A MANAGER''S TIME

In America, we assume that when a person is sitting quietly they aren't doing anything very important." How can we expect people to learn when they have little time to think and reflect,

A MANAGER'S TIME

H O W D O M A N AG E RS C R EA T E T H E

T I M E F O R L E A R N I N G ?

At one of our recent Leadership and Mastery programs, I talked to a

manager who was born and raised in India, and who has worked in

both United States and Japanese firms She said that when a person in

a Japanese firm sits quietly, no one will come and interrupt It is

assumed that the person is thinking On the other hand, when the

person is up and moving about, coworkers feel free to interrupt

"Isn't it interesting," she said, "that it is exactly the opposite in

American firms? In America, we assume that when a person is sitting

quietly they aren't doing anything very important."

How can we expect people to learn when they have little time to

think and reflect, individually and collaboratively? I know of few

managers who do not complain of not having enough time Indeed,

most of the managers with whom I have worked struggle unceasingly to

get the time for quiet reflection Could this be a cultural norm that we

take for granted—the incessant "busyness" of our daily lives?

Donald Schon, in his book The Reflective Practitioner, points out that

the drive for instant action appears to come from public school

classroom learning, where teachers are bound by a bureaucratic

or-ganization that discourages time to reflect "If the teacher must

somehow manage the work of thirty students in a classroom, how

can she really listen to any one of them?" Thus, in the schoolroom,

learning becomes synonymous with absorbing information dished

out by an "expert," and everyone, both student and teacher, moves

as quickly as possible so as to absorb as much as possible.1

In an organization, the manager is the "expert." If there is no

authority figure to turn to, then successful professionals (according

to Schon) must develop the capacity to work in continuous cycles of

pausing to develop hypotheses, acting, and pausing to reflect on the

results Schon calls this "reflection-in-action" and talks about it as a

characteristic of professionals who are successful learners "Phrases

like 'thinking on your feet,' 'keeping your wits about you,' and

'learning by doing,' " he wrote, "suggest not only that we can think

about doing but that we can think about doing something while doing

it."

But many American managers are too busy running to "think on

their feet." For most of us our internal pictures about the nature of

our work say that activity is good, that a manager's job is to keep

things moving Hanover's Bill O'Brien calls this the "chain gang"

model of management: "Most managers seem to think of themselves

like the boss of the chain gang: 'the speed of the boss sets the speed of

the gang.' "

It is easy to blame this incessant activity and lack of time for

reflection on organizational pressures but research is beginning to

suggest otherwise We have conducted numerous experiments, as

part of research in developing managerial microworlds (Chapter 17), to

study managers' learning habits Surprisingly, these experiments show

that even when there is ample time for reflection and the facility for

retrieving all manner of relevant information (in the form of a

computer-based simulation, in which the managers play out their

real-life roles), most managers do not reflect carefully on their actions

Typically, managers in the experiments adopt a strategy, then as soon

as the strategy starts to run into problems, they switch to another

strategy, then to another and another In a simulated four-year

exercise, managers may run through three to six different strategies,

without once examining why a strategy seems to be failing or

articulating specifically what they hope to accomplish through a

change in strategy.2 Apparently, the "ready, fire, aim" atmosphere of

American corporations has been fully assimilated and internalized by

those who live in that atmosphere

Learning takes time When an individual is managing mental

models, for example, it takes considerable time to surface

assump-tions, examine their consistency and accuracy, and see how different

models can be knit together into more systemic perspectives on

im-portant problems

The management of time and attention is an area where top

man-agement has a significant influence, not by edict but by example For

instance, O'Brien simply doesn't schedule short meetings "If it isn't a

subject that is worthy of an hour, it shouldn't be on my calendar." In a

well-designed organization, the only issues that should reach a senior

manager's atteufion^should be complex, dilemma-like "divergent"

issues These are the issues that require the thought and experience of

the most senior people, in addition to the input of less experienced

people If top managers are handling twenty problems in a workday,

either they are spending too much time on "convergent" problems that

should be dealt with more locally in the organization, or they are

giving insufficient time to complex problems Either way, it is a sign

that management work is being handled poorly "It's a big year for

me," O'Brien adds, "if I make twelve decisions I may pick someone

to report directly to me I may set a direction But my job is not

consumed with making many decisions It is consumed with

identifying important issues the organization must address in the

future, helping others sort through decisions they must make, and the

overarching tasks of organizational design" (see Chapter 18 on the

design functions of leadership)

The principle is simple to say and understand, but it's not the way

most organizations operate Instead, people at the top continually

make decisions on issues such as how to run a promotion—as

op-posed to why they need to run promotions at all Or they discuss

how to make a sale to a particular customer—instead of inquiring

about how their products serve the customers' expressed and latent

needs in general

On the other hand, as the basic learning disciplines start to become

assimilated into an organization, a different view of managerial work

will develop Action will still be critical, but incisive action will not be

confused with incessant activity There will be time for reflection,

conceptualizing, and examining complex issues

No one knows how much time managers in future organizations

will spend reflecting, modeling, and designing learner processes But it

will be a great deal more than was spent in the past Ed Simon at

Herman Miller has asked his management team to commit 25 percent of

their work time to what he calls "learning the work of organizational

architects." During the past year, the team has devoted itself to

mastering the "reflection and inquiry" skills integral to the discipline of

"mental models," and applying these skills to their most strategic

issues He said that this time commitment is necessary because

although there is much to be learned about the "new work" of

managers and leaders, "We know enough that we can get started."

One useful starting point for all managers is to look at their time for

thinking If it isn't adequate, why not? Are work pressures keeping us

from taking the time, or, to some degree, are we doing it to ourselves?

Either way, where is the leverage for change? For some people, it may

involve changing personal habits Others may need to soften or deflect

the organization's demands for incessant "busyness." The way each of

us and each of our close colleagues go about managing our own time

will say a good deal about our commitment to learning