beings we attach meaning to everything. How we dress,
talk and work is driven by the meanings we attach to different things
in our world. In business we tend to simply ask why and expect a
reasonable answer. The problem is we often don’t know why we do
things and the explanations we give are often little more than post
rationalizations of things we can’t really explain.
As an international manager looking to understand my colleagues, I
felt I hit gold when I found the book “Cultural Codes” by Clotaire
Rapaille. He argues and shows how we acquire a silent system of
codes as we grow up and work. These codes invisibly shape how
we behave, even when we are completely unaware of our motives.
He answers questions like: Why do Americans like big cars (he
links it to our first sexual experiences) Why are Americans so
focused on work (he says it goes back to the challenges faced when
the country was created)5.
More important than the insights in his book was a realization that
as a manager I could learn a lot from the work of sociologists and
anthropologists. Instead of looking at what we do and why we say
we do it, we need to look at the invisible to really understand what
is happening.
For those of you familiar with Shein and his work on organization
culture this is nothing new. For me it was an eye opening
revelation. After reading the “Culture Code”, a colleague suggested
Shein’s book “Organizational Culture and Leadership”. Shein
describes organizational culture as the set of shared, taken-forgranted implicit assumptions that a group holds and that determines
how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to its various
environments. Norms become a fairly visible manifestation of these
assumptions, but it is important to remember that behind the norms
lie deeper, taken-for-granted sets of assumptions that most members
of a culture never question or examine. The members of a culture
are not even aware of their own culture until they encounter a
different one.6
To understand our organizations we need to look at other ones.
When we understand other cultures we have a different set of
glasses we can use to understand our own.

2. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
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When most of us think about Indians and Indian culture it is not the
place we’d look for inspiration for new management techniques. I
would like to surprise you. Before talking about what I have learned
from the Lakota, I would like to show how there are many different
concepts of time and go through the historical origins of our current
time culture.
Different concepts of time
Concepts of time
In the West when we think about time, time is like an
arrow. It started someplace and continues to move in
the same direction.
Time exists, but we create the social context that gives it meaning. In
the language of anthropologists we could say time is socially
constructed. Time does not exist outside the events, time is in the
events7. Events and the meaning of events are defined by the groups
and organizations we belong to. This means there are as many
different types of time and perceptions of time as there are groups
and organizations. If times differ, the big questions are (1) How do
they differ? (2)How much do they differ? (3) How do they come to
differ?” 8 (4) Equally important, should we do anything about it?
It is tempting to say we all have our own view of time which fits our
needs. But the reality is probably a bit more complex. Time, like
language, is a frame through which we perceive the world. It is a
concept built through experience. In studies of language it has been
shown that without words, conceptual thought doesn’t evolve. Given
the importance of time in our lives, it is clear our view of the world
can not exist without some concept of time. How different people can
view time might surprise you.
Arrow time vs. cyclical time. In the west we tend think of time like
an arrow. Time started someplace and continues to move in the same
direction. In Africa and Asia, time is seen as cyclical. Perhaps the
most extreme example are the Hindu that believe in reincarnation. If
one views time as cyclical, one will be much less affected by any one
incident. This can be seen in the way many Hindu and Americans
react differently to time pressure. Americans tend to be frazzled at
work, hurrying to get things done; convinced they have no time to
waste. In contrast, the Hindu are much less concerned about the pace
of work, because they do not perceive their lives as finite9.
Monochronic vs. Polychronic time: Do you like to do one thing at a
time or many things at a once? Chances are your answer reflects in
large part your cultural background. In the US and Northern Europe
people tend to prefer doing one thing at a time. This is called
monochronic time. People that grew up in these cultures tend to say
a good manager is a person that can do one thing at a time. They will
praise individuals able to focus and check things off their "'to do list".
Arrow time:
Cyclical time:
In much of Africa, time is viewed as cyclical. The past
and present live side by side in their daily lives.
Circular time:
Among many religious groups, including the Hindu,
time is a never ending circle.
Patchwork time:
Among African tribes like the Hopi, there is no
beginning and no end of time. The past and present
coexist. In their language there are not even past and
future tenses of verbs.
Other people, usually characterized as the “Mediterraneans”, like to
do many things at once. A person focusing on one-thing-at-a-time
would be seen as inflexible. In their view, a good manager is not
someone inflexible10.
In the business world this means American managers, accustomed to
fairly rigid schedules and traditional time management (monochronic
orientations), are often psychologically stressed when they visit
countries where others do not share their view of time11.
Task time vs. clock time Perhaps the most important concept of time
in the business world is the difference between task time and clock
time. In task time, the activity itself defines the pace, incidence and
intensity of work. 12 Little attention is paid to the clock. Some people
call this ‘time in the zone’. This is a moment where results flow
naturally with little concern for the passage of time.
