Modern technological advances have made the world a much smaller place, promoting increased interactions between people of different nations and cultures. The most critical aspect of the burgeoning transnational intercourse is communication – the ability to understand and to be understood is central to successful cross-cultural activities. All human interaction, either monocultural or cross-cultural, takes place within a social setting or context that affects the communication event. Whether you are in a classroom, dance hall, or business meeting, the context or social environment influences how you communicate. One of the constituents of social context is time. Complex societies organize it in at least two different ways: events scheduled as separate items, one thing at a time – as in North Europe (also the USA and Canada), or following the Mediterranean model of involvement in several things at once (also Latin America, the Arab part of the Middle East, sub-Sahara Africa). The two systems are logically and empirically quite distinct; each has its strengths as well as its weaknesses.
Monochronic time means doing one thing at a time. It assumes careful planning and scheduling and is a familiar Western approach that appears in disciplines such as “time management”. Monochronic people tend also to be low context.
In polychronic cultures, human interaction is valued over time and material things, leading to a lesser concern for “getting things done” – they do get done, but more in their own time. Aboriginal and Native Americans have typical polychronic cultures, where “talk-ing stick” meetings can go on for as long as somebody has something to say. Polychronic people tend also to be high context.
Monochronic time cultures emphasize schedules, a precise reckoning of time, and promptness. Time is viewed as a discrete commodity. People with this cultural orientation tend to do one thing after another, finishing each activity before starting the next. On the other hand, in polychronic cultures, people tend to handle multiple things concurrently (or intermittently during a time period) and to emphasize the number of completed transactions and the number of people involved, rather than the adherence to time schedule. Being on time is less important in polychronic cultures than in monochronic cultures (3).
Monochronic people (M-people) tend to view activities and time in discreet segments or compartments, which are to be dealt with one at a time. It is not logical to have two activities going on at the same time. M-people can become frustrated with polychronic people (P-people) who view time as something fluid, and who easily alter schedules to shifting priorities. In polychronic time cultures, meetings may start late, run overtime, and allow outside issues to interrupt. In addition, multiple activities may be scheduled at the same time, and adherence to deadlines may depend on the strength of the relationship. Poly-chronic individuals are oriented toward people, human relationships, and the family, which is the core of their existence. Family takes precedence over everything else.
Though monochronic time cultures tend to make a fetish out of management, there are points at which monochronic time does not make as much sense as it might. Life in general is at times unpredictable; and who can tell exactly how long a particular client, patient, or set of transactions will take. What can be accomplished one day in ten minutes may take twenty minutes on the next. Some days people will be rushed and cannot finish; on others, there is time to spare, so they waste the remaining time. For polychronic people, time is seldom experienced as “wasted”, and is opt to be considered a point rather then a ribbon or a road, but the point is often sacred. An Arab will say, “I will see you before one hour,” or “I will see you after two days.” These commitments are taken quite seriously as long as one remains in the polychronic time pattern (1).
In the workplace, P-people prefer to keep their time unstructured, changing from one activity to another as the mood takes them. Although P-people can meet deadlines, they need to do so in their own way. A polychron does not want detailed plans imposed upon him, nor does he want to make his own detailed plans. P-people prefer to work as they see fit without a strict schedule, following their internal mental processes from one minute to the next.
M-people relate to time differently: to them, time is discrete, not continuous. M-people see time as being divided into fixed elements – seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and so on – temporal blocks that can be organized, quantified and scheduled. M-people love to plan in detail, making lists, keeping track of their activities, and organizing their time into a daily routine.
M-people prefer to do one thing at a time, working on a task until it is finished, then, and only then, moving on to the next task. To a monochron, switching back and forth from one activity to another is not only wasteful and distracting, it is uncomfortable.
P-people are different. They love to work on more than one thing at a time. To a poly-chron, switching from one activity to another is both stimulating and productive and, hence, the most desirable way to work.
Not all monochronic times and polychronic times are the same. There are tight and loose versions of each. The Japanese, for example, in the official business side of their lives where people do not meet on a highly personalized basis, provide us an excellent example of tight monochronic time. But they are polychronic when looking and working inward, toward themselves (1). Western cultures also vary in their focus on monochronic or polychronic time. Americans are strongly monochronic whilst the French have a much greater polychronic tendency – thus a French person may turn up to a meeting late and think nothing of it (much to the annoyance of a German or American co-worker).
These and other differences between monochronic and polychronic people can be stud-ied in the table below:
Factor Monochronic Culture Polychronic Culture
Actions Do one thing at a time Do many things at once
Focus Concentrate on the job at hand Are easily distracted
Attention to time Think about when things must be achieved Think about what will be achieved
Priority Put the job first Put relationships first
Respect for property Seldom borrow or lend things Borrow and lend things often and easily
Timeliness Emphasize promptness Base promptness relationship factors
Interpersonal rela-tions Interpersonal relations are sub-ordinate to present schedule Present schedule is subordinate to interpersonal relations
Are accustomed to short-term relationships Have strong tendency to build lifetime relationships
Activity co-ordination Schedule co-ordinates activity; appointment time is rigid Interpersonal relations co-ordinate activity; appointment time is flexible
Task handling One task at a time Many tasks are handled simulta-neously
Breaks and personal time Breaks and personal time are sacrosanct regardless of per-sonal ties. Breaks and personal time are subordinate to personal ties.
Temporal structure Time is inflexible; time is tangi-ble Time is flexible; time is fluid
Work/personal time separability Work time is clearly separable from personal time Work time is not clearly separa-ble from personal time
Organizational per-ception Activities are isolated from or-ganization as a whole; tasks are measured by output in time (ac-tivity per hour or minute) Activities are integrated into organization as a whole; tasks are measured as part of overall organizational goal
Information Are low-context and need infor-mation Are high-context and already have information
Privacy Are concerned about not disturbing others; follow rules of privacy and consideration Are more concerned with those who are closely related (family, friends, close business associ-ates) than with privacy
Here is a common example. Because of the way P-people see time, they are often late. This only makes sense because, to a polychron, exact times (and even exact dates) are not really meaningful and, hence, are not all that important. Try telling this to the monochron who is kept waiting for that polychron. While the polychron was finishing a couple of last- minute chores at home, the monochron was at the appointed place five minutes early, anxiously looking at his watch. To a monochron, time is exact and, as he sees it, being late is both rude and disrespectful. To a polychron, any time – even an exact time – is just an approximation. If someone keeps him waiting, he doesn't really care. He just figures that something must have happened to hold up the other person, and it's not that big of a deal.
In order to keep the peace, P-people do learn to be on time when they really need to be. However, if you can get them to talk truthfully, they will tell you that they don't really understand why so many people feel that punctuality is a virtue (2).
Tips for conducting business with polychronic cultures:
Developing a relationship is important to people who are from polychronic cultures. The relationship is a key facilitator often driving the team towards deadlines and meeting the schedule. If your project is going to be managed as a virtual team, consider a few face-to-face visits to establish rapport and develop a relationship.
When you arrange the first meeting, plan to spend extra time getting to know your polychronic time counterparts, also review the process of the team meeting, how you will work together allowing a shared consensus on the best way to manage the projects.
When conducting virtual team meeting plan for the meetings to start late and end late and expect dialog to occur. Use application suites that allow participants to respond and not feel isolated. Try to emulate real meetings as much as you can. Methods for this may include time