In the Workplace

Obsession with Efficiency

In the workplace, the urge to save time explains in large part the great American obsession with being efficient. Anything that increases efficiency is taken very seriously in America, just as anything that under- mines it is to be avoided or eliminated. Being well-organized, for example, is a quality highly prized in the workplace, mainly because people who are organized don t waste time, theirs or anyone else s. Prior- itizing is another highly valued practice, for it too recognizes that time is limited and there is a corresponding need to rank activities in order of importance.

Making schedules and sticking to them are two other hallmarks of efficiency, two practices that not only make one more efficient but also allow others to be. Schedules are extremely comforting and reassuring to Americans, and for a very good reason: they create the illusion that people can actually control time. A schedule, after all, is a way of preassigning a certain amount of time to a certain accomplishment, suggesting that it is the scheduler who ultimately has the upper hand. The scheduler does not, of course ” witness the panic that sets in when people are late for an appointment or when things take longer than planned ” but it is important to indulge the illusion and pretend that schedules keep time in its place. It makes Americans feel better.

Brian Tracy, author of The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success quoted earlier, feels quite strongly about this aspect of time. A positive mental attitude, he writes ,

. . . increases your energy, your creativity, and your capacity to get greater results. And a positive mental attitude is rooted in your feeling that you have a sense of control over your life. This sense of control is the key issue in peak performance. When you have too much to do and too little time, you can start to feel overwhelmed. . . . Time management is the tool that you can use to control the sequence of events and thereby take complete control of your life. (2000, 280)

In the workplace, the need to stay on schedule has many consequences. You should always be on time for an appointment or a meeting ” especially for a meeting, where many other people s time is also at stake. Being late is one of the worst sins in the workplace, not only because it wastes time but also because it threatens to expose the entire fiction that people can somehow dominate time.

You should also keep very close track of your time and not allow the appointment or meeting to exceed its scheduled length. This is one of the main reasons Americans want a meeting to have an agenda, because an agenda is a kind of schedule, a way of keeping track of whether or not the meeting is unfolding in a timely manner. One of the reasons Americans tend to dislike meetings is because a meeting means turning control of one s time over to someone else, someone who may not take very good care of it. It s bad enough to waste s one s own time, but it s even worse if someone else wastes it. If it appears that a meeting or appointment you are conducting is going to take longer than planned, you should always offer to end it on schedule and arrange to continue later. If people don t mind going over the scheduled time, that s fine, but you should ask their permission.

Their love of schedules also means that Americans don t like to be interrupted . An interruption, by definition, is unplanned and unexpected and is therefore bound to put pressure on a person s schedule. Americans acknowledge this by apologizing whenever they drop by another person s office unannounced or by asking Is this a good time? when they telephone someone. There is in fact a hierarchy of interruptability in the American workplace, based, not surprisingly, on how valuable a person s time is perceived to be. The higher up a person is in an organization, the less likely he or she is to be interrupted, usually only for emergencies (or to speak with someone even higher up).

In a world where sticking to a schedule is so important, changing a schedule can be tricky. At a minimum, a change of schedule should never be last minute; you should always notify the other party or parties as far in advance as possible. This does depend somewhat on your rank or position, however; the higher up you are in an organization, the more important your time is perceived to be and the more acceptable it is to have to cancel or change your appointments. But even then, you should acknowledge the seriousness of the situation by making an apology or at least offering an explanation.

What is true for schedules is also true for deadlines. Americans are very precise about due dates; they are not flexible on this topic and do not regard deadlines as in any way approximate or best guesses. If you re not able to meet a deadline for some reason, you should let Americans know immediately; they may not be very happy ” it means adjusting the schedule, after all ” but that is nothing compared to the unhappiness they feel if they find out at the last minute. Generally, the further a deadline is in the future, the easier it is to negotiate a change.

Americans flock to classes on time management, where they are taught to keep track of how they use their time and techniques for using it better. One technique they learn is to use e-mail whenever possible instead of the telephone, mainly because in the e-mail mode one is in control of his or her time, whereas on the telephone another person is involved. (Some time-management experts even advise deliberately calling other people when you know they re not in so you can leave a message on their voice mail and not have to talk to them.) Even in e-mail mode, Americans are taught to be extremely selective about who they copy on their messages and to always fill in the subject box, so that time-deprived recipients can quickly decide if they actually need to open the message.

Getting to the Point

Concern about time also explains why Americans like to get down to business, as they say, why they usually keep greetings and small talk to a minimum and proceed almost at once to the matter at hand. It also explains the American fondness for quickly getting to the point in a conversation, and especially for not getting off the subject, particularly at a meeting where the time wasted while someone beats around the bush or goes off on a tangent has to be multiplied by the number of attendees.

Americans are likewise very impatient with lengthy background explanations when someone is making a presentation, often jumping in to ask the speaker to cut to the chase. When they give presentations (see pages 158 “60), Americans usually start with their main points ” key findings, results, conclusions ” and provide the details later if there is time.

