How to Optimize Time Management to Ensure Organizational Growth
Often, leaders in organizations believe that team members working longer hours is an indication of the team’s commitment. This, they believe, is the pathway to not just organizational growth but career growth for the team. There is also currently a debate on how many hours an employee should clock in, the concept of work-life balance, etc. However, pride in working long hours does not equate to higher efficiency. How can we measure if an employee is being productive or not if we do not measure it with time? What is the true essence of organizational time management? And is it more than just the time clocked in by employees? Let’s find out.
As a business coach, I focus on two questions that can influence effective organizational time management:
- How willing is the team?
- How well do the team members coordinate?
Understanding Organizational Time Management
My perspective on organizational time management as a business coach is simple: Don’t ask how much time but get a sense of how willing employees and teams are to offer their time. If an employee as well as team find meaningful engagement with work, they will voluntarily offer their time. The commitment to do so will flow without question and the energy will be high. On the other hand, when a team does not find meaningful engagement at work, then even a small amount of work can be exhausting.
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To ensure teams find such meaning in their work and to manage time efficiently, the following variables needs to be done:
- Develop a common purpose that will connect the members and teams
- Build a team of talented and organized individuals
- Account for the dependency on each other’s time
- Honor commitments on time
- Respect the space required for people to rejuvenate
- Finalize and make decisions within a reasonable period of time
- Iron out non-performance
- Manage cash flow effectively
One can stabilize the above variables with good coordination. A well-coordinated team might produce better outcomes even if they spend less time on it.
Hence, the mantra for organizational time management is, “Don’t manage people by time; instead, develop an environment where people manage time effectively”. When leaders trust their teams to manage time, it benefits the organizations. They gain in terms of efficiency and also create a culture where employees and teams take ownership of organizational growth.
Therefore, these two factors—willingness and team coordination—will decide the effectiveness of organizational time management with tangible results.
A Third Perspective on Organizational Time Management
The third perspective is a bit tricky. It needs wisdom to understand not just the importance of the clock but also the significance of the right moments that can create magic. My third perspective on time, therefore, is: What and when is the right moment for a step, move, or action?
Let’s consider an example to understand this better. Members of the Massai tribe of Kenya wear a wristband rather than a watch. They look at the band and ask questions such as, “What is this time right for?” or “What is the right thing to do now?” The tribe focuses on the right moments for doing things instead of doing things according to a timely schedule.
I am inspired by this philosophy of the Massai tribe. It helps in understanding the significance of waiting, and in identifying the “right moments” that lead to a shift in organizational time management. When I am coaching a team, a question I ask is, “What is this situation ripe for?” The essential difference is between “neram” and “tharunam”—time and moment, respectively.
According to Chinese war strategist Sun Tzu, “the right moment” is essentially about seizing the opportunity, a time for action. This means carefully analyzing the situation, understanding your enemy’s weaknesses, and striking when they are most vulnerable while your own forces are at their strongest. This concept is called the decisive moment” in The Art of War.
Beyond efficient time management, understanding the significance of waiting for the right moment or striking at the right moment is what decides the shift towards organizational growth.
Real-World Case Studies
Patience is its Own Reward
Once we were working with a department head who was resistant to all coaching procedures. The leadership felt that the head was efficient and competent, but they had expectations from him that were beyond his comfort level. He understood the organizational requirements only through his teams’ perspectives. The leadership team felt that if he had to contribute towards larger organizational requirements or if he wanted to rise within the organization, he needed to coordinate and understand organizational requirements from his cross-functional teams. However, the manager was blind to his limitations and felt that whatever he was doing was perfect. We couldn’t buy his concurrence for coaching his team and him. An important principle of coaching is one cannot force anyone to participate. So, we waited for the right time.
It was almost six months before we got a chance to work with him again. The manager had to participate in an inter-departmental coaching session because the other department needed his support and his team’s coordination. At that point he had no choice but to subject himself to the learning context. In the group discussions, he realized how stuck he had been as he had not considered taking feedback about his team’s performance from coordinating teams. His Eureka moment struck by the end of the day. Waiting for more than six months for the right moment made a difference in this situation.
The Importance of the Right Moment
In another context, a team leader complained about how he found his team unenthusiastic about increasing sales and didn’t seem to take ownership for their day-to-day function. We sensed that the team leader was tightly wound-up and a bit too goal-oriented at the cost of everything else. This was not allowing his team to align with his objective of increasing sales. So, we created an activity during the coaching session which needed the team leader and teams to sing together with appropriate actions and gestures. The team was very involved while singing and there was high energy and enthusiasm in the group. Witnessing his team transforming before his eyes, the leader said, “I think I need to ease off rather than keep the team under pressure. The ease will automatically energize the team to deliver results.”
This was the right “tharunam”, or, as it is called in Greek philosophy, the right “kairos”. In Greek philosophy, “chronos” refers to quantitative time, like the time measured on a clock. “Kairos” is qualitative time, signifying an opportune moment or “right time” for action, the perfect moment to act, just like “tharunam”. In this case, we had found the “kairos”, that moment of realization. I felt positive that from then onwards, this leader would manage his team differently. No amount of talking or checking how he managed time would have brought this change.
Once I had a conversation with an organization’s vice president of quality assurance. He used to be the organizational representative in coaching along with me. At every coaching session, he had wonderful insights which would save the organization a ton of money. I asked him how he was able to gain such insights, and he replied, “I don’t get such deep insights while at work. It happens when the team and I are in sync during the coaching sessions, at that right moment.”
Coordination is the Key
The key, therefore, for effective organizational time management is that each person must be in harmony with himself/herself and in harmony with the team. This kind of harmony along with managing the time on the clock, will allow an organization to capitalize on the right moments. Actions and strategies planned during such times will help gain mileage in the market.
In essence, it is not a question of how much time but of how willing, how aligned the coordination is, and what the right moment is that will decide the organizational time management and growth of an organization.
NOTE: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Emeritus.
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