Prime
Why keeping time is vital in all businesses
While it is vital for us to keep time in all business and other activities we engage in, many Ugandans still behave as they wish. PHOTO BY SHUTTERSTOCK
What you need to know:
- Time is one resource that every person has in equal measure. All of us are gifted with 24 hours every day but while some do a lot with the time they have, other people have nothing to show for this time through out life. James Abola writes why it is vital for us to keep time.
I used to wonder why many Ugandans do not keep time even when they have watches until I read somewhere on Social Media that the main reason people wear watches is to impress those who are watching them.
Keeping time is the most basic management activity but it can prove very difficult and challenging. One time an organisation that had several young employees, hired me to facilitate a business and financial literacy course for their staff. We agreed on a schedule with the participants and embarked on the training but after three training none of the participants was reporting on time and our session of three hours was being cut down to half the duration. The next class I instituted a fine for late coming and immediately applied it to the late comers that day. The fine worked like a miracle, nobody ever came late again.
In mid-February a big public function that had both national and international guests was held in Uganda. The main part of the event started well and on time which in retrospect was a mistake because the guest of honour had not arrived. Hours later, the guest of honour arrived but with two other important guests.
Some of the organisers then walked to receive the guests and that is when they realised the big shot who had just come in was not the chief guest. Ten or so minutes later another car drove in with a second big shot who was not the guest of honour. It was 30 minutes after the function was interrupted that the chief guest arrived in a third convoy.
Evidently the guest of honour and the people who were in charge of his protocol paid more attention to appearing important than to the value of time. There are at least four reasons why people do not keep time.
Poor planning
The lack of prior planning often results in poor time keeping. I find that deciding on a simple thing like what outfit to wear the next day or which route to use before starting on a journey saves a lot of time that can be wasted in making last minute decision making also known as dilly dallying.
Related to prior planning, is the lack of appreciation of how much time is required to accomplish a particular task. When too little time is given to a task, then that will affect other tasks that are planned to happen later. For example, high speed has been cited as the cause of many road accidents because the driver did not allow for adequate time to complete the journey. Instead of starting the journey and arriving alive, many people start the journey late and arrive dead.
Lack of information
Having no information, little information or the wrong information can also contribute to poor time keeping. I recently made a journey that took four hours but five days later the same journey took more than five hours because I did not know that heavy rainfall had made the shorter route impassable and I had to add 100 km to the distance I was covering.
When you are on the waiting end of poor time keeping it is possible that you are a victim of lack of truthfulness on the part of the other person.
Value appreciation
The final reason for poor time keeping is lack of appreciation of the value of other people’s time. This is a rampant epidemic in Uganda and contributes to the loss of several million dollars in productivity.
I once got shocked out of my skin when the chairman of a meeting postponed it when members had gathered and even formed a quorum.
Time is money
The adage, time is money; only make sense when we make good use of our time and other people’s time. As a nation we have some serious perception as well as real problems related to time keeping. Most meetings and events in Uganda start at least an hour late because the participants add an hour’s delay to the stated time.
Before we can achieve Middle Income Status as a country, we need to have Operation Time Keeping.
In summary
Time is a resource many people, regardless of gender, race or tribe fail to manage. Most peole fail to keep time due to lack of prior planning.
Others fail to manage time because of having no information, little information or wrong information.
And finally, poor time keeping is as a result of lack of appreciation of the value of other people’s time.
