It is often asserted that life is a journey, not a destination. In
other words, the process of learning as a group is often more instructive
than a review of an individual or even a collective final product. One of
the most instructive aspects of working as a team is the ability to observe
and critically evaluate different time management strategies over the
course of the learning process. To do so is particularly critical in the
world of business, particularly businesses the embrace individuals from a
For instance, different cultural contexts have different approaches
towards time and time management. It has been anecdotally as well as
anthropologically observed that some cultures (such as France and Italy)
have a very diffuse attitude towards punctuality, where one's individual
relational and immediate social contextual needs often surmount the desire
to meet specific time goals. Thus,"˜10am' can mean anytime from 9:45 to
10:30. Other, more punctual cultures, such as our own are much more
focused on the goal of meeting at specific hours. One recent immigrant to
America commented "the Yellow Pages were something brand new for me when I
first arrived in the U.S. I still had the habit of going to a store only to
find out that it didn't have what I needed. My wife used to ask, Didn't
you call before going there'' The notion of calling ahead of time requires
planning and a future orientation, where my upbringing was in a present-
Even within the U.S., of course, Northeasterners are supposed to be
much more obsessed with meeting specific time limits and conforming to
specific strictures than those from the West Coast and South. Even within
our own team variations in temporal attitudes were observed.
Peak and valley performance and times
This does not mean that one attitude towards time management is
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