By Caroline M. Cole

Colleagues walking into a meeting mid-discussion. Classmates strolling into a lecture in progress. Patrons looking for a seat once the movie or performance has begun. Patients checking in after scheduled appointments. Guests showing up as others are being served. Candidates arriving after an interview’s scheduled start time. Passengers boarding as pilots are preparing to push back from the gate. People texting that they are en route or “only 10 minutes away,” five or more minutes after they were supposed to have been there. Whatever the case, tardiness seems to be increasingly the rule, prompting different reactions from the parties involved. For example, some who are left waiting opt to ignore the behavior and redirect their attention to other people or matters; others, trying to help the belated party save face, dismiss the delay as “no big deal.” Some people confront latecomers in private, one-on-one conversations, while some call them out in a public shaming. And some just quietly fume, unsure of how or if to respond at all.

Those who are late also offer a range of responses. Embarrassed by their tardiness and any resulting disruption or inconvenience, many who are late sheepishly apologize, perhaps several times. Others dismiss their belated arrival as being fashionably late, and some nonchalantly admit they have a chronic inability to show up anywhere as scheduled.

Whatever the response, tardiness transmits messages—some of which may be inadvertently undermining the images we aim to project. Recognizing that some people use arrival times to gauge others’ or to establish their own character, this discussion examines how punctuality—however it may be defined by a culture—can be used to enhance a reputation.

From the Latin root punctum, meaning point or dot, the word “punctual” means arriving or fulfilling an obligation on or by the designated time, as conveyed in the expression “…on the dot.” Yet while punctuality is often called a virtue, connections between a person’s arrival and moral character is a relatively new phenomenon. Equally importantly is that it is a fluid, context-specific concept. As such, an awareness of punctuality’s origins and subsequent applications can help us make better decisions about how to meet this expectation in ways that serve all parties.

In A Geography of Time, Robert Levine, professor at California State University–Fresno, traces the way civilization learned to define, track and, ultimately, harness units of time. For example, whereas changes in climate conditions and celestial bodies allowed people to mark off seasons and months, sundials and shadow clocks made it possible to measure days, albeit erratically given that these methods were useless during inclement weather and at night. The advent of the water clock addressed this problem by allowing people to measure time by reading water levels as the water passed through a hole in a container. In addition to providing a more accurate and consistent measure of time than earlier devices, these water clocks (a precursor to hour glasses using sand) introduced opportunities to link time, activity and, for some, money.

Early court systems, for example, used water clocks to regulate the time each lawyer could speak. Noting that time was money in ancient Rome, Levine explains that lawyers would often ask judges “to grant water” (aquam dare)—that is, add water to the clock—so they would have more time to present their client’s case; those who lost water (aquam perdere), on the other hand, were said to be wasting time. Monasteries also used hour glasses to know when to sound bells that would mark hours for prayers and work, setting the stage for bells to ring at designated times throughout the day in both factories and schools.

Drawing upon Galileo’s work that connected pendulums and periods of oscillation, the first pendulum clock emerged in the early 1700s, enhancing both the accuracy in and divisions of time measurement. And as systems for marking days, hours, minutes, and seconds became more sophisticated, the connections to time became more personal. Time moved from clock towers in a public square, to grandfather clocks in a home, to timepieces in a pocket, to watches on a wrist. Yet despite the growing number of ways people were learning to mark off time, promptness was never a consideration because, as Levine writes, every community kept its own time, making it difficult if not impossible to synchronize events beyond a given area—that is, until the Industrial Revolution, which required a greater coordination of activities within and across space.

Levine credits the railway system for leading the way in standardizing time, because it needed common time tables to transport materials efficiently to stations that were, at first, running on different local times. Although standardizing railway times helped regulate manufacturing schedules and, ultimately, laid the foundation for an international time zone system, in the immediate future it helped connect concepts of time, efficiency, virtue, and success.

Consider, for example, the advertisements for time clocks that were being developed and marketed to factories as a way to “save money, enforce discipline and add to the productive time.” According to Levine, an 1891 advertisement for the Electric Signal Clock Company read: “If there is one virtue that should be cultivated more than any other by him who would succeed in life, it is punctuality: if there is one error to be avoided, it is being behind time.” The Blodgett Clock Company’s 1896 catalog copy echoed this sentiment, claiming that “order, promptness and regularity are cardinal principles to impress on the minds of young people.”

