Role of the timekeeper — Cross-Cultural Meetings part 7

This article is part of a series on effective meetings between Japanese and non-Japanese.

Designating a timekeeper, and allowing that person to perform their role, is a very effective way to keep meetings on track and productive. Yet actually very few people take this simple step when they hold a meeting. 

Let’s face it: Many people like to hear themselves talk, and will go on and on if left unchecked. And when people are involved in a conversation, they can lose track of how much time is passing. The result can be meetings that seem to drag on forever, eating up everyone’s valuable time. In particular, I hear a lot of complaints from Americans who work at Japanese companies about how their entire workday is consumed by meetings, to the point where it becomes difficult to accomplish any other work. I’m not sure if this is a result of different cultural attitudes that Japanese have about meetings, or the fact that meetings across cultural and linguistic barriers tend to take more time for clarification and explanation. Probably it’s a combination of the two. But if as a company you want to ensure that your meetings don’t swell up beyond reasonable proportions, using a timekeeper is a good thing to do.

The first step is to designate the timekeeper. The person selected should be someone other than the meeting leader, and preferably someone who will not be in the thick of the discussion. In other words, the ideal choice is someone who is expected to take a more indirect or supporting role in the discussion. 

In order for the timekeeper to do the job, the length of the meeting needs to be set ahead of time, and all the participants need to agree to it. The length should not be arbitrary – it should be chosen so that there is sufficient time to accommodate all the topics that need to be covered. Time limits for certain subsets of the meeting, such as a brainstorming session or discussion of a specific topic, may also be set.

The timekeeper must keep one eye on the clock at all times while participating in the meeting and avoid getting so caught up in the discussion that he or she forgets to check the time.

Inevitably, meetings tend to take longer than anticipated, which is the whole reason why a timekeeper is needed. When this happens, the timekeeper needs to break into the conversation to let the group know that it is taking too long. This requires some courage on the part of the timekeeper, but it is the essence of the role.

Here are examples of interjections that a timekeeper might use:

• “We only have 10 more minutes allotted for the brainstorming session.”
• “If we don’t pick up the pace, we are going to go over the time limit.”
• “We have 30 minutes left until we reach the designated stopping time.”

Another way of using the timekeeper is for other participants to ask for a “time check.” This can be used to send a subtle message to the people talking that they are going on too long. Phrases that one might use for this purpose include:

•  “How are we doing on time?”
• “Are we on schedule?”
• “Are we in danger of going over the time limit?”

For more on how to make your cross-cultural meetings effective, get a copy of our free bilingual ebook here.