The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures

by Erin Meyer

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall was one of the first researchers to explore differences in societal approaches to time. In The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time, Hall referred to monochronic (M-time) cultures and polychronic (P-time) cultures. M-time cultures view time as tangible and concrete: “We speak of time as being saved, spent, wasted, lost, made up, crawling, killing and running out. These metaphors must be taken seriously. M-time scheduling is used as a classification system that orders life. These rules apply to everything except death.”1 By contrast, P-time cultures take a flexible approach to time, involvement of people, and completion of transactions: “Appointments are not taken seriously and, as a consequence, are frequently broken as it is more likely to be considered a point rather than a ribbon in the road. . . . An Arab will say ‘I will see you before one hour’ or ‘I will see you after two days.’” In other words, a person who lives in P-time will suggest a general approximate meeting slot in the coming future without nailing down the exact moment that meeting will take place. When I worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana (a P-time culture), I used to feel puzzled that a local teacher at my school would tell me “I am coming now,” but twenty minutes later I would still be waiting with no sign of that person’s arrival. Later, I learned that if someone was actually coming right away, they would say “I am coming now, now.” That second “now” made ...

M-time vs P-time cultures.