If linking punctuality to virtue did not work, there was always the possibility of linking tardiness to vice. One time clock manufacturer’s ad copy claimed that “there is nothing so fatal to the discipline of the plant… nor so disastrous to its smooth and profitable working as to have a body of men irregular in appearance, who come late and go out at odd times” and that time recorders were a way to “weed out these undesirables.” In such context, Levine writes, “the latecomer was characterized as a social inferior and, in some cases, a moral incompetent.”

Pocket watch and wristwatch manufacturers capitalized on the punctuality-as-a-virtue mindset, sometimes by linking their products to the new time-attentive railway system, as evident in the copy of a 1916 advertisement by the Hamilton Watch company, the “Railroad Timekeeper of America,” with the headline “Too Late!”:

There are certain types of men who haven’t much respect for Time. Time is nothing in the life of the tramp. Men of little character, wasters and dreamers rather pride themselves on their content of Time. Sooner or later, that ghostly, implacable hand reaches out and turns them back.

Any watch will do for the man who is content to drift in a few minutes late, but what a gap there is between him and the man who has disciplined himself to keep track of the seconds!

The Hamilton Watch is known as the Railroad Timekeeper of America. That title was honestly earned. Time is everything to a railroad man. To him, the words, “too late,” are ominous. They mean to him failure, danger, death. A railroad man is required to own an accurate watch. If his watch loses a certain number of seconds a month, it means buy a new watch or get a new job. …Hamilton Watches are as thin and beautiful as you could possibly desire. But after all, a watch is not a trinket to be selected for its looks. A fine watch is a wonderful instrument and must be judged solely by its performance and accurate measuring of time.”

Marketing its products to the hard-working, disciplined and, sometimes, stylish members of a now-industrialized society, Hamilton Watch reinforced ideas that time-sensitive individuals were the foundation of the new economy. Yet Hamilton Watch also set its sights on the next generation of those moving into the system, the college graduate, as seen in the copy a 1917 advertisement:

Ivied walls, venerable elms, a song drifting from an open dormitory window. As enduring as this haunting, life-long charm of campus memories are the gold watches [that were] recently presented to six Yale men for distinguished and loyal management of class affairs since their graduation.

The memento deemed worthy of symbolizing this high esteem of their classmates was a Hamilton Watch, “The Watch of Railroad Accuracy.”

In the years that followed, Hamilton Watch promoted versions of this message—occasionally expanding it’s pitch to include females—and in little over a decade, time and money were intimately intertwined, as evident in its 1930 advertisement headlined “Minutes mean Money!”:

“What time have you?” We asked the men about to board the famous limited. It seemed a silly question. There was a big clock in the station to which they could refer. And yet as the parade of prosperous, well-groomed, successful men passed through the gate, one after the other obligingly pulled out his watch.

54 out of the 59 had either exact time or were within a scant 30 seconds of it. Obviously they were men whose minutes meant money.

We don’t imply that carrying an accurate watch will bring a man success. But it is significant that successful men are accuracy-minded.

Today, watches are increasingly replaced by the clocks on a smart phone or some other digital device, but connections to earlier views of punctuality remain. One need only consider the myriad software programs and applications that not only keep track of activities, appointments, and various deadlines, but that text, flash, ping, or otherwise alert us when those commitments are drawing near. Yet even in a world that continually reminds us of where we need to be at any given time, punctuality remains a slippery concept.

One reason may be found in the challenges the railways had trying to coordinate train schedules at the turn of the last century: people need to synchronize values if they are to coordinate schedules. A related reason may be that efforts to become a more global community provide more opportunities for members of monochromatic and polychromatic cultures to interact and, at times, clash.

In his 1983 study The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time, anthropologist Edward T. Hall describes how different societies view and structure time. According to Hall, low-context, task-oriented cultures (often found in Northern European and western countries) are monochromatic; these cultures emphasize promptness in ways that encourage its members to assess and schedule demands, focus on one thing at a time, and complete the task at hand. In contrast, high-context cultures that are “oriented toward people, human relationships and the family” are polychromatic; more common in the Mediterranean and in Latin America, these cultures view time as fluid, subordinating schedules to interpersonal relationships.

Some people criticize the subjective aspects of Hall’s work, but traces of his observations appear in the punctuality protocols that Terri Morrison, Wayne A. Conaway and George A. Borden address in Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries. For example, the authors note that Asian countries expect people to be on time. In Japan, punctuality is expected at all times. In China, lateness and cancellations are a serious affront. In Singapore, being late is considered insulting and impolite. In Hong Kong, punctuality demonstrates respect and, as such, is considered a virtue. In South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, punctuality is considered courteous and good business. And while Asian countries may tolerate higher ranking individuals making subordinate individuals wait—often to demonstrate their own status—the expectation is for people to be prompt for business and social engagements.

Most European nations also value promptness. According to the authors, Germany is the most stringent country in the world regarding punctuality—noting that arriving just 2–3 minutes late can be insulting—but other nations also value promptness. Scandinavian countries, viewing tardiness as a sign of disrespect, expect punctuality for all business appointments and social engagement. Englanders expect punctuality (even in high traffic areas, such as London), as do people throughout Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, and Italy.

Not all European countries, however, uphold monochromatic punctuality protocols. For instance, the authors observe that promptness does not seem to be a high priority in Belarus, Poland, Russia, and some other Eastern European countries perhaps, they suggest, because communist rule guaranteed people’s employment regardless of whether they were on time; in fact, the authors say that Russians may be one or two hours late for appointments, considering patience, rather than punctuality, a greater virtue.

Similarly, punctuality is not necessarily considered a virtue in many Middle Eastern countries, and supplicants—which include foreigners doing business—are often kept waiting. Therefore, the authors advise that visitors to Saudi Arabia be prompt, but they should also be prepared that the person they are meeting may be late or never show up at all. The same practices are evident in Israel, unless people have adopted more Western attitudes toward punctuality.

Latin American countries, the authors observe, tend to have the most fluid view of schedules—for both visitors and native residents—though what constitutes punctuality depends on the nature of the event and the participants. Business meetings, for example, expect foreigners to be punctual, even though residents of the country may not adhere to the same standards; those native to the country may be 15–30 minutes late and still consider themselves on time. Social occasions, on the other hand, assume visiting and native attendees will arrive later than the specified time.

While Morrison and her co-authors document variations in punctuality around the world, tardiness can be viewed differently even within a single culture, depending on the occasion. In the United States, for instance, conventional punctuality guidelines suggest that people arrive 10–15 minutes early for events where those in attendance are to be seated or otherwise on hand when the event starts, such as performances, weddings, graduations, surprise parties, funerals and memorial services; they should arrive on time for brunches and luncheons, bridal and baby showers, and dinner parties; and they should arrive within 5–10 minutes of the designated start time for informal receptions and social gatherings.

Punctuality may be a virtue but, as these discussions suggest, the standards for determining what constitutes “punctual” are relative to context and participants. Therefore, the only thing we may be able to say with certainty is that adopting a one-size-fits-all approach in our arrivals can transmit messages we don’t intend about the people we are scheduled to meet, and about ourselves. As such, the first step to developing and enhancing a reputation on the grounds of promptness is to identify the context in which we are to scheduled to appear and the ways punctuality is viewed in that context by others with whom we plan to connect. With that understanding, we can then adjust our arrivals to accommodate their views of punctuality.

In doing so, we can establish and develop our reputation by conveying our:

• Respect. Arriving on time—as defined by the given context and its participants—demonstrates our awareness of and respect for others’ time. Even in cases where someone may not be specifically waiting on us (for example, a performance or a lecture), “making an entrance” redirects attention away from the occasion and onto our arrival as we try to situate ourselves and, depending on the occasion, ask others to bring us up to date on what has transpired. By being punctual, we can minimize disruptions and indicate we recognize the value of everyone’s time.

• Time management capabilities. Time is the great equalizer, giving us all 24-hours a day to accomplish what we consider important. The way we prioritize commitments to the people, organizations, and other endeavors in our lives says much about who and what we value; therefore, meeting people when and as expected shows that we consider them a priority.

• Reliability. Although emergencies arise, some things are not considered justifiable reason for being late: work distractions, losing track of time, forgetting, needing to grab lunch or use the restroom first, and traffic (unless someone is flying in and the delays originate in the airport). Some people would also add pets and children to the list, arguing that with regard to pets and children—as in all other cases—people should foresee potential delays and arrange their schedules accordingly. Granted, some things are impossible to predict and, in such cases, we should call or otherwise alert those who may be waiting as soon as we know that we will be late or otherwise unable to meet as scheduled. Even so, these moments should be the exception if we are to present ourselves as dependable.

Considering the ways punctuality conveys these characteristics, it is little wonder that people around the world view promptness as a sign of professionalism. All things being equal, then, punctual individuals may find themselves at a distinct advantage when others are considering whom to hire, promote, invite, or otherwise treat as a friend or ally in both industry and social contexts.

More importantly, though, is that arriving on time as defined by the given context demonstrates our willingness to be in sync with others, and it is for this reason alone that punctuality can be sufficient for establishing and building relationships that keep us in others’ esteem.

Working toward Areté…
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