In contrast to task time is clock time. Clock time is how most
businesses are managed. We expect people to be in the office at a
specific time and put in the hours. As we’ll see, clock time is a
product of the industrial revolution. Created to ensure assembly line
coordination and used as a proxy for worker contribution.
Time can be many different things. A lot depends on the
cultural context.
Adapted from: Time, contributions from the social
sciences. Poole, Barbara S., Financial Services Review,
10570810, Winter2000, Vol. 9.
There are many concepts of time, including the famous New York
minute. Some would say “...that there are as many different kinds of
time as there are human beings on this earth....”13
Concepts of time are important because it changes how we look at
things and how we do the things we do. Time imposes a social

3. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
order. How things are handled in time, conveys status and intention.
The pacing of events, the rhythms of life, the sequence in which
things are done, and the duration of events are all subject to our views
of time14.
Some would disagree that time is different for everyone, but it is easy
to see how in our organizations the smallest work groups can deal
with time in very different ways. Some groups (people) doing the
same work seem to always be stressed while others show a quiet
intensity and get the work done that needs to be done.
A history of time and time management
Before the clock, time was measured by changes in the seasons and
events in our daily life. Today, we don’t need to look too far to find
these concepts of time. For example, in Madagascar people still talk
about rice cooking time (about a half hour) and frying of a locust
time (around a minute) 15..
The first accurate clocks were developed in the 1700s before the
industrial revolution. At this time a clock was a luxury. In Britain,
taxes were even levied on the number of clocks in a household. A
clock was seen as a sign on conspicuous wealth that ought to be
taxed. In this era, a watch was a huge investment; a good watch could
cost as much as an average man would earn in 6 months.
This changed with the industrial revolution. Watches and clocks
started to be mass produced. People had clocks at work and at home –
measured time became a part of people’s lives. Before the industrial
revolution, families worked together from dawn until dusk,
intermingling work and family responsibilities, subject to the
particular demands of the day. In the pre-industrial era,
businesspeople and craftsmen were nearly all self employed, working
in their own homes with their tools, setting their own hours16.
As workers entered the factories, their efforts needed to be
coordinated. It was difficult to measure individual output, so workers
were paid by the hour or day. The omnipresence of the factory clock
brought with it the idea that one is exchanging time rather than skill:
selling labor-time rather than labor. 17 Workers also lost control over
the time they chose to work. The clock became king. It controlled
not only activities at work but how much time was spent working.18
It is hard to underestimate the impact the clock has had on the
economy. Some people argue that is was the clock not the steam
engine that was the key machine of the industrial age. The argument
is: “Rapid developments in synchronization were responsible for
page 3
organizations of the industrial revolution being able to display such
high levels of functional specialization.”19
Why do we say time is money?
In a world where people are paid by the time they work, time
became money. Where people are paid based on time, management
and workers tend focus on time instead of results as the basis of
their working agreement.
Today, work is different. In the Industrial Age, workers were paid
by the hour for a certain amount of production. If you worked 8
hours, you were expected to produce twice as much as if you
worked 4 hours. And it made sense. It was based on a mathematical
equation consisting of time and rates of production. Productivity
was tied to time.
But what about today’s Knowledge Workers? If we spend 8 hours
thinking up new innovative ideas will we have twice as many as if
we’d spent 4 hours? Or maybe we’d have the same number of ideas
but they’d be twice as good? The answer is obviously no to both
questions. In an ideal world, Knowledge Workers are paid to
achieve a certain result whether it takes 4 hours or 400 hours.20
In the industrial age, work was time critical. Now work is content
critical. At the turn of the century we wanted people to do one thing
again and again, now we need people to answer emails, keep track
of business events, type their own memos and deliver results all at
the same time. When a factory worker left work, his day was over.
Now almost everyone carries a mobile phone, and rare is the
executive that never works at home. We don’t really need more
time from our people, we need more results. To get better results,
we need to stop thinking of time as if all our workers are down on
the factory floor.
Unfortunately, in practice we still tend to measure productivity by
time spent. Managers find they cannot easily or directly measure
work output or the involvement of knowledge workers, so they turn
to work hours as an indicator of both productivity and commitment.
Moreover, managers recognize that knowledge work is both
interdependent and open-ended and that those they manage often
need each other to complete their work on time. Managers therefore
assume it is best for everyone to be present as much of the time as
possible and judge knowledge workers accordingly. As a result, the
managerially valued knowledge worker in today’s world needs to
show total devotion to work. The grueling schedules that used to be
typical only of top corporate management and self-employed people
are becoming common in one occupation after another. Corporate
Can time be changed?
