The Best Leaders Encourage Employees to Speak Their Minds

Understanding Time to Manage It Better

By Daniel Butcher

Time flies when you’re having fun or in the zone at work, but it crawls when you’re in pain or doing a boring task.

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Annals article on that topic with Karen Jansen of North Carolina State University, said that a key element of subjective time is people’s interpretation and perception of time itself.

“Working on the expense report, even 15 minutes probably feels like forever versus 15 minutes in a crisis situation feels like a blink of an eye,” Shipp said. “There are different ways in which we perceive time itself, the units of time, and that shapes how we structure our time.

“That could be things like deadlines—say you asked me, ‘Hey, can you get this to me by Thursday?’” she said. “That may seem like a very long deadline to you, but if I have a very busy week, maybe that feels like that’s way too soon.

“It has implications for how and when we work, especially how we work with each other.”

In Shipp’s and her colleagues’ research on different elements of subjective time, they looked at all the different ways in which people have studied time, and which aspects of it scientists haven’t studied. People who take time to examine how they perceive and interpret time may be able to improve their time management.

“We found was there are many gaps, both in how researchers and practitioners look at time,” Shipp said. “We found many ways in which you can better use your time if you think about it subjectively and not just objectively.”

A sample of Shipp’s AOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

Trade Tasks with Coworkers to Increase Meaningfulness

By Daniel Butcher

Many people want to be able to find meaning in their jobs, but fewer stop to take stock of their current roles and whether there’s anything that can be done to make them more meaningful.

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Annals article on that topic with Karen Jansen of North Carolina State University, said that too many of us don’t slow down enough to think about the meaning of time at work and how we spend it.

“I don’t think people often stop and reflect about, ‘Is what I’m doing at work meaningful to me?’—not what’s prioritized in my job or for somebody else, but rather, ‘Is what I’m doing in my work meaningful to me personally?’” Shipp said. “Particularly if I have some choice—‘I get to work on this project’ or ‘I get to do this volunteer opportunity’—those things are more or less meaningful to different people, so finding ways to increase those activities can shape how meaningful your job is and help you to move away from meaningless tasks.

“Maybe do reports at your low-energy time of day, but do the meaningful activities at the time when you’re most productive and can most take them in. Then your work feels more fulfilling because you’re really synchronizing those things,” she said. “You also can offshoot or delegate things that you don’t find meaningful—quite frankly, I’ve done this with colleagues—you trade or swap tasks with somebody that you work with; maybe they do find those things meaningful, and so we can do a swap of job activities.

“Maybe I join a committee because it gives me a lot of meaning and I love it but that you think is not very meaningful, and vice versa.”

A sample of Shipp’s AOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

Why Doing Meaningful Work Makes Time Fly

By Daniel Butcher

“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes; when you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours. That’s relativity.” —Albert Einstein

When people talk about time at work, they usually don’t think about subjective time, how we perceive time differently, for example, at work vs. on vacation, noted Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Annals article on that topic with Karen Jansen of Henley Business School.

“A key to understanding subjective time is thinking about how people interpret time itself—workers often ask themselves, ‘Is there meaning in what I’m doing? Where is this leading me?’” Shipp said. “Expense reports feel meaningless, and most people consider them to be a waste of time, as opposed to, ‘I worked on this big project—it’s going to save lives, for example, if you’re in the medical community.’

“So the same amount of time spent on one sort of task or project vs. another can feel different and have different meaning, and that interpretation of time is really important for how people think and feel about their job and career,” she said.

“Leaders need to consider this different view of time when engaging their teams.”

A sample of Shipp’s AOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

An Overlooked Challenge of RTO Mandates

By Daniel Butcher

It may be counterintuitive, but if leaders and managers are willing to be more flexible in how employees manage their own time, then they may get more productivity out of them. That goes against the grain as the U.S. federal government, tech giants including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, and financial-services titans including J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock have all issued return-to-office (RTO) mandates.

