The attitude of "leaves the room in the middle, before the business is finished" may certainly be a problem. Being a Spaniard, I see the inherent value in Figure 4.5 "Spanish schedules: In theory, in reality". A day schedule would be seen as poor and aseptic without the "meets in bar" at the end. For us, those differences between what's scheduled and the actual sequence of events is where life happens. It's no wonder that the novel "Momo"'s setting was placed in Italy. [1]
Also, in the multi-active culture, the other person shouldn't be there waiting, idle, twiddling their thumbs; they're surely have plenty of other things that can take care of in the meantime. (In the modern world they could be conducting other businesses by phone or with their laptops, but those are still Western-thinking tools; other options could be to socialize with the people at the building, reading a book or merely enjoying the scenery or getting lost in their thoughts. When was the last time you planned for that?)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momo_%28novel%29
edit: grammar
Think at it this way: if you are at home expecting some friend to have dinner there in the evening, you'll be glad to have them arrive no matter when; any pre-scheduled time would be arbitrary, so letting them arrive whenever it's convenient is good for them and doesn't have any drawback for you. In that situation, it would be incredibly rude on your part to yell at them because you previously agreed that they'd be there at 7:30 but they arrived at 7:54 instead; I don't know about you, but that would be unthinkable here. (Of course if they arrived at 23:00 that would register as "not showing" during the evening, but that's beyond being late).
That kind of lax schedule shouldn't inconvenience you, because you're otherwise comfortable at home arranging all the details; and it can bring benefits for them that couldn't happen otherwise - they may want to stay fifteen more minutes having a coffee at a bistro, watching the sunset, for example; it would be a loss having to rush to your meeting merely because they know you're hardheaded about meeting timelines.
Of course that can be seen as "not efficient" in the "cram-as-much-things-to-do-as-you-can" sense of efficiency, but as explained in the article, that's not seen as a value on itself. And, if you find that having your friends enjoy the smell of a rose is less important than them arriving at an exact time, it speaks very poorly of you and your ability to find other things to do when unpredictable events happen.
IOW, non-responsive, and almost deliberately so.
Just because you have a long, coherent explanation doesn't mean it adds to the discussion.
You are really being very disdainful of the (hypothetical) late person. I find that is a typical American attitude. Even in this completely theoretical discussion, you are assuming the person is late for a reason you find frivolous instead of being a receptive, empathetic human who knows that things don't always happen as planned.
I understand business meeting times. I understand showing up to class on time. I don't understand times for meeting up for pleasure (drinks, dinner, dates). I just don't.
First situation was someone was supposed to come in for an interview but didn't show and then emailed 15 minutes after the scheduled start time saying she had a family emergency and got flustered on the way to the office and decided she needed to take care of other things instead of come to the interview. We have no idea what happened, but the other members of my team immediately concluded that she had blown her chance and we wouldn't be asking her back in because she wasn't "professional".
The second time was arguing about that situation where if I had meetings and a family emergency came up the last thing on my mind would be canceling the meetings when the other people in the conversation said the first thing they would do is cancel the meetings.
It's an interesting juxtaposition to be sure.
My family is Bangladeshi. One of the characteristics of the culture is a total inability to be punctual. Its always drove my dad up the wall, even though he grew up there. So when I read articles like this, I just think of people like my dad--the linear time minorities in these places. Pacing around waiting for guests who show up at 10 for dinner scheduled for 8.
Like, actually using words to describe reality. Danged useful. Triply so in the business world. A little more reliable than using words to describe a shared dreamlike version of reality.
When the agreed time for a meeting is arbitrary, it shouldn't really matter that the meeting is re-scheduled. It only causes problems if you have so many tasks in your agenda that you can't change the arbitrarily assigned time for the meeting - but if you're in that situation, perhaps your schedule is already too busy?
What would happen if you became ill? Or if bad weather made it impossible to arrive to the meeting? If you find valid the answer of "well, in that case some meetings can be re-scheduled or cancelled", then why would you not find that acceptable for all your planned tasks in normal circumstances as well?
