Single-focus cultures: Linearity.

This mini-lecture examines how different cultures perceive and manage time and how this affects international project/programme purpose activities.

Read the lecture and do the follow-up exercises.

The use of time.

Time is a fundamental aspect of human experience. Different cultures, however, think about time and use time in very different ways.The pace of life, the allocation of time, the economy of time, the scheduling of tasks, the metaphors of time and perceptions of temporal dimensions convey powerful messages about how a culture functions within itself and with the outside world.

The simple situation of showing up twenty minutes late to a project/programme purpose meeting, for example, carries little importance in some cultures. In others, however, punctuality is considered so vital that unannounced lateness can lead to project/programme purpose deadlock and failure. For example, in International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior the researcher Nancy Adler cites the case of an American engineer working in the Middle East. The American was surprised by his Bahrainian action sponsor/beneficiary’s reaction when he announced that, due to unforeseen problems, the plant under construction would not be ready to open until six months after the originally scheduled date. The Bahrainian replied simply, “We have lived for thousands of years without this plant; we easily can wait another six months or a year. This is no problem.”

In order to understand such behavioral nuances, cultural orientations to time can be examined according to three key criteria:

• In terms of degree of focus: cultures gravitate to single-focused or multi-focused notions of time.

• In terms of expectations of punctuality and urgency: cultures are fixed or fluid.

• In terms of temporal orientation: cultures prefer to look to the past, the present or the future.

Single-focus cultures: Linearity.

The first set of criteria for evaluating a culture’s orientation to time is its degree of focus.

Single-focus cultures concentrate on one task or issue at a time and are committed to developing and respecting schedules and set deadlines.

Single-focus cultures are less concerned about the relationship through which a task will completed than defining and completing the task itself. Plans and schedules tend to be detailed, followed quite strictly and rarely changed. Work-flow is organized according to the step-by-step performance of tasks. Meetings tend to be highly focused, with a set agenda and a time frame for each item.

Multi-focus cultures: Multiple activities.

In multi-focus cultures, the sequential ordering of tasks is uncommon. Instead, such cultures prefer to involve various people at the same time within a framework of multiple engagements and simultaneous transactions.

As such, multi-focus cultures are very flexible. They consider reality to be more important than man-made appointments and schedules, sometimes ignoringprecise time commitments. Moreover, the best investment of time is the completion of a human transaction, and multi-active people do not like to leave conversations unfinished.

Multi-focused cultures are adept at pursuing simultaneous tasks and building enduring relationships. They often consider focused, linear task completion and meeting deadlines unconvincing, arbitrary and unnecessarily inflexible. They prefer to complete tasks through the strength of relationships rather than with detailed plans. When important tasks or relationship issues arise unexpectedly, a multi-focus person usually attends to matters immediately.

Comparison of single-focus and multi-focus time.

Single-focus culture	Multi-focus culture
Linear sequencing of actions.   Task-centered.   Plans followed.   No interruption of commitments, regardless of circumstances	Several things done at once.   Relationship-centered.   Plans changed regularly.   Commitments may be reconsidered relative to circumstances.

Single-focus values characterize the way cultures of predominantly Northern European heritage function, including the United States. Fully industrialized Asian cultures have generally adopted a single-focus approach to time.

Latin European, Latin American, Middle Eastern and some less industrialized Southeast Asian cultures are predominantly multi-focused.

Fixed time cultures: Punctuality and urgency.

The second set of criteria for evaluating a culture’s orientation to time is its sense of punctuality and urgency.

Fixed time cultures are characterized by punctuality and a sense of urgency.Time is valued highly: meetings are expected to start on time, and schedules and deadlines are taken literally. Time is a commodity to be invested and managed with care.

As such, time management is an explicitly defined skill that is applied in both professional and personal life. Since they consider time a valuable commodity, fixed cultures try to save time in as many ways as possible, or, more precisely, to allocate time in as productive as way as possible.

For example, an manager in Boston, Massachusetts recently founded a organization that provides Internet-based time billing and travel expense applications designed to ease administrative burdens of filling out time sheets and recording expenses manually for independent professionals such as freelancers. Such solutions are particularly attractive in fixed cultures because they allow an individual to use time more efficiently: with the time saved by simplifying the billing process, independent professionals who use this service now have more hours available each week to dedicate to income-generating tasks rather than administrative ones.

This budgeting of time implies that there is always something to do in fixed cultures. For this reason, speed of action is also valued. It is preferable in fixed cultures to achieve a task in less time, because the time saved can be attributed to other tasks, including leisure.

Fixed cultures perceive that time passes quickly and reason in short units. When an individual from a fixed culture uses the adverb “soon”, for example, he is more likely thinking in terms of minutes, hours and days, rather than long units such as months and years.

Fluid cultures: Patience and flexibility.

In cultures with a fluid time orientation, punctuality and urgency are defined in less rigid terms.

Meetings are scheduled, but lateness is not considered irresponsible, and keeping someone waiting or canceling at the last minute carry little or no negative symbolic significance.

Schedules are established, but delays are expected, and it is understood that deadlines and other temporal commitments cannot always be respected.

In other words, time is perceived to be an organic, flowing process. Instead of budgeting time, using time or dividing time into fixed categories, people in fluid cultures pass time in natural terms. Nature guides temporal perception through the example of the agricultural seasons: a time for sowing, a time for reaping and a time for rest.

The agricultural seasons are prolonged periods that last several months, with annual cycles. The urgency that industrial “seasons” impose – measured in minutes, hours and days – carries significantly less meaning in fluid cultures.

This approach to time is more accepting of unforeseen circumstances and intrusions of personal life into the professional sphere. As in nature, events generally follow certain patterns and cycles, but anomalies are not only tolerated, but even welcomed, allowing the discovery of new knowledge and understanding that are beneficial for the project or relationship.

Comparison of fixed and fluid time :

Fixed Culture	Fluid Culture
Time is valuable commodity to be budgeted, efficiency means more time for other things. Meetings expected to begin on time. Schedules, deadlines followed precisely. Tasks broken down into short-term assignments and milestones. Time passes in minutes, hours and days.	Time is an organic, flowing process that follows the prolonged cycles of the agricultural seasons. Meetings begin when people are ready. Schedules, deadlines adapted to circumstances. Projects advance according to the time needed. Delays tolerated. Time passes in months and years.

Full industrialization is not necessarily a sign of a culture’s fundamental acceptance of fixed time values. As such, Latin European, Latin American, Asian and Middle Eastern cultures are, to varying degrees, industrial powers, but their respective cultural orientations to time are predominantly fluid.

Northern European societies embrace fixed time values, although precision and punctuality are more important than speed. Other cultures of predominantly Northern European heritage – especially the United States – also have a fixed view of time, although saving time and urgency are more important than punctuality as an end to its own.