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Annals article on the how we experience time with Karen Jansen of North Carolina State University, said that the subjective nature of how we perceive time and the variance of which hours people are most productive at work are factors that contribute to the “square-peg-in-a-round hole” awkwardness of requiring employees to be in the office five days every week from nine to five.

“That’s why things like the return-to-office mandates can be challenging. Even things as simple as saying, ‘We’ll do a hybrid schedule, but you’ll need to be in the office during these hours on these days of the week; here’s when we’ll be back,’” Shipp said.

“That assumes that schedule works for everyone, and it’s hard to meet individual needs while you impose collective schedules,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t think about it; it means, in fact, we should think about it more–but it takes a lot of talent to do this.”

People appreciate flexibility

“First of all, we have to be aware that people need individual flexibility, so from a leadership perspective, we have to start asking employees, ‘What do you value? When do you like to work? What’s meaningful to you? What’s your background about time management?’” Shipp said.

“I don’t think a lot of leaders do that, because if they don’t know their own personal views and uses of time, they’re certainly not assuming that employees are different from them,” she said.

“My research would indicate that individuals could be very different about people’s scheduling preferences and time-management habits, yet leaders make those assumptions and never have them become explicit.”

A sample of Shipp’s AOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

There’s More than One Way to Manage Time Effectively

By Daniel Butcher

While managers often set rigid work schedules, to-do lists, and deadlines, more flexibility can enable workers to prioritize tasks in ways that help them manage their time more effectively.

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Annals article on the subjective experience of time with Karen Jansen of North Carolina State University, said that there’s no one-size-fits-all method of time management that’s effective for everyone.

“Our research on how people perceive and interpret time makes us stop and question fixed time-management suggestions: ‘Start your day in this way,’ or ‘Work at this pace and do these things,’ or ‘Here’s how you focus 100% of the time,’” Shipp said. “Those hacks can be great if you need them, but for some people, that’s not what they need.

“For many people, quite frankly, what we need is more thought into questions like, ‘What do I subjectively perceive about time, and where did I get my understanding of time?’” she said.

Shipp said that she began thinking about how work influences our perception of time when looking at her parents’ schedules, as well as her own early work experiences.

“My dad was a banker, so he had bankers’ hours, and then my very first job was at a government facility where we had to track our time to the 10th of an hour and charge it to different accounts, so I became really aware of time,” Shipp said. “It’s hard for me to step away from the office at three o’clock, because I think, ‘Nope, this time must be allocated in this way until after five o’clock.’

“When we start to question those socialization influences, we say, ‘Is this assumption about time helping me or is this harming me?’” she said. “That’s what subjective time brings in, the awareness of different ways to perceive the passage and meaning of time in concert with objective time: clocks, calendars, and schedules.

“If we think of time subjectively, we can better manage our time and our energy in ways that are fulfilling and productive, both for our work and for ourselves.”

A sample of Shipp’s AOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

The Mindfulness vs. Mindlessness Debate

By Daniel Butcher

Mindfulness—attention and awareness of experiences in the present moment—certainly has its benefits, but mindlessness—a mental state characterized by thoughts that are disconnected from the situation at hand—is an overlooked source of creativity and innovation. Sometimes stepping away from your desk and going for a walk or a jog while letting your mind wander is the best way to come up with a solution to a problem.

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Annals article on that topic with Karen Jansen of North Carolina State University, said that mindlessness is underrated.

“There’s a real big push right now for mindfulness, and I’m a huge proponent of it—I have a mindfulness meditation practice myself,” Shipp said. “But we also know that mindlessness, letting your brain wander, that’s the source of creativity.

“The way in which we perceive time matters for how we manage it—we should be able to manage time and get the most out of it,” she said. “We can miss opportunities for just sitting, thinking, and daydreaming that really result in innovation.”

A sample of Shipp’s AOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

Why Mental Time Travel at Work Matters

By Daniel Butcher

While many self-help gurus advise living in the moment, most people’s thoughts also tend to wander to the past or the future. That has implications for how people interact with each other and work together.

