Timeliness in the I.T. World
This week’s cross cultural training blog post is about punctuality, timeliness, call it what you will, when working cross-culturally. I have to write about this topic this week because, simply put, few things will cause more frustration when working in a diverse workplace, or internationally for that matter, then how different cultures deal with the idea of being “on time”.
I’ve chosen to focus in more on the world of I.T. in this case because it tends to be a universe unto itself, filled with timeliness deadlines, last-minute crunches and the need to get something released…now!
When I started learning Spanish in high school, I was taught that the word ahora roughly translated to “now” in English. Further to that, supposedly the word ahorita was supposed to mean “right now” in English.
Yeah, right.
Once I had lived for a few months in Latin America I truly began to understand what ahorita meant. It meant “right now”, but it also meant, “a little while ago”, and “in a few minutes” and sometimes, it occasionally meant, “at an as yet undetermined time tomorrow”.
Wow. All that, in one little word? Well, yes.
You see, learning a language and the equivalent expression in your own language is a great starting point to working with diverse groups, or working internationally, but until you truly understand the subtle cultural differences that a certain expression or saying brings with it, you may be frustrated.
Very, very frustrated. Especially if you work in I.T. And you have operations or satellite offices in Latin America.
And when you ask when they’ll be ready to launch a new platform and they tell you, “ahorita.”
Now, if you have some idea of what timeliness means in Latin America, you can plan for these eventualities and work with them, or at least around them. If you don’t, and you transliterate the word to mean, “right now”, you will find it shockingly difficult to hit your roll-out targets and offer the service you want to the customer. But when you take a step back, understand the cultural history that comes with certain concepts like being on time and prepare strategies for dealing with it, then you have a better chance of being successful.
And that’s what Solve the Culture Puzzle! is all about.