Time can be changed; here are a few historical examples of time changes
France: A 10 day week
In 1793, the new ruling assembly in France introduced a revolutionary calendar that changed the number of days in a week from 7 to 10. The
new calendar was created to embody the new values of secularity and rationality. It was meant to mark a change from an “’an old age of
ignorance’’ to ‘’ a new age of reason’’. Initially people found the changes difficult. But over time they became accustomed to the change. This
system remained in place until 1805, when there was reconciliation between Napoleon and the church. If there had been no change France
might still have a 10 day week. Incidentally, in Russia weeks were changed from 7 days to 6 days for almost 40 years.1
Kelloggs: a 30 hour work week
Inspired by reports that a six-hour shift increased productivity at an English soap company, Kellogg Co. founder W.K. Kellogg changed cerealplant production schedules from three eight-hour shifts to four six-hour shifts in 1930. The company found that the shorter workday influenced
employees to work harder and more efficiently. The results included drastic reductions in overhead costs, labor costs, and the number of workrelated accidents. Unit cost of production “is so lowered we can afford to pay as much for six hours as we formerly paid for eight,” Kellogg
boasted in a newspaper in 1935.2
1. Zerubauel, E. (1981). Hidden rhythms: Schedules and calendars in social life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2. Six-Hour Shifts Satisfied Kellogg's Appetite For Productivity: http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020405S0002

4. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
lawyers, investment bankers, computer programmers, and many other
professionals are now expected to work seventy- or eighty-hour
weeks routinely, with extra effort during particularly hectic times.21 22
23.
Today’s always on, always in, always working mentality, can be
seen in the way many organizations would answer some simple
questions.
Question. How does the organization know managers are doing
their jobs and that they are making the best possible decisions?
Answer: Because they are spending every moment at it and thus
working to the limits of human possibility.
Question: When has a manager finished the job?
Answer: Never. Or at least, hardly ever. There is always
something more that could be done.”24
In an age of burnout, falling productivity and declining worker moral
do we really want to stay married to measuring results by the clock?
Chances are you’ll say you don’t see another way. If changes in our
view of time happened due to economic need, there is no reason to
believe, we can’t change again.
page 4
stated goal was to “transform task orientated nomads into willing
wage workers of the future “26.
As modern manager, we’d have every reason to believe these
changes would increase productivity. They did over the short term,
and the standard of living increased. What also happened was the
creation of a 2 time culture. There was clock time at work, and task
time at home.
On the downside, there was a shift away from getting things done to
counting hours. People today still talk about Lakota time vs. white
time:
“Being Lakota, I like the way we’ve always done things. In the
Lakota way you could work… every day, and in the end, we
had something that belongs to us. In the white way, you have
to work for everything, but you get just a little back. Like they
have a time schedule. In the Lakota way, we go by our own
time, but it gets done.” 27
To show how time cultures can be changed and the impact of some of
these changes, I would like to share the experience of the Lakota
Indians.
Over time, work lost its meaning for many people and productivity
fell. Worse yet, is the impact these changes had and continue to
have on the informal way of getting things done. Working on the
clock, people started to leave at 5 regardless of whether their work
was done. Pressured to get more done in less time, time for social
contact was less available. Before, things got done when they
needed to be done, now things didn’t get finished and people felt
stressed by the deadlines.
The Lakota Experience
This is the same problem managers around the world face every
day. i.e. What is the best way to get things done in my organization?
The Lakota Indians are a small Indian tribe from the regions of South
Dakota and western Minnesota. The word Lakota means “considered
friends” or “alliance of friends”. Crazy Horse is probably the most
famous Lakota Indian. As some of you know, he was one of the
chiefs that defeated Custer at little bighorn. As a group, the Lakota
are proud and committed to building their community.
Our story of the Lakota starts and ends with a series of lessons for
modern day managers. We will see how working by the clock can
hurt productivity, and worker satisfaction.
At the turn of the century life on the Lakota reservation was far from
prosperous, but not uncomfortable. The time culture could be best
described as polychronic, task orientated. People did many things at
once, but didn’t pay much attention to the clock. Work got done
when it needed to be done. There was no artificial time line or
moment in the day separating work time and home time; they seemed
to flow in and out of one another. The Lakota view of time was
simple. “Time was never a specific minute, but rather spaces of time,
like early morning, just afternoon or just before midnight. The real
meaning of time could be summed up by the phrase “nake nula waun
yelo’’ loosely translated it means:
“I am ready for whatever, any place, any time,
always prepared’’.
When work needed to be done, people were prepared to work late in
the fields or stay up until 3 am to finish goods to be sold at market.
When no work needed to be done, they didn’t work.
