A new look at time, speed, and the manager

Executive Overview In today's economy, the company that survives will be the one that can develop, produce, and deliver products and services to customers faster than its competitors. Managing for speed requires more than exhorting employees to “work faster.” Beliefs and behaviors related to time can influence how both individual employees and work groups perceive their work, their organization, and each other—and those perceptions play a role in the productivity of the organization. Managers in a marketplace characterized by “survival of the fastest” will need the ability to recognize and deal with temporal forces that exist in any organization and can make the difference between faster and not fast enough.