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Annals article on that topic with Karen Jansen of North Carolina State University, said that when people talk about time at work, they’re almost always referring to “objective time.”

“Time is measured by the clock or the calendar, so when workers think, ‘What time is a meeting scheduled?’ or ‘Am I managing my time well?’ or ‘December feels different than June,’ they’re always referring back to what they think are fixed elements of time—the clock or the calendar,” Shipp said. “But my research over the years has really been looking at people’s subjective experience and interpretation of time, and when we went into the literature to really explore this more in depth, we found that this is mostly hidden.

“One of the main elements of subjective time is that people mentally time travel,” she said. “They remember the past and they forecast the future.

“At any given moment, 50% of your thoughts are spent in another period of time; you aren’t in the present moment—you’re thinking about different periods of time.”

Other research that Shipp has done shows that people have characteristic tendencies to mentally stay in one or more periods of time. Some people tend to think about the past more often, while others like to plan and imagine what will happen in the future.

“I’m very future-focused, whereas my husband is very much present- and past-focused,” Shipp said. “If you think about it from a work perspective, if people are thinking about different things, if their minds are in different places, they can have conflicts, or they can have complementarities.

“That kind of subjectivity has important implications for team composition or, the flip side of it, team conflict,” she said.

A sample of Shipp’s AOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

The Benefits of Reflecting on the Past

By Daniel Butcher

When people engage in “mental time travel,” they often think about the future and imagine what it might be like. But focusing on the past and thinking through what we could’ve done differently may pay dividends in terms of making better decisions going forward, including navigating career paths.

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Annals article on that topic with Karen Jansen of Henley Business School, said that many people tend not to think about the past very much.

“Particularly in the United States, we are socialized to be present-focused, carpe diem, or future-focused, that is, to plan; the message is to make strategic plans, have a five-year plan for your life and career plans,” Shipp said. “We are very much socialized from the beginning to always be looking forward, or maybe to enjoy the moment.

“We aren’t really socialized to do things that they are doing in other countries, which is to reflect back—what’s our history? What have we learned?” she said.“That approach misses opportunities for people to stop and see, ‘Where have I made progress? What have I learned?’”

Being overly future-focused also causes people to overlook “accumulation.”

“One of my papers found this: If things don’t change dramatically, they tend to creep up on us, such as when we don’t realize we’re in a job that isn’t stimulating or a good fit for us because the change has been gradual,” Shipp said.

“However, by the time we started talking to people about where they work and asking them, ‘What elements of things at your work fit you and what don’t?’ they said, ‘Wow, I’ve been here a really long time; I hadn’t realized I was so unhappy until I started talking to you,’” she said. “Those experiences were accumulating beneath the surface and reached a tipping point.

“Overall, it’s important that people intentionally think about the past, because that’s an element that in the United States, at least, we don’t do naturally for the most part.”

A sample of Shipp’s AOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

The Benefits of Flexibility about How We Spend Time at Work

By Daniel Butcher

Set-in-stone schedules and fixed deadlines might not be a good way to help with planning and coordinating with colleagues. How everyone in an organization thinks about time—including work schedules and deadlines—has a huge impact on well-being and morale. Flexibility is likely to help boost productivity and quality.

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Annals article on that topic with Karen Jansen of North Carolina State University, said that having a predictable schedule can help some workers with planning, but being too much of a stickler for a rigid schedule—can backfire.

“We can be so focused on the future that we obsess over what might happen instead of savoring the current moment—we focus on the future at the expense of the present,” Shipp said. “In terms of how we allocate our time, it’s important for us to plan, but we also need contingencies, because the future is so ill-defined.

“I think in terms offinding ways to bothlook ahead but also be flexible—that’s a real key skill that we don’t have,” she said. “Some people say, ‘I’m not strategic; I don’t think long-term but I’m very into the present moment.’