Policy makers saw an opportunity to improve things by installing a
western time ethic and a respect for the clock. This viewpoint is clear
in a policy note written in the early 20s. “No government employee
should encourage the Indians to continue their old time customs… it
is the duty of all employees to encourage the Indians to take up the
customs and practices of the lives of civilized people “25. Subsidies
were introduced to encourage the transformation of existing
businesses and creation of new businesses run by the clock. Instead
of being paid for the work done, workers started to be paid for their
hours worked. Children were targeted with education programs. The
Companies and organizations on the reservation have dealt with
these issues in different ways. In virtually every organization they
keep track of the time employees are at work, but some have
realized the “ old ways’’ of managing time could be brought back.
In these organizations, workers and management agree on what
needs to be done and employees are given the freedom to do it on
their own time schedule. Task time is being revived and “wasted
time” for social interactions encouraged. These companies are
finding it easier to recruit and retain employees and productivity is
going up.
What they have learned, is how to rebuild a time culture. For the
Lakota, the right time culture is probably less strict and more
informal than what would work in your organization. The barriers
between work and home time are weak to non-existent. The length
of the workdays expand and contract depending on the tasks at
hand. Work happens where the people are, rather that in an
exclusive setting designated as the “work place’’28. With a better
balance between work and life, economic opportunities are being
built on improved social contacts. People are feeling more pride in
their work and getting more done than when all their efforts were
being measured by the clock.
Looking at the Lakota experience, we can gain insights into
solutions that might work in other groups/organizations. Before
drawing conclusions, let’s look at what we know about time, and
quickly review some other case studies showing how time cultures
have been changed in other organizations.
As we move forward, the important questions that need to be
answered are:
1.
What do we really know about time?
2.
Can time cultures be changed?
3.
If they can, what should you do?

5. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
What do we know about time?
In the business world there isn’t a single book about time, but in the
social science a lot has been learned. (Note: Time culture is different
than time management. Bookshops are filled with books on time
management.) What follows is a broad summary of research
presented in hundreds of books and articles. This summary is not
exhaustive, but meant to show how important time cultures are in our
work lives.
Time is subjective: There is the old expression. “Time flies when
you are having fun”. In the western world time is typically viewed as
linear and constant. Recent research has shown time is not really
constant. In time research, the constant aspect of time has been called
the “filled duration’’. Filled durations are those times where the
individual is occupied or active. The lengths of these times are
estimated as longer when compared to empty durations. A disliked or
empty activity such as waiting in line is usually found to take longer.
Things we like to do go quicker29. Forcing employees to put in the
time when nothing needs to be done is a sure way to hurt motivation.
It will also make their days seem longer.
Stopping time: Researchers have looked at how top performers “stop
time” when they need to. Top level tennis players talk about how
they can see the lines on a ball during a critical point. In a fascinating
study of people in high stress jobs like fireman and fighter pilots,
these people often talked about how “time stood still’’ at critical
times. With time frozen, they considered large amounts of
information and selected among alternatives30. In my work with
leading advertising agencies I have seen people take off their watches
when a big creative project needs to get done. When I asked why,
they said they didn’t want their thinking to be interrupted by the
passage of time. In their own way they were stopping time to get
their work done. In our daily work lives we need to look at ways we
can prevent the passage of time from getting in the way of the work
we need to get done.
We need time to learn and make good decisions: To make good
decisions, we need to take time to reflect on past decisions, and think
conceptually when making future decisions. If we’re under the gun
all the time this becomes impossible. Without time we don’t learn
from the past and we are left making the same bad decisions over and
over again. In her book, learning from “Experience through
Reflection” Marilyn Wood clearly shows we need time to think and
reflect. For her, the right process is 4 steps (1) articulation of a
problem; (2) analysis of the problem; (3) formulation and testing of a
tentative theory to solve the problem; and (4) final test of the
hypothesis31. Additional research has shown that for learning to take
place individuals must reflect on prior experiences, build on positive
feelings, deal with negative feelings and re-evaluate based on those
reflections32. Some business legends such as Fidelity manager, Peter
Lynch, have suggested their employees need to slow down so they
can make rational decisions. 33
The business lesson is simple. If we want good decisions, we
sometimes need to take time to make them.
page 5
Research has shown as deadlines shorten, goal difficulty increases,
which subsequently increases performance. However, this time
pressure relationship only holds for low to mild levels. When
looking at a full range of tasks, the overall relationship between
deadline length and performance is more complex. Performance
increases as deadlines shorten, but beyond some limit increased
deadline pressure reduces rather than increase performance.35
The impact of deadlines on performance
Performance
Flexible deadline
Tight deadline
Low
Task complexity
Very High
As managers, we need to be careful with the goals we set. Always
on, always under stress employees will either start to ignore goals or
wither under the stress. Imagine for a minute you are the owner of a
prize race horse. Would you run him as hard as you could everyday
or would let him save some energy for the big and important races?
