CULTURAL PERCEPTIONS OF TIME

By Anna Garleff - Founder of Garleff Coaching and Consulting Group (GCCG) | The Seeking Veritas Business and Leadership Column is an ongoing collaborative project between SG Productions & GCCG

Written by Anna Garleff for Seeking Veritas on Substack as part of our collaborative partnership with GCCG

Photo by Fazly Shah on Unsplash

Theoretically, we all know that space and time don’t exist. But that’s just theoretical. In reality, we’re basically harassed by the clock. Time is a way of measuring the distance between the continued sequence of events. And it’s a good thing, too, because it’s hard enough as it is organizing ourselves according to its incessant demands and unceasing march.

Any leadership book / post / advice is going to deal with this subject, and anyone offering genuinely useful hacks on how to save time is hailed as a genius by grateful clients. People’s individual and collective perceptions of time may vary immensely, and a lot of it has to do with how you’re hard-wired for understanding lived experience.

Collectively, though, there are even more variations on the theme. Especially in a highly mobile, globalized world, many of us get to experience these variations now and again.

Heck, you might not have to leave your own desk to experience this, depending on whether you have a diverse workforce. I’m not just talking culturally, because there are many other, really interesting ways of understanding people’s perceptions of time. And that’s worth looking into because time is a real commodity.

Of all the expressions related to time, none is more relevant to the world of business than “time is money”. But it’s not the same amount of money per unit of time for everyone. Somehow, governments determine what the minimum amount is that employers are ok to compensate someone for a unit of their life - and on the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got people charging inordinate amounts of money just to show up, before they even start any work. I can’t even guess what the upper limit of that range could be - or whether the client gets real value in return, or what percentage of that is perceived value.

This topic came to mind as I was booking appointments across six different time zones this morning, and musing about how gaspingly disparate cultural perceptions of time actually are - and more importantly, the values we attach to them. So let me give you an example: One of the major ways to offend someone in Germany is to be late. It’s taken as a massive act of blatant disrespect - hence the saying: “Better one hour too early than one minute too late”. I have - many times - seen the train doors close on an old granny with a walking stick because she simply wasn’t prepared to board at the specified time. It might be hard to believe, but I came to deeply appreciate immaculate punctuality and the insistence on it.

RESPECT TIME

Time in the UK was measured by 11:00 am gin and tonics, but that might just have been a quirk of the academic community. Nonetheless, the entire day was meted out in two parts: pre-G&Ts and post-G&Ts. Really it should have been three, since the G&T part itself was rather extended. More work got done then than any other time. It was networking central and an opportunity to meet people you otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance to - and the discussions! I still remember the free and easy exchanges of ideas - hierarchies and departments be damned.

MAKE TIME

Down to Ghana, where the livin’ was easy because I was largely dependent on a driver and the coordination of about ten other people’s schedules in order to even leave the compound. If it didn’t happen that day, the attitude was “... there’s always next week”. Month. Whatever. It was in Africa that I learned patience, and how to be fully present.

SPEND TIME

Back to Canada after all this, and you’ve got your own car, no train, and no noon hour pub culture. So you can largely show up whenever it suits you. The problem is that principle applies to everyone. I’ve hardly ever seen a meeting start on time, or had any proof that anyone actually reads the Board package before they (eventually) show up.

So you can imagine I nearly spat out my gin one day when I heard the famous Nick Noorani advise a group of newcomers that Canadians “... are very punctual. Don’t come late for anything!” Compared to what, I thought to myself.

I remember a teacher from India in my Canadian high school trying to get advice from us students about a spat he’d had with his wife regarding time. He said they should show up punctually - because, I guess, Canada - whereas she insisted on arriving to the party an hour late. The reasoning was that to show up on time pressures the hostess, whereas giving her time to prepare shows consideration.

That’s why I always invite my guests one hour earlier than when I actually want them to show. No one jeopardizes my flambée!

CHANGE TIME

I have never heard anyone speak faster than a New Yorker. In fact, if I weren’t such a great lip reader and have my captions on, I’d be hooped. Probably nowhere on Earth is as time-sensitive as The Big Apple. I can get more done with these guys in an hour than I can with some clients in a month. Time in general seems to move faster in NYC; everyone’s always in a rush except the yellow cabs who can’t manouever anyway - and the natural gait is more like a trot. I get the feeling that if you move to New York, you’d never be bored again.

WARP TIME

My favourite way of doing business with regard to a cultural sense of time and the values attached to it has to be with the Roma and Cinti people. I learned to show up on time, appreciate the networking component, learn to give prayerful thanks in Romani, sing some songs, play some guitar, eat some food; eat some more food - and then, when everyone knew everyone else and was in the right frame of mind - only then did we talk business. You wouldn’t believe it, but in the long run, this saves time.

ENJOY TIME

As I write this, I’m enjoying the beautiful weather in Mauritius, trying out what it’s like to be a “snowbird”. Experience has taught me to organize things in advance - well in advance. So because I was (over-) prepared, everything went smoothly. Now that I’m here, though, things operate on a different rhythm. “Let’s meet today” (no time specified) actually means: “I have the intention of meeting with you, but let’s see how it goes”. I’m no spring chicken. I plan for a variety of scenarios and make sure I can get my work done and fulfill my obligations independent of anyone else. And that’s probably a good attitude to have in business, because you can only control what you can control. And that includes your attitude toward things.

C’est la vie, you say? Ah. That’s a story for another time.

SKIP TIME

“Orevwar” as they say here in Créole. Interestingly, there’s no translation for: “It’s time to go”.

About the Author: Anna Garleff is an Organizational Psychologist and Executive Coaching. She works with C-Suite clients around the world, focusing on scaling up and leading diverse teams through Garleff Coaching & Consulting Group. She has been a ghostwriter for KPMG, Deloitte and PwC; and a former Director of the Open University (UK) operations in Germany.

You can contact Anna at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/garleff-coaching-consulting-group/