“In contrast, other people do plan for the future very well but may struggle to adapt when such plans don’t materialize—we need people to navigate both, to be able to look ahead, but also be flexible.”

Shipp said that we need to redefine the ways in which we think and talk about time, especially in the workplace.

“We need to reimagine things that we think are fixed in objective time, but they’re not, for example, work schedules,” Shipp said. “When do we take breaks, whether it’s to get lunch or coffee or tea or go to the bathroom? What do deadlines mean?”

An early bird might be most productive from 6:00 to 11:00 a.m. while a night owl might be most productive from 6:00 to 11:00 p.m., neither of which aligns with a standard nine-to-five workday.

“Let’s say I start a new job in a structured office. We get here at 8:00. Most people take an hour-long lunch from 12:00 to 1:00. They leave by 5:00,” Shipp said. “But if my biological clock doesn’t work like that, I may want to work until 1:00 or 2:00, or maybe I break for only 10 minutes at lunch, and later in the afternoon, I take a break of 50 minutes.

“Rethinking some of these things that we think are more fixed and structured can pay dividends,” she said. “Maybe we can go more with the flow—instead of saying, ‘I’m going to work on this project from 8:00 to 10:00’ or ‘I’ve worked an eight-hour day,’ say ‘If I’m done after working from 9:00 to 4:00, then why can’t I leave a little early?’

“It certainly benefits workers and managers alike to be a little bit more flexible with time.”

A sample of Shipp’s AOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

Why Work Frenemies Are More Common than Work Friends

By Daniel Butcher

In our portfolio of relationships, we want as many friends and as few enemies as possible. But many work relationships aren’t clearly positive or negative; instead, they’re more neutral, like cordial acquaintances, or even ambivalent. Think “frenemies,” two-faced colleagues, or polite rivals. While having mixed feelings about a coworker sounds awkward—and research studies have shown that frenemies increase each other’s stress and blood pressure—ambivalent relationships also tend to boost creativity, adaptability, and productivity by fueling a competitive spark.

“Ambivalent relationships have always been relatively common in organizations, as they are breeding grounds for having to simultaneously collaborate and compete, for example,” said Academy of Management Scholar Jessica Methot of Rutgers University and the University of Exeter. “But because some of the more complicated interpersonal interactions were paused or transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic, workplace relationships seemed to become more one-dimensional.

“Either someone was unreliable or difficult to work with, or they were motivated and helpful,” she said. “Now, in the ‘post-pandemic’ world of work, we’re starting to see ambivalent relationships emerge again.”

Methot has been doing research to better understand how and why friendships necessarily blur work and non-work boundaries to create unique tensions. That holds true for both remote and in-person work as well.

“It’s important for people to understand how to balance when we’re exposing our personal or intimate information to someone who we work with, and the paradox and the complications that come along with that,” she said. “A lot of people want to have those close relationships and those experiences with the people who they work with but maybe don’t really understand how that can turn against them.

“The issue with workplace friendships that makes them distinct and unique from relationships or friendships outside of work is that the shared space is the office, and so the friendship is founded on a professional work relationship, and those two things tend to compete with each other.”

Especially for team members of comparable seniority, it can be difficult to reconcile the fact that they are collaborating with each other at the same time that they may be competing with each other.

“A formal work relationship is transactional, professional, and non-discretionary, versus our private, more discretionary, informal friendships, and those two things tend to conflict with each other,” Methot said. “How do we balance these paradoxes or tensions that we end up facing when we try to become friends with people who we work with?

“It ends up potentially creating these rivalries—we might be both going up for the same promotion,” she said. “I want to be proud of my friend and happy for him or her, but I’m also jealous, and so this started leading into my research understanding how we feel ambivalently towards our friendships.

“Work friends must deal with this emotion of ambivalence, where we might feel joy or pride and jealousy, and the question is, ‘How do we balance those emotions?’”

A sample of Methot’s AOM research findings:

• Overlooked Benefits of Office Chit-Chat
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile