IS TIME MANAGEMENT IS ESSENTIAL FOR EVERY

ORGANISATION AND IT’S MANAGER ?

We often listen that time is the essence of contracts.

Whether the Time is a big factor to higher the production and productivity.
Whether the Time is a essential ingredient to measure the efficiency of
employees. Is Time a one of the reason for a manager to become successful ?
And finally is it the root cause of profitability of an economical organization ?

There are number of questions in relation to Time Management. There is a

Anonymous that:

Rich or poor, beautiful or ugly --- we have all been allotted the
same quantum of time per day to use or to waste.

Many managers fail to become effective executives for just one reason. They are poor
managers of time. As Joe Batten keeps repeating in the film Manage Your Time, executives
keep working harder, but they could have and should have ‘worked smarter’. Most
executives know they face a problem on this front, so they read books, see films and attend
training programmes on time management. But while some among them change their old
ways, others seem to find it difficult to get rid of old habits and imbibe new ones.

Some executives do not even realize they have a problem and go on achieving results
disproportionate to the effort they had put in, and wonder why they never achieved what
they wanted.

Arjun, who was a purchase executive, as well as president of the Amateur Film Society in
the city, got so involved in the running of the society that he had little time to concentrate
on the job he was paid to do. He came to work late and left early; had no time to meet
suppliers or identify new or alternative sources; and was rightly bypassed twice for a
promotion to the next grade. He could not manage his time because he had the wrong
priorities – his priority was his hobby rather than his profession.

On the other side, Arun, was marketing manager of a large consumer product company. He
spent all his time writing or changing the ‘copy’ for advertisements designed by the agency.
He spent hours in meetings with the agency team, chopping and changing, much to the
annoyance and frustration of his own marketing director and the ad agency personnel.

Contd…2
 --2--

Arun had no time to really think of a marketing strategy, distribution problems, sales force
recruitment, training, coaching and motivation. Again, he had the wrong priorities-he spent
time on what he liked to do, rather than on what he needed to do.

Robin, senior manager with a large multinational company, felt that the more committees
he was included on, the more important he became. So he actively sought inclusion on
every conceivable committee. The result was that he spent so much time in meetings-many
of them useless from his point of view-that his branch managers and department staff found
it difficult to find time to communicate with him. Robin spent his time seeking intra-
corporate exposure and, consequently, could not find time for the ‘meat of his job’.

Most of the executives try to adopt all the standard techniques to manage time-setting
priorities; distinguishing between the urgent and the important; bunching jobs; blocking off
calls; allocating time to think and plan. But all this comes to nought if the executive is
unable to say ‘no’; and with a smile ! That way one not only saves time, but also keeps a
friend. Most of us are not able to do this. We are brusque when we say ‘ no’; or we are
pleasant and constrained to say ‘yes’.

I had gone to meet Sam, the marketing director of a large chemicals company, because we
were to have a meeting at 10 a.m. I reached a little early and was promptly taken to the
conference room. The two other participants were present. But the marketing director was
not. He came in at about 10:15, looking very apologetic. ‘Can you please give me another
15 minutes? He asked, ‘One of our biggest distributors from Bihar is in town and decided to
drop in to say “hello”. The bane of a courtesy visit! He had come in without an
appointment. There was nothing important to discuss. Yet, Sam could not muster the
courage to say he had an important meeting and couldn’t spend time with him. He could not
say ‘no’.

Shyam is the marketing manager of a large cement company. He is in the office till 8-8:30
p. m. every evening and returns to his distant suburban home at about 10 p. m. His
explanation is that cement dealers in the city are relatively free after 6:30 p. m., which is
when they come to see him about any problems they may have. Shyam has not yet sorted
out the truth for himself-whether they really come at that time because Shyam is available
or because that is a convenient time for them. Shyam has not been able to say ‘no’.

Some years ago in the US Walter Vieira (writer of “the winning manager”) wanted to
meet Theodore Levitt, a professor at Harvard University, to discuss some issues. Walter
Vieira was introduced to him by a common friend. Walter Vieira phoned to ask

Contd…..3
 --3--

Levitt if they could meet. Levitt asked Walter Vieira what it was about, and then asked
whether they could discuss it on the telephone right then. Levitt was very pleasant about it.
They talked for nearly half an hour and finished what needed to be done. Walter Vieira had
saved a trip to the college from Boston and he had saved time as well.

All salesmen can collect outstanding by using arm tactics, and lose a customer in the
process. This does not need any special skills. But a great salesman is one who can collect
outstandings while retaining the customer-by collecting with a smile.

In the same vein, a good executive is one who can say ‘no’ pleasantly, thus retaining
friendly and cordial relations and not allowing others to waste his time.

The executive’s ability to manage time is reflected to the outsider through many indicators:

• You telephone him and are told, I am sorry he is in a meeting!

• His secretary says he will call you back and he does not.
• You write to him and he replies after a month.
• You write a congratulations/ condolence letter; and he does’t acknowledge it at all
(may also be a reflection on his breeding and background).
• You go to meet him with an appointment and he calls you in 45 minutes after the
appointed time.
• His staff finds it difficult to spent time with him.
• His desk is piled with papers.
• There are always more than two people in his room talking to him about two
different matters, a conversation which is constantly interrupted by incoming
telephone calls.

A management expert provides us with a useful concept of ‘discretionary time’- the period
in which the manager exercises a choice over what he is doing. It is for the executive to
protect and even enlarge this discretionary time sector. And he can do this by preventing
time wasters:

• Over supervising or under supervising subordinates

• Starting job without first planning
• Scheduling less important work before more important work
• Leaving job half done
• Doing jobs which can be delegated to someone else or to a machine
 Contd….4
--4--

• Doing unproductive jobs or what is not a part of his real job

• Spending a disproportionate amount of time on areas of special interest
• Getting bogged down in too much paperwork
• Pursuing unachievable or low-yield projects
• Keeping an open door too open
• Failing to anticipate crisis
• Chasing trivial data when important data is already in
• Attending or conducting meetings which prolong unnecessarily
• Socializing too much between tasks
• Handling too wide a range of duties
• Never analyzing one’s own use of time

But there are other way to stretch discretionary time-by:

• Planning for the day

• Learning to skim reports and developing the ability for fast reading
• Being selective in reading journals
• Using the telephone to save writing
• Delegating all repetitive tasks
• Learning how to use idle time, even if it is brief moments
• Blocking out the quietest hours for creative work

It is such executives who have mastered the art of time management who seem to
get work done as well as enjoy themselves. They are the envy of the vast majority who just
look on and say – ‘ I wonder how he does it. Where does he find the time?’

Jamil a. perwez

Source: 51 steps to corporate success, news

paper, discussions with a student of 1994
batch of XLRI (Jamshedpur) and workshop on
TIME MANAGEMENT by Dr. Geeta
Saxena (Programme Director) XLRI,
Jamshedpur.