Even your top employees need some ‘’down-time’’ to be able to
perform when you need them to perform.
Flexible time and hours can build productivity, but be careful.
Research has shown employees are willing to exert extra effort in
exchange for flexible time. In a large Pharmaceutical industry study
it was shown flex time increased productivity by 10%36 and similar
results have been found in other industries. Yet, the use of flex time
is actually falling. Why: the benefits are often short lived. Flex time
changes from a solution to real issues, to an entitlement37.
It is my personal opinion that any large scale move to flex time is
doomed to fail over the long run. As flex time becomes an
entitlement, the extra effort employees will contribute will decline.
At the same time, the number of issues caused by reduced employee
interaction will increase. It is important to remember that the sum
of individual productivity is not the same as the group or
organizations results. A group of highly effective individuals is not
the same as an effective team. In work with clients, I recommend
allocating task and clock time based on level in the organization,
type of work being performed and past performance.
Allocating clock time and task time
Level of responsibility
clock time
Low
Middle
High
Time pressure and deadlines can be good and bad. Under stress
people often think faster and come up with creative solutions. There
is ample research which confirms Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands
and contracts to fill the time available.” By changing time horizons
we can change the perceptions of time available and the intensity of
work done.
Complexity of work
When tasks are simple, deadlines can help. Clear time driven
objectives can build clarity. Deadlines can motivate individuals by
providing direction, and stimulate persistent effort. 34 What does not
work is unrealistic deadlines and too much time pressure when
people are trying to do something difficult.
High
Low
Low
Middle
High
Past Performance
More task time
More clock time
task time

6. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
Fragmentation and the rise of instantaneous time Anyone with a
mobile phone or access to email knows time isn’t what it used to be.
People can now work anywhere and anytime. And they often do. This
is blurring the boundaries of work and home life. At the same time
decision horizons are being compressed. Faster communication
demands faster reactions, allowing less time for reflection. We are
attracted to the convenience of being technologically connected in
‘real-time’, yet we are often overwhelmed by the increased demands
that come with being wired. In this respect, our ‘real-space’ is
increasingly being crowded out by the network of digital devices at
our fingertips –e-mail, cell phones, voice-mails, palm pilots, and the
Internet. Enticed by the increases in efficiency that these real-time
technologies offer, we also tend to feel more stressed out by the
increasing demands made on our time and attention.38
Whereas telephones and fax machines reduced human response times
from months, weeks and days to that of seconds, advanced computer
technologies contracts them into nanoseconds, to even times of a
billionth of a second. Contemporary social and organizational
practices are based on time-frames that lie beyond conscious human
experience. Time is organized at speeds beyond the feasible realm of
human consciousness.39
In a world of information overload it is important not to confuse
motion and action with results.
Thinking about the past is important in our ability to think about
the future. In the early 80s, an important study was run with CEOs
of high tech companies. The CEOs were split into 2 groups. Half
were asked to first think about events that happened in the past and
then about events that might happen in the future. The other half were
asked to think about events in the opposite order, future first, then
past. Then all the CEOs were asked to indicate when in the past or
the future each event occurred or would occur.
Paradoxically, the CEOs who thought about past events first, tended
to then think about events further into the future (4 years further),
than the CEOs who thought about future events first. Further,
thinking about future events first did not seem to increase the length
of time into the past that events were considered. Putting these results
together indicates that thinking about the past was the causal element:
thinking about the past first is key to thinking about the future. Other
studies have confirmed this relationship suggesting strongly that
thinking about things further into the past will lead to thinking about
things further into the future.40.41 42 43
If you want to get a better view of the future, the past needs to be
brought into the discussion.
Time cultures are built locally. Anyone working in a large
organization knows different cultures emerge at local levels. We all
look for meaning in the work we do and create ways to make
meaning. A good example of this can be found in the work done by
Roy studying factory workers. He showed how workers made their
experiences tolerable by putting meaning into their essentially
meaningless days. In his studies workers punctuated their days with
‘times’’ – each of these times was a moment for social interaction.
These times went by many different names: window time, break time,
coke time and even banana time. He showed how these workgroups,
with the most externally determined task processes, consistently
created their own individual time cultures.44
In our day to day work lives these differences are often easy to see.
