The Tension of Time and Culture

We are all busy. I’m not just saying that: when you ask leaders what they need the most, ‘time’ is typically the top response. People have no difficulty articulating what they would do with this time should they have it (generally they describe activities of learning, or supporting others – very few say they would put their feet up with a cuppa), and nor do have any trouble articulating what their Organisation loses by lacking it (lacks time to really figure things out, becomes breathless through constant firefighting, is unable to ‘invest’ in the community, fails to experiment effectively etc).

So why is this so hard? Perhaps we can consider it in terms of the direct impact of time, alongside the influence of culture. Put simply, some cultures are busy because it has become normalised to be busy. It is the exception to have the space and time we desire, and perhaps need.

Just consider this: when was the last time that one of your colleagues turned to you on a Thursday afternoon and said “Well thats it, my works is done” and put their feet up with a magazine for the remaining 1.5 days? And if they did so, how would we judge them? What if they were a top performer?

This sounds a little as if i’m laying the blame with us as individuals, but it goes further.

When was the last time you were specifically tasked to create a list of things that you can just stop doing?

Organisations tend to be really good at creating stuff, layering things on top of each other, creating matrices of structure, power, purpose, and control. And very bad and dis-engineering these things. They are better at constructing than reconstituting.

Sure, Organisations can change, but it’s often an act of violence to do so.

We end up with people too busy to think, and Organisations too busy to change – and yet everyone wants the same thing – to be effective, creative, dynamic, agile, responsive, and not to be so exhausted.

In my own work i think this speaks to the fundamental design of the Organisations that we need: no longer purely structural and kinetic, but increasingly deliberative, dynamic, reconfigurable to need. Which they cannot be if they are too busy to think – or too culturally constrained to share their ideas.

#WorkingOutLoud on the Socially Dynamic Organisation