My Time or Yours?

My Time or Yours? Managing Time visions in Global Virtual Teams

More global virtual teams (GVT) are forming in business to tackle international business issues. While these teams are coming from different cultures their perception of time is often different. This article is about the different "time visions" affecting business, and advice on how to make increase functionality within a multi-time vision GVT.

Clock/Linearity – US, UK, Germany, Scandinavia

• a linier view of time
• time can be lost, spent, used, saved

Event - Japan

• cyclical, continuous (holistic), and epochal
• unfolding of time, passing from one phase of an activity
• emphasis on the passing from one phase of an activity to another, rather than time involved
• ritual tradition

Timeless – Hindu and Buddhist

• long-term, abstract, recurrent, epochal
• simultaneous destruction and creation
• passage of time is insignificant
• soul searches for timeless state

Harmonic – Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism (China)

• long-term, cyclical, continuous, and recurrent
• a dynamic of life
• time is valuable, punctuality important

Ways to improve time value communication

• scheduling time: deadlines
• synchronizing time: team rhythms
• allocating time: performance measures
• Managing time visions
• Creating awareness of the differences
• Facilitating the development of team norms
• Creating an intersubjective time vision
• Avoid language traps
• Apply the appropriate measures of performance