There are departments and even small groups in these departments
that have their own concepts of time. For middle managers the
implications are important. There is no need to wait for large scale
organization change. Changes can happen in the smallest spheres of
influence.
page 6
Speed is Relative
The pace of life around the world
Rank of 31 countries for overall pace of life and for three
measures; minutes downtown pedestrians take to walk 60 feet;
minutes it takes a postal clerk to complete a stamp-purchase
transaction; and accuracy in minutes of public clocks.
overall walking postal public
pace 60 feet service clock
Switzerland
Ireland
Germany
Japan
Italy
England
Sweden
Austria
Netherlands
Hong Kong
France
Poland
Costa Rica
Taiwan
Singapore
United States
Canada
South Korea
Hungary
Czech Republic
Greece
Kenya
China
Bulgaria
Romania
Jordan
Syria
El Salvador
Brazil
Indonesia
Mexico
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
3
1
5
7
10
4
13
23
2
14
8
12
16
18
25
6
11
20
19
21
14
9
24
27
30
28
29
22
31
26
17
2
3
1
4
12
9
5
8
14
6
18
15
10
7
11
23
21
20
19
17
13
30
25
22
29
27
28
16
24
26
31
1
11
8
6
2
13
7
3
25
14
10
8
15
21
4
20
22
16
18
23
29
24
12
17
5
19
27
31
28
30
26
Source:
The pace of life in 31 countries. Levine, Robert
American Demographics; Nov97, Vol. 19 Issue 11, p20, 5p
Organizations are created and sustained to do things. As change
occurs over time, time is a critical underlying aspect of all
organizational cultures. How time is partitioned, scheduled and
used has dramatic and subtle influences on organizations and the
people in them. 45 3 Case studies follow that show how changes can
be made in a company’s time culture and some of the ways these
changes can change the organization.

7. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
Changing time cultures: 3 case studies
Time and how it is managed is a central aspect of organizational
effectiveness. The dominant view of time in organizations today was
developed for workers at the time of the industrial revolution.
Changing these cultures can change an organization.
Case 1, Marriot:
Changing a culture of face time
46
page 7
family”—a decree that’s still talked about within Samsung. The
question was how to make the change.
The work environment at Samsung was little different from other
Korean companies. Employees came in early and left late. People
were rewarded for putting into marathon hours regardless of the
quality of their output. Realizing this was part of the problem along
with the fact his workers were wasting countless hours in traffic
jams every morning and evening, a new idea was developed. Let’s
get workers in early and let them leave a bit earlier. Changing the
time culture was identified as a tool for change.
Woody Allen has been quoted as saying “80% of success is just
showing up’’. At the Marriott corporation, showing up was a
prerequisite for success. The company had a deeply ingrained culture
of ‘face time’ – the more hours you put in, the better. The company
was facing issues with employee moral and recruitment of new
employees.
Employees accustomed to working long hours were now asked to
start two hours earlier at 7 am and leave exactly at 4 in the
afternoon. In the new 7-4 system, individual workers were assessed
by how much they could achieve in a constrained period of time.
The company put a greater emphasis on the tasks accomplished, not
the hours worked.
The internal issue could perhaps be best summarized by the remarks
of an employee. “I don’t mind working hard, but I also want you to
recognize that I have a life outside this company”. In a study among
employees, they estimated they spent 11.7 hours a week on low value
work. There were also lots of signs of employee burnout. A decision
was made that something needed to be done. The company wasn’t
ready to sacrifice customer service, but the company needed to work
on the issue of face time.
Instead of carrying on working in the evening, employees were
pushed to finish their work by 4. In this new system, they began to
recognize the importance of team-working in order to meet
deadlines. Before the 7-4 system, low level employees had to work
hard until they finished their tasks, following their manager’s
commands. It was common practice that subordinates were pressed
to finish their duties, while their managers were waiting for the tasks
to be completed by their subordinates47.
A new policy was created which said employees were expected to be
at work when they were needed and go home when they weren’t.
The message was “Do whatever it takes to get your job done, but be
flexible in how you do it. If last week was a hellish week and there is
nothing that needs to be done, take some time off to recharge your
batteries.”
With one change (albeit a large change) the company was able to
change its focus to quality, punctuality and teamwork. There was
also a side benefit of better working conditions for employees.
Changing a culture takes more than the creation of a new policy.
Senior managers were told they needed to be seen leaving early. And
they were encouraged to talk about their family lives. They needed to
tell stories about how great is was to leave a bit early when they
weren’t needed so they could go to a movie with their kids.
Change didn’t happen over night, but it did happen. The number of
hours people spent at work went down slightly, but there was no
change in customer complaints. There is also some evidence the
change is reducing unwanted turnover and helping bring in new hires.
Some key results are summarized below:
The impact of the Marriott face time program
Pre vs. post results
Time spent doing low value work (hrs)
Job too demanding
Belief hours not results count
I feel drained at the end of the day
Pre
11.7 hrs
77%
43%
73%
Post
6.8 hrs
36%
15%
56%
Case 2, Samsung:
Working 9-9 is not the way to make a living
In the early 90’s, Samsung, was a company in trouble. Their products
weren’t selling and consumers were losing confidence in the quality
of their products. Chairman Kun-Hee Lee identified many different
issues, but one he wanted to focus on was the concept of quantity at
the expense of quality. He declared: “[If we don’t change] we will
become a third-rate company. We must change no matter what.” He
implored workers to “change everything except your wife and
At the same time as the 7-4 system many other changes were made,
so it is hard to isolate the exact impact. What is known is the
change in time culture had an important impact on the organization.
