By Dr. Martin M. Lwanga
Mr. Kasoma was not happy with his performance as Managing Director of a cosmetic firm and the general state of his life. A hard worker, he had been staying late in the office attending all manner of work-related meetings and finishing up minor tasks. But one day, early in the year, Mr. Kasoma woke up sweating feverishly and feeling chest pains. Immediately, he decided to check himself in a clinic run by a Chinese doctor famed for using unconventional medicine.
At the clinic, Dr. Hong after taking some routine tests, sat Mr. Kasoma down and asked him about his life. “So, how many hours have you been putting in at the office lately,” asked the doctor. “Probably 70 hours a week,” answered Kasoma with a nod of pride. “I am always needed at the office and a lot of things cannot go on without me.”
“Ok,” the doctor looked firmly in Mr Kasoma’s eyes. “Go and write down what you want to get out of your life. This should give you a set of your priorities. Then look at last month and see if the way you spend your time tallies with your priorities. Mr. Kasoma was surprised at this kind of prescription for his heart condition. Nonetheless, that evening he sat down and reflected over what he wanted to get out life.
Much as a happy family life was the most important goal of his life, his family members were now strangers due to hardly any time for any. Then at work instead of concentrating on his mandated strategic goal of leading the company into new geographic areas most of his time had been spent attending long meetings on operational issues.
By the time he got back to the doctor he had a sense of idea what was wrong with his life. Although he was working himself to death he was not meeting his goals and simply because he had not clearly identified his priorities.
“Managing time,” the Chinese doctor told him, “is not how much you work and how many things you clear off your to-do-list in the day. It is first and foremost about having a vision. That vision should give you a set of priorities.”
Three styles of Managing Time
In order to understand Mr. Kasoma’s challenge we need to first appreciate three different styles of time management. These as practiced by many people are: event driven, task –driven and vision-led time- management styles.
Event – driven
Many observers from the West have often regarded Africa and less developed parts of the world as places with low value on time. These observers often fail to note that it is the nature of time – keeping revered in such places. Here, time revolves around events rather than tasks. Even today in most rural setting one finds a function lasting an entire day with no particular attention to the exact time. What matters is not accomplishing the task but the process.
Now, people who keep this kind of time are generally good in people relations. They of course suffer when it comes to deadlines and in working environment they can be easily labeled as non-performers.
Task – driven
In the modern world what counts most is the accomplishment of tasks. This type of time keeping hails direct from the Eurocentric world where tasks are time bound. Those who adapt to it can do very well in high –pressured work environments as they tick off –to-do tasks by the hour.
The downside is that this style emphasizes tasks over relations. Besides, a person can easily wear himself out by merely ticking off things without ordering life around treasured priorities. The manager here becomes more or less a treadmill, a robotic time – machine that churns out to –do lists by the seconds. People here are generally very efficient but can suffer form high stress and poor staff relations.
Vision Driven
The short comings of the above time-keeping styles have led to a new movement that believes time keeping should be based on one’s vision for his life. The vision of your life should order you: determine your proprieties and time should be spent accordingly. For Mr. Kasoma, while he is a very good task-driven time manager, the advice he is receiving is that he needs to first sort out his vision for his life.
In the end it is not how many meetings he attends in a day but which type of meetings. If the family is a high priority on his list then he has to give it appropriate time and not just the job. If it is health then it must feature prominently on his list.
Question.
- Contrast the different styles of time manage and show which would be the most effective for today’s managers.
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