The problem in US businesses today is that they are too focused on meeting quarterly profit targets, often at the neglect at the long-term welfare of the company. This whole short-term focus is partially to blame for our current economic crisis. Richard Waggoner, the former CEO of GM, admitted before Congress that instead of investing in new technologies and new car models, they milked the profits from the SUV trend. Anyone with a long-term perspective would have realized that the housing bubble was bound to burst at some time; all bubbles do. Yet, corporate America is fixated on delivering quarterly profits and not providing long-term growth. With little or no investment, eventually all the value in a company gets used up or stripped away, just like any asset that is not maintained (including people!).
One curious aspect of human behavior is that when someone monitors performance, that performance changes (kind of like in reality TV.) When companies decide to measure progress, they often believe that it is just a way of ensuring that people are on their way meeting their goals. However, these measurements end up becoming the goals. When revenues fall short, maintenance, investment, and personal development are all put on hold to meet the short-term profit objective. If the period of performance monitoring were longer, there would be a better chance that these investment activities would have enough time to prove their benefit.
What’s really interesting is that this is really only the perspective of corporate America (and corporate UK/Australia.) Having worked in Asia and Europe, I discovered that different cultures treat the passage of time very differently. In fact, in Geert Hofstede’s famous book, Cultures and Organizations, time is one of the dimensions of culture. For instance, both China and Japan take a very long-term perspective on time, easily sacrificing immediate gratification for a long-term benefit. It is common for parents to invest everything they have in their children. Getting something done ASAP in the US means within weeks or days, but in Japan it usually means months.
You can see this difference in perspective on smaller scales as well, like across industries. High tech companies work in a different time scale than pharmaceutical companies. Even within companies, you can notice a difference. Marketing folks are always rushing around, wanting everything immediately while your R&D department probably takes about a week to answer their emails. Plus, the higher up you go in the hierarchy, the more urgent everything is. For anyone with a C and O in his title, end-of-day means three o’clock.
To be successful in business, it is absolutely essential to understand other people’s time frames. To help you, I have formulated a time conversion equation that takes into account factors of position, nationality, function, etc.
TIME CONVERSION FORMULA
CONVERTING YOUR TIME TO THEIR TIME
Here’s the equation:
τr = τy *C*A*I*F*L
where
τr= relative Time
τy= your Time
C=Culture factor
A=Age factor
I=Industry factor
F=Function factor
L= Level factor
The following tables show the appropriate factor to use depending on situation.
| Culture | Factor | Age | Factor | Industry | Factor | ||
| German | 1 | Teens | 15 | High Tech | 0.25 | ||
| American | 2 | Twenties | 0.75 | Financial | 0.5 | ||
| British | 3 | Thirties | 1 | Consulting | 0.75 | ||
| French | 4 | Forties | 1.25 | Manufacturing | 1 | ||
| Italian | 5 | Fifties | 1.75 | Construction | 3 | ||
| Spanish | 6 | Sixties | 4 | Healthcare | 5 | ||
| Brazilian | 7 | Seventies | 6 | ||||
| Indian | 8 | ||||||
| Chinese | 9 | ||||||
| Japanese | 10 |
| Function | Factor | Level | Factor | ||
| Marketing | 0.5 | Staff | 1 | ||
| Finance | 0.75 | Manager | 0.75 | ||
| Manufacturing | 1 | Director | 0.5 | ||
| IT | 1.5 | VP | 0.25 | ||
| HR | 1.75 | CxO | 2.5E-05 | ||
| R&D | 2 |
Let’s try some examples.
Suppose your boss is Indian, in his forties, a manager, and he has promised to get back to you tomorrow regarding your request for promotion. You are American, in your thirties, and staff level.
Using τr = τy *C*A*I*F*L
τr =1 day * 25 * 1/.75 or
You will hear back in 33 and 1/3 days and the answer is “no.”
Notice how you need to invert factors depending on how they relate to you. Given the same two people but in reverse, your boss has asked you to deliver a project plan by the end of the week (3 days time), here is how the calculation works:
τr =36 hours *1/25*.75 or
He expects you to have it ready in one hour eight minutes and your delivery dates are too long.
Now, here’s a more complicated example:
Suppose you are a manager level consultant working for the CFO of a high tech company who asks you to put together a business case for an acquisition. He says he wants in next Monday, 1 week’s time. You are both about the same age, and he is French.
τr =7 days*4*.2/. 5*.75*2.50E-05
or you better drop everything and pull all-nighters until you are done because you are already late, and he is going ahead with the acquisition anyway even if the business case doesn’t justify it.
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