Since the introduction of this program, Samsung has come a long
way from its humble, homely past. Samsung is now the world leader
in CDMA cell phones; it’s battling Motorola for the number-two
spot, behind Nokia, in total handsets sold; it also tops the global
markets for color televisions, flash memory, and LCD panels—key
battlegrounds in its quest to one day dominate the digital era.
Samsung is also the world’s most profitable tech company. 48
Case 3, Best Buy ROWE:
Results Oriented Work Environment
If you watch the news, or read the popular press, chances are you
have heard about Best Buys Rowe program. ROWE stands for
Results Oriented Work Environment. This program is the brainchild
of some renegades in Best Buy’s HR department. The program
policy is easy to understand: “people are free to work wherever they
want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done.”
How it happened is a good story.
Just like Marriott. the culture was one of face time. Managers were
seen judging employee performance on how much they saw them,
vs. how much they did. Some saw a dangerous, life-wrecking
cocktail in the making: the always-on worker now also had to be
always in. The HR team wanted to see if a change could be made so
that people focused on results instead of number of hours at the
office.
The HR department introduced the ROWE program in stages.
Stage 1: They worked hard to create effective business metrics.
With no metrics in place, managers had little choice but to
judge performance based on effort.

8. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
page 8
Lessons from the Lakota and other case studies
Stage 2: With metrics ready, they looked for departments that
wanted to give the program a try. Once these pilots were up and
running they worked hard to quantify the results. Importantly,
they did not tell top management.
Stage 3: The program was expanded to other departments.
When they had enough results they presented a business case to
top management.
Looking at the Lakota Experience, there are 4 important insights for
modern day managers
Insight 1: We need to be aware of the differences between task
time and clock time
We all have both types of time in our life. In the Lakota context an
imposition of clock time had a negative impact. Important things
didn’t get done, work lost some of its meaning and it caused social
issues. Letting people focus on the work that needs to get done
instead of the hours they spend at work is likely to improve
productivity. In the discussion about work among the Lakota,
Marriott and Best Buy one can see task time is a bit more human
and natural. We need to realize task time is important and allow it to
flourish if we want a happy effective work force
Looking back, part of the programs success is surely the way it was
started. It began as a covert guerrilla action that spread virally and
eventually became a revolution. So secret was the operation that
Chief Executive Brad Anderson only learned the details two years
after it began transforming his company. Anderson believes “ROWE
was an idea born and nurtured by a handful of passionate
employees,” a large part of its success is “It wasn’t created as the
result of some edict.”
Insight 2: In modern day society, the border between home life
and work life is fading
The results of the program have been impressive
•
There are significant declines in voluntary turnover
•
In pre/post measurements, departments showed an average
increase in productivity of 35%.
With mobile phones we can be reached anywhere anytime, via
email and the internet we can (and often do) work at 2 in the
morning. Yet we still focus on measuring the time people spend in
the office. A better solution would be a balance of clock and task
time. Should it really matter when work gets done as long as it gets
done? As business manager, I would be happy to give up a bit of
Today, all 4000 staffers in the Best Buy headquarters are on ROWE.
and the company is looking to expand out to the stores.
A test… How many things do you like to do at once
How do you/ your department and organization compare ?
Monochronic/Polychronic Orientation Scale
Please use the following scale to indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree that each statement is true about
1) you 2) your department. and 3) your organization
Strongly
Somewhat
Slightly
Slightly
Somewhat
Strongly
Disagree
Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Agree
Agree
(I) We like to juggle several activities
at the same time.
you
depart
org.
1 pt
1 pt
1 pt
2 pt
2 pt
2 pt
3 pt
3 pt
3 pt
4 pt
4 pt
4 pt
5 pt
5 pt
5 pt
6 pt
6 pt
6 pt
7 pt
7 pt
7 pt
(I) We would rather complete an
entire project everyday than complete
parts of several projects.
you
depart
org.
7 pt
7 pt
7 pt
6 pt
6 pt
6 pt
5 pt
5 pt
5 pt
4 pt
4 pt
4 pt
3 pt
3 pt
3 pt
2 pt
2 pt
2 pt
1 pt
1 pt
1 pt
(I) We believe people should try to do
many things at once.
you
depart
org.