If you're not going to hold to a schedule, why make a schedule at all? Why not just say "We'll talk sometime" and let it happen when it happens?
edit: And just because I'm not able to rearrange my schedule literally at the arbitrary whims of the person I'm meeting with doesn't mean that I'm too busy? It means that I have plans for later in the day, and not all plans are fluid. If I'm planning to get dinner with my fiancee at 6pm and you show up two hours late to a 1 hour meeting that was supposed to start at 4pm, is it my fault for having the indecency to schedule dinner with my family, or is it your fault for being two hours late?
I'm not trying to be combative, even though I know it reads that way. I just think it's a weird thing to say "if you can't rearrange your schedule, then probably you're too busy; if you can move one thing, why can't you move all things" and I'd be interested in having a discussion about that mode of thinking.
Real life is hard. When that situation presents itself, you'll have to decide what's more important at the moment. The dinner with your fiancee or the meeting? I do these kinds of decisions every single day. It requires patience and cojones.
Americans want to do it all to the detriment of their sanity and health. Just pick the most important thing and do it. Reschedule the meeting or the dinner. Whatever has the lowest priority.
Taking the example of CocaKoala: you schedule a meeting, that is supposed to last 1h, to 4pm. So the meeting would take place from 4pm to 5pm. Then you'd schedule to have dinner with your fiancée at 6pm. Well, has the meeting supposedly finished at 5pm, you can get on time to this dinner. BUT if the person you're meeting with decides to only show up ate 6pm, all your later appointments will be ruined! I would never wait 2h for someone, especially if I have other appointments. And if you hope that someone will wait for you all that time either that person is too much patient with you or doesn't have anything else to do...
Btw if you make an arrangement, it's your responsibility to show up on time! Is not about how busy you or the other person are, is about respect!!
Best regards ;)
Exactly! The comments in this thread are making that possibility look like an evil thing.
Think of how this article would have looked if we were comparing performance of applications or operating systems. Gone would be the deep explanations of "why" and the attempt to make all approaches equal but just a different mix of trade-offs.
Instead, the article would have found output metrics that could be compared to decide which techniques were superior.
I wouldn't frown upon it if the person made it understands it's essentially a hypothetical statement about what one believes the end-result will be of changing a small yet pervasive dynamic of a culture.
It's essentially the same thing as, for example, arguing that the American lack of a social safety net is counterproductive on the whole.
I certainly believe so, but it could just as well take away the drive Americans are famous for and result in a complete collapse of the American empire.
I have a hypothesis about the nature of this particular trait.
It is. Northwestern even.
> a greater tolerance for jerks
Actually, one might very well argue that you are the jerk, in your own example. Come on, what's one hour? Just do something else while waiting for the person to arrive.
I really think it's very disrespectful.
2. The real world works asynchronously. Either if you are a jerk having no regard for other people's time, or you are a very punctual person getting out of your way to be on time for others (by coming earlier), there is wasted time to be expected. One can prepare for that and act like a functioning piece in a loosely coupled system, or to just blame others.
What are they doing for one hour that's so important that other people should wait on them - if I have a meeting at 10 and they aren't there, can I just leave to handle other work and show up at 12?
If they're late they probably have a reason for it (you might not think they have a good reason though, but who are you to judge that?) they're not doing it for the purpose of annoying you, even though you two might have a meeting you still aren't the centre of the world. So don't leave just to retaliate (because that is why you are talking about leaving and showing up even later) because that will accomplish nothing at all.
Once they arrive you can even tell them they're late, and they will apologize. Anger on the other hand will just leave you both miserable.
I don't know, it's slightly annoying when people are late, but I find even more annoying when people rant to no end about late people.
Also, one thing I'd observe is that there's a difference between social occasions and business. Even as an American, when my family says they're going to show up at 2pm, I don't sit there at 1:59 at the door tapping my foot. However, business is different; if you've mutually agreed on 2pm and you come in at 2:40 pm without having checked or communicated, there is a problem there in many cases. There may have been further scheduled events for 2:30 (odds are good you're meeting with someone who has lots of meetings, statistically), or whoknows what. The casual approach to time risks having three unrelated meetings that were scheduled to be separate trying to happen all at once.
