Task Processing: Monochronic and Polychronic

00:06 Monochronic linear and polychronic non-linear is another set of cultural values.

00:12 This is another place where we get into trouble. So I'm going to talk about some creative ways when you're the charge nurse how you assign patients. To someone who is in a monochronic linear space where they emphasize doing one thing at a time and that there are several different aspects of this. So one of those is doing one thing at a time. One is being punctual and one is separating work and personal life. So if I know that a nurse is more, or whoever it is, a person is more successful being assigned one task and they do a great job, am I going to label them and call them lazy and "Oh my God, they can only do one thing at a time." And I'm just being realistic of how we actually stereotype and label people and put these negative characteristics on people. Instead of doing that as a leader, what I want to say "You know what, this might be a huge project but Sally, Suzie, John, Mark (I'm just throwing names out) is so good at getting that one thing done and then we have Rosa (making up names). Rosa over here. Rosa's good at multitasking so I'm going to give all these things, doesn't mean I'm being unfair, no it means I'm meeting people where they are. When we talk about punctuality, I've been guilty of saying "Oh my God, this person's late everyday" versus finding out why are they late. And that doesn't matter which capacity you're in. Maybe you're taking the bus. When we think about a patient showing up late for a visit and this is real life. I've been like every time this patient comes 15, 20, 30 minutes late.

01:51 Why we didn't think about the fact that maybe they had to get their child off the bus and then catch a bus to the clinic at least they showed up. So I had to change my thinking why am I here. Humanitarian eat those again and just meeting people where they are. And I gave an example in one of the other sets of values about separating work and personal life. It doesn't mean that someone's antisocial just because they want to keep those things separate. If that's the way it is, let's just respect that. And then in the polychronic non-linear, one of the other things is that people who have that preference are okay with interruptions and it doesn’t mean that that's like a sit set of values. So I may be okay if there's no emergency situation happening or if I'm not on a deadline I may be okay with interruptions.

02:41 But in general, I might not like that and that's okay to and work in personal life overlapping that space.