“Time is money… or is it something else?”. Our thinking starts from this question. Actually, this sort of maxim – “time is money” – is more and more frequently heard within organizations, sometimes whispered, sometimes screamed, sometimes unsaid, but all the same present in the day by day working. Winning in the time-based competition has become in recent years such a strong need fro any firm, that it has often been forced to lose the sense of time and, consequently, its power to introduce innovative business ideas suitable for the market. As a result, time has been more and more interpreted as a frenetic constraint that leads to confuse the meanings of haste and quickness. Doing do, it is easy to forget that it is not important to run, but to arrive on time, and that in order to arrive on time one needs only to leave at the proper hour, taking into account the quickness organization is able to express. In such a context, the routine is stronger and stronger and becomes a priority, wrapping the attitude to think in an anxiety spiral that smoothers any creative potential. Slowness is seen as a waste of time and, obviously, as the opposite of value creation. Thus, it is immediately forgotten that creativity arises only from a slow use of time, from a time lived in a way that makes it possible to combine work with play and study, i.e., a time that keeps moments for the creative leisure. But haste and slowness are not so easily defined: it is possible to find, in fact, both good haste and bad slowness. Therefore, getting the right blend between haste and slowness in the business activities should become a goal for any organization that aims at being and remaining competitive in the market.
Time and Business: towards Leisure Time
BACCARANI, Claudio
2005-01-01
Abstract
“Time is money… or is it something else?”. Our thinking starts from this question. Actually, this sort of maxim – “time is money” – is more and more frequently heard within organizations, sometimes whispered, sometimes screamed, sometimes unsaid, but all the same present in the day by day working. Winning in the time-based competition has become in recent years such a strong need fro any firm, that it has often been forced to lose the sense of time and, consequently, its power to introduce innovative business ideas suitable for the market. As a result, time has been more and more interpreted as a frenetic constraint that leads to confuse the meanings of haste and quickness. Doing do, it is easy to forget that it is not important to run, but to arrive on time, and that in order to arrive on time one needs only to leave at the proper hour, taking into account the quickness organization is able to express. In such a context, the routine is stronger and stronger and becomes a priority, wrapping the attitude to think in an anxiety spiral that smoothers any creative potential. Slowness is seen as a waste of time and, obviously, as the opposite of value creation. Thus, it is immediately forgotten that creativity arises only from a slow use of time, from a time lived in a way that makes it possible to combine work with play and study, i.e., a time that keeps moments for the creative leisure. But haste and slowness are not so easily defined: it is possible to find, in fact, both good haste and bad slowness. Therefore, getting the right blend between haste and slowness in the business activities should become a goal for any organization that aims at being and remaining competitive in the market.
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