A Culture of When
One of the common threads I see with many business owners and
executives is a desire to be constantly accessible to their clients and
to people who call them. They feel if they are always available, it
shows others that they put the customer first and are working hard.
However, this creates a dilemma. If they are constantly available, how can the
business leader truly get any work done? The business leader, when
constantly interrupted by new phone calls and by people stopping in
their place of work, can never focus for any extended period. They find
themselves in a constant mode of multitasking.
Very often, these same business leaders make demands of their employees, expecting
immediate responses to their needs. This perpetuates a lack of
productivity within the organization by causing all employees to
operate in a constant switchtasking mode. These businesses operate on a
culture of now.
The answer lies not in the now, but in the when. For example, set a clear expectation of when
they can expect a return call when they reach your voicemail. People
are typically very forgiving of not receiving immediate attention now, but only if there’s a clear expectation of when they are going to receive a call back.
One of the most important changes that my clients make is shifting to a culture of when, rather than a culture of now. A culture of when
allows leaders to say, “I will take care of everything, I will not
leave anything undone, but I will not switchtask and shortchange
quality of work nor the attention I give to human beings.”
Consider just a few examples of how to create a culture of when:
A manager asks her assistant to make fifty copies of a document. She
gives him a clear expectation that he needs to deliver these copies
back by 10:00 am the next day.
A business coach creates a voicemail message encouraging people to leave
their message. However, he also creates an expectation that he will
return their calls within 2 hours, or if the call was made after 5:00
pm, the next business morning.
A sales executive always makes sure that she gets a date and time to
follow-up with a valued prospect. She does this by asking that prospect
when he wishes her to make a follow-up phone call. If possible, she
sets a mutual appointment for the phone call.
In a managers meeting, each member of the team commits to accomplishing
their personal tasks by a specific date. The CEO writes these dates
down and follows-up with each individual at the specified time.
A bookkeeper establishes a recurring appointment with himself to pay the current bills every Friday at 3:00 pm.
A business owner sets a daily schedule of only checking her email twice
per day: once at 9:00 am and again at 4:00 pm.
The culture of when
is a culture of consistency and expectations. It requires you to follow
through on the agreements you make. It means expecting others to keep
to those agreements. The culture of when can only survive when someone has strong personal systems.
When business leaders begin making changes by creating a personal culture of when, the results will begin to reflect through the rest of the business.
I agree with this idea of a culture of “when.”
I moved to Jamaica from the US a few years ago, and there is a marked difference in how time is viewed.
It makes Jamaica a great place for vacation, and for families, but a lot more difficult to do business in.
Even then, there are companies that organizations that have been able to create “when” cultures be deliberately making this a part of their values and vision.