Whether firm or casual time is abstractly "best" is a hard problem, but when it comes to business effectiveness I don't have a problem saying punctuality is a benefit to getting more stuff done. "What if I don't want more stuff done because even that is an American thing to say?" Well, surely we'd all rather then get our things done so we can hit the bar freely later? And it isn't an American truth that businesses really need to accomplish things to survive and thrive, it's the nature of the Universe we live in, where we must work for our sustenance, however distasteful you may find that.
On the face of it, I agree. However, I think this whole thread is neglecting an important dimension by only mentioning "the" time of the meeting. No one ever expects a person to arrive at the exact instant of the scheduled event. There's an interval implied by "the" time, and it's quite possible that the difference here is in cultural expectations regarding the size of the interval or its placement relative to the stated time (US Military culture, for example, seems to have an implied tolerance of -5 min / +0 min).
It may even be the case that your hypothetical second party thinks the first is a bit quirky for insistently describing the meeting as occurring at a particular time, when it is "obvious" to them that what is meant is "we'll meet this afternoon".
Edit: moving scare quotes ("the time" -> "the" time)
The way around this is for people to tell me to show up "around" 8pm or whenever.
I fully recognize that this is something peculiar to myself, and I would never begrudge anybody else for showing up at e.g. 2:04 for a 2pm meeting. But I would definitely apologize for being a few minutes late if I did the same.
"Michigan Time — The tradition of starting every class, meeting or event 10 minutes late."
It's neither an American truth nor the nature of the Universe, it's a story. Older than America (not the continent nor the people in it, but the idea), to be sure, but not that old. The necessity of work, indeed the celebration of it, is obviously interesting to discuss in the age of automation.
...in the West culture.
At what point does that become less reasonable than expecting other people to show up at the time they agreed to show up?
What you are suggesting, which might work in Spain, is that you schedule a meeting for 10am that might not start until 1230 and then, to be safe, you couldn't schedule another meeting until 330 or 4 and that might not start until 6pm.
That would be a really difficult thing to fold into the way Americans work if you want to get anything done, especially on a startup timeline. You don't have 3 months to talk to 20 potential investors if you are trying to raise money. You have to do that in a week.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010028501...
It appears to be emergent turtles all the way down...
Sketch out a new idea perhaps? Daydream? Read the paper? Or your favorite blog? It's not "wasted time".
All I am saying is it's not the end of the world that somebody is "late". And that having free time isn't a burden if you know what to do with it.
That's something you can learn by being involved in the north american corporate workforce.
When I took my very first job at mcdonalds I was told "If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean."
That work ethic is very prominent in american culture.
If you're not working, you're not achieving your full potential. And that needs to stop.
I'm sure it is, but I have ever met anyone who I would describe using both of those words.
Unfortunately, it is...
But what happens if one person arrived at 12:30 and the other at 12:40? Eventhough the meeting was at 12?? Are both jerks??
Minute accurate precision is a Western phenomena derived from the industrial revolution... where humans had to adapt to the machine...
in other cultures where the industrial revolution started later.... time is perceived more like a continuum... or a band.. so 12.. means anything beteween 12 - 12:30 Evening means around 6 or 7... and next week means never
But what happens if the same couple meets again and now the one that arrives later is the Other person?
When you schedule a meeting and one person takes pains to arrive on time and another person does not care whether they're late and shows up an hour later, that leaves the conscientious person sitting there twiddling their thumbs for an hour, whether they're in the U.S. or Italy or China.
I suppose it's more understandable in areas where transportation is unreliable, in which case it's hard for anybody to be consistently on time, but I have a hard time seeing how a culture in which no one is concerned with punctuality can be said to be merely laid-back, as opposed to plain lazy. It's possible to be both laid-back and punctual, after all.