1 pt
1 pt
1 pt
2 pt
2 pt
2 pt
3 pt
3 pt
3 pt
4 pt
4 pt
4 pt
5 pt
5 pt
5 pt
6 pt
6 pt
6 pt
7 pt
7 pt
7 pt
When (I) we work by ourselves, (I) we
usually work on one project at a time.
you
depart
org.
7 pt
7 pt
7 pt
6 pt
6 pt
6 pt
5 pt
5 pt
5 pt
4 pt
4 pt
4 pt
3 pt
3 pt
3 pt
2 pt
2 pt
2 pt
1 pt
1 pt
1 pt
(I) We prefer to do one thing at a
time.
you
depart
org.
7 pt
7 pt
7 pt
6 pt
6 pt
6 pt
5 pt
5 pt
5 pt
4 pt
4 pt
4 pt
3 pt
3 pt
3 pt
2 pt
2 pt
2 pt
1 pt
1 pt
1 pt
Add up the points for you, your department, and your organization, and Divide each total by 5. Then plot both the scores on the
scale below.
Monochronic
Polychronic
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
you
depart
org.
The lower the score (below 4.0) the more monochronic your organization or department; and the higher the score, (above 4.0)
the more polychronic.
Adapted from: Bluedorn, A. C., Kaufman, C. F., & Lane, P. M. 1992. How many things do you like to do at once? An introduction
to monochronic and polychronic time. Academy of Management Executive, 6(4): 17–26

9. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
control if I could get employees thinking like the Lakota: ready for
whatever, any place, any time, always prepared. Like at Marriott, I
like my employees’ batteries to be charged and ready to deal with
important business challenges.
Insight 3: In our work world we are losing the human contact.
Our time culture might be part of problem.
People talk less and email more. In the Lakota case, a move to clock
time resulted in people not investing enough time in social
relationships. At Samsung, clock time was kept, but the focus was
changed to results delivered in a specific time. When our employees
are stressed for time, and unhappy at home these issues creep into the
workplace. If we give a bit of freedom, employees are likely to be
happier with their work. Happier employees, encouraged to work
together is a sure fire way to improve social contact at work.
Insight 4: A lot of research has shown average workers feel
overworked. Yet, the reality is we are not working more than we
did before.
The issue in my opinion is a growth in polychronic time (time where
we are expected to do many things at once). The key to dealing with
polychronic tasks is relaxing and being a bit flexible. If we want and
expect people to multi-task at work, taking some of the clock time
pressure away would be a big help.
What now…
The most important take-outs of this discussion are: (1) Time is
important and (2) you don’t need to be the CEO to make changes in
your organization’s time culture.
If you want to make changes you need to realize it won’t be easy.
Our time cultures are built on the way we have been educated, and
socialized. “Time is money” and “long hours are good’’ are so
deeply ingrained in many work cultures that change won’t come
easy. But to change we need to understand.
page 9
I hope this discussion has helped show how each of us can create
our own time cultures. Concepts of time have been changed in the
past to meet needs of the market. Today’s markets are changing
again, so we can assume what time means will change again.
Some say the future is one of flex time, but the reality is flex time is
on the decline (10% down over the last 3 years). 49. Others say,
time cultures in modern organizations need to be modeled after
system like the ROWE program at Best But. Chances are you could
talk to 10 consultants and each would have “the solution’’ for your
organization.
The reality is there is no “one size fits all” solution. We don’t need
flex time, task time, arrow time or any specific type of time. As
business leaders we do need to look for ways to develop the right
time culture for our organizations. My guess is many of you would
be happy with a time culture where: (1) people are given time to
recharge when time pressures are down, (2) employee moral is high
and (3) and like the Lakota are ready for whatever, any time , any
place, always prepared.
Changes in the content of work are changing how we need to
manage. What worked when we were managing factory workers
will not work for today’s knowledge workers.
Today’s managers need to think about the time cultures they want in
their organizations. When your employees talk with people around
the world and in companies with different views of time, their views
on time will change. Change is already happening.
As usual the question comes down to leading change or reacting to
change. If you want to have time on your side, now is the time to
think about changing the view of time in your organization.
We need to start with an understanding of our cultural codes of time.
We need to uncover the invisible, so we can question some of our
core assumptions about time:
•
Is time money? Or would it be better to talk about results
are money?
•
Is face time important? Or would you prefer to have
employees ready to go when they are needed?
•
Many of us are stress junkies and we link a busy calendar
to being effective. Are we confusing motion with results?
About the Author:
Bryan Cassady is a strategic business consultant. Before starting his consulting practice he set up 9 successful businesses in 8 different
countries. As a consultant he has worked in over 20 different countries. He is currently doing research at the KU Leuven University on the
multi-cultural issues of management.

10. Best Practice · Time Lessons for today’s managers
page 10
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