Fons Trompenaars - Dimensions - 6. Sequential Vs. Synchronic (Do We Do Things One at A Time or Several Things at Once?)

6. Sequential Vs. Synchronic (Do We Do Things One At A Time or Several Things At Once?)

This dimension deals with the question of how people in different cultures manage time. Therefore Trompenaars defines in this dimension two ways of managing time. For him there is a sequential and a synchronic way to manage time.

Managing time sequentially means that people feel time as a series of passing events. A sequential person has crucial path worked out in advance with times for the completion of each stage. People with this kind of understanding time hate to be thrown off their schedule or agenda by unanticipated events. They tend to schedule very tightly, with thin divisions between time slots. For them it is rude to be few minutes late because the whole day’s schedule is affected. Time is seen as a commodity to be used up. Lateness deprives the other of precious minutes, like ¤"time is money.

For synchronic time management events have a past, present and future, which is interrelated, so that ideas about the future and memories of the past shape present action. People who are adopting this method tracking various activities in parallel like a juggler with six balls in the air. Looking at the various activities, someone in a synchronic time management culture, has a final activity seen as goal and possibly interchangeable stepping-stones to reach it. A person is able to skip between these stones. Additionally, a synchronic person, who is not been greeted spontaneously, even if the person is still doing an activity (e.g. talking an the telephone), is a slight. People in this kind of culture, showing how they value people by giving them time, even if they shown up unexpectedly. Synchronic people are, in contrast to sequential ones, less insistent upon punctuality. The passage of time is not unimportant, but it is often necessary to give time to people with whom they have a particular relation. Synchronic or polychronic styles are extraordinary, especially for those who are unused to these methods. As well, people who are doing more than one thing at a time, like a synchronic adoption one, insult those who do only one thing at a time, and the other way round.

Further Trompenaars says that people creating instruments to measure time, how they shape their experience of it. The experience of time means that people consider a past event now, or envision a future event. Past, Present and Future are compressed. Time is hereby not mentioned to individuals but to whole groups or cultures.

The last important difference is the attitude of the culture to the environment.