Punctuality Pays When You Work With Americans

By Karine Schomer, Change Management Consulting & Training, LLC

Of all the cultural differences that tend to irritate Americans, one of the most fundamental has to do with attitudes and behaviors around time, appointments and punctuality.  Getting ahead at work starts with getting to work on time!

If you come from a culture that has a more relaxed view of time, you’re likely to be surprised at how time-obsessed Americans are. While not all Americans are punctual all the time, the society as a whole operates is on the basis of well-defined schedules. This is true in personal and community life as well as in U.S. business culture. If you disrupt even a small part of the schedule, there’s an impact way beyond the immediate meeting or deadline.

Here’s a real-life story that happened to me recently. I had scheduled a phone conference with a team from India, but had somehow forgotten to log it into my schedule. Arriving at my office 30 minutes after the time for the call, I found a voice message telling me the team was on the phone waiting for me. Mortified that I had missed the appointment, I called in, and found them happily chatting together. Their attitude was “Ah! You’re here! We can start now!”

If the team had been American, it’s likely they would have been annoyed, and unlikely they would have waited more than 10 minutes - at the most. They would have left me a message asking to reschedule the phone conference. Why? Because American-style appointments have a firm end as well as start time, and if you start late you won’t to be able to complete the business at hand without running beyond the scheduled ending time.

I’ve seen dramatic improvements in interactions between Indian and American team members when the differing expectations about time are openly discussed, and agreements are reached about what time protocols to follow in different situations.

In the meantime, if you’re new to working in the United States, doing business with the U.S., or working for an American company overseas, here are five tips for your everyday behavior around appointments and punctuality that are sure to help you get ahead with your American colleagues:

1. Schedule meetings and appointments in advance - a few days, a week, even a month in advance. Your American colleagues will appreciate this kind of advance planning on your part.
2. Always make appointments for in-person meetings. Don’t just show up and expect people to make time to talk with you.
3. Schedule phone calls as well as in person meetings. Do this by email or voice mail.  Don’t leave multiple “I’m trying to reach you” voice messages or get into unnecessary “telephone tag”.
4. If you think you’re going to be more than a few minutes late for any appointment (in person or phone), call and let the other party know you’re running late.
5. Plan your own time so that you can be consistent in following through on the advance appointments you have made. Avoid changing plans at the last minute. 

Dr. Karine Schomer is a regular contributor for MeltingSpot.  She is president of Change Management Consulting & Training, LLC and leads their India Practice. Karine is a cross-cultural expert specializing in India-US business culture training and team building.  She has extensive experience in the U.S., India and Europe, and is trilingual in English, Hindi and French. In her articles, Karine supplies the necessary know-how for individuals hailing from other countries on how to adapt to American workplace culture and be effective with their American counterparts. She has been a University of California-Berkeley professor, dean at Golden Gate University, and Chief Operating Officer of the California Institute of Integral Studies. Since 1997 she has helped companies in IT and other industries in Silicon Valley and elsewhere address region-specific cultural awareness, adaptation, communication and teamwork issues, including in the offshore outsourcing context. She is the author of “Working with Americans: Cross-Cultural Awareness and Business Skills”, a unique self-paced online training program for professionals, managers and students from other countries. She can be contacted at schomer@cmct.net.