The emphasis on quickly getting to the point in a conversation or a meeting, their seeming impatience with context and details, can sometimes leave the impression that Americans aren t very thorough or curious , that they aren t interested in or capable of grasping the nuances or subtleties of the matter under discussion. They seem to want to under- stand just enough to be able to act. The related habit of wanting to simplify complex matters, stripping them down to a few basics or talking points, only adds to their reputation for not being very deep, that they can t be trusted to understand anything that is too complicated or intricate .

Quicker Is Better

Americans preoccupation with time (and the pressure to achieve and make money, which lies behind it) makes them restless and impatient. People who derive a large measure of their respect and self-esteem from their accomplishments naturally want to see those accomplishments sooner rather than later. Accordingly, they have a short- term mentality ; they don t like to wait, they hate delays, and they expect immediate results. A week can be a long time, and a month can be an eternity. This explains in part why Americans are always changing what they do or the way they do something; when they don t see results almost at once, they feel great pressure to try another approach. It may also help explain why Americans aren t afraid of improvising if the situation calls for it; whatever its limitations and risks, improvising is always faster than the alternative.

Americans want quick decisions and immediate responses ” what they call fast turnaround ” and are impatient with anything that slows down the pace of action, such as too much analysis or deliberation, too many procedures or regulations, too many layers of management, or having to build a consensus before making a decision. Try to avoid analysis paralysis, Andy Bruce and Ken Langdon write. Many decisions are based on less than perfect information. Avoid waiting for more information if it means you will decide or take action too late. Time is money . . . (2001, 17).

This demand for quick decisions leads many to conclude that Americans must be quite reckless; after all, if that s how they make important decisions, that can only mean they don t spend very long worrying about the consequences. In the end, the desire for everything to happen fast is more evidence for the widespread belief among many non-Americans that for all their talk Americans are not really interested in quality.

Time pressure also contributes to the good enough mentality many Americans have ” the attitude that things don t have to be done perfectly or the best they can be but simply good enough to please the customer or client. Perfection takes time, and when the choice is between doing more things and doing fewer things perfectly, many Americans will choose the former. The perfect solution produced late, it has been noted, is a free gift to the competition (Bruce and Langdon, 35). Americans struggle with this issue, however, because they also profess to be very concerned about quality. In the end they get around this dilemma by defining quality in a way that enables them to have their cake (doing everything fast) and eating it too (doing things well).

Many of the projects or tasks that you have to do are a lot like running hurdles, notes time-management guru B. Eugene Griessman:

You aren t supposed to knock over the hurdles, but there s no bonus for clearing them by an extra margin either. All you really have to do is get over them. . . . The best hurdlers clear the hurdles, but just barely .

This advice seems to discount the value of high-quality work. That s not true. In most instances quality is what the customer wants. . . . Your customer may not want you to spend a great deal of time on . . . a project but may want you to do all parts adequately. The trick is to find out what is really wanted by the customer. (94, 95)

The trick in the United States anyway.

How Americans See Others

People for whom the clock is always ticking aren t especially forgiving of those with a more relaxed attitude toward time. People who treat schedules and deadlines more casually ” for example, those who under- stand that interruptions or delays can t always be helped, that life is sometimes shockingly oblivious to what s written down in a daily plan- ner ” frustrate and deeply annoy Americans. They aren t serious about their work or about business; they are unprofessional, unorganized, and inefficient; they are unreliable and can t be trusted, and they have no motivation.

Americans also think people with a relaxed attitude toward time spend too many hours socializing and trying to get to know each other. They aren t that interested in getting things done, and they don t care nearly enough about the bottom line. And while they probably don t mean to be, they are also insensitive and rude because they waste other people s time.

People who don t get to the point quickly in a conversation or a meeting, who get off the subject, or who present too much background information and too many details are seen as unfocused, unorganized, and rambling. They don t think clearly; they lose sight of the big picture; they complicate things needlessly; and they re not very decisive .

Because they equate the efficient use of time with being able to accomplish more, Americans find people who are casual about time as not being very ambitious; while they may not actually be lazy (although one wonders at times), they re certainly not very dedicated or committed.

People who are thorough, deliberate , and careful in making decisions, who try to anticipate and think through the consequences of their actions, come across as overly cautious and even timid to Americans. They see such people as obsessed with details, paralyzed by too much analysis, or far too consultative. They re not being careful, they re just afraid to act.

People who are willing to wait longer to see results, who believe some things don t happen quickly and cannot be rushed, may come across to Americans as passive, fatalistic, or even lazy. They need to be more aggressive and more proactive; if they really cared about their product or their business, they would do something.

Quick Tips: Advice for Working with Americans

• Be on time for appointments and meetings, so you don t waste other people s time or throw them off their schedule.

• Conduct meetings and appointments efficiently so they end on schedule.

• Respect deadlines; if you re not going to meet a deadline, let others know as soon as possible.

• Get to the point quickly in a conversation, meeting, or presentation.

• Keep it simple: in a presentation, just give the basics. Put details in a handout or later in an e-mail.

• In a meeting, don t ramble, talk off the subject, or get bogged down in details ” and don t let others do this.

• Be decisive; Americans expect a fast turnaround. Any action is better than inaction.

• Don t spend very long getting to know Americans ; they will expect you to quickly get down to business.

• Don t be offended. They think they re being considerate by respecting your time.