EFTA Document EFTA02064229

To: From: Joichi Ito Sent Sat 1/9/2016 10:59:10 PM Subject: For book If it's not too late! First of all. Happy Birthday! Thank you always for your generosity and your wit. In the Majlis setting of many Sheikhs, their guests arrive and sit and have tea and sometimes the Sheikh will invite someone over to talk or the conversation will spread in the room. The conversations last as long as they need to but no longer. They flow into each other, every person in the room being inspiration and a participant in the continuous story that is the Sheikh's day. Compared to the time and space delineated meetings of the West where meetings begin on time with an agenda and end on time - where each meeting is separate and distinct from the previous meeting, the conversation in a good Majlis never loses its context and adapts to in real time. Western "monochronic" (M-time) systems scale, but forget why they exist - lacking context. The Majlis, a "polychronic" (P-time) mode, retains context and develops more naturally like a story maximizing serendipity and creativity. Most of us are stuck in the tyranny of the M-time world, while Jeffrey has created an M-time bubble freeing us from our yoke of the stream of out-of-context meetings that is our modern schedule. Happy Birthday Sheikh Jeffrey and thank you for "making time". From "Beyond Culture" by Edward Hall: > Monochronic time (M-time) and polychronic time (P-time) represent two variant solutions to the use of both time and space as organizing frames for activities. Space is included because the two systems (time and space) are funtionally interrelated. M-time emphasises schedules, segmentation and promptness. P-time systems are characterized by several things happening at once. [...] Americans overseas are psychologically stressed in many ways when confronted by P-time systems such as those in Latin America and the Middle East. [...] In a different context, the same patterns apply within governmental bureaucracies of Mediterranean countries: A cabinet officer, for instance, may have a large reception area outside his private office. There are almost always small groups waiting in this area, and these groups are visited by government officials, who move around the room conferring with each. Much of their business is transacted in public instead of having a series of private meetings in an inner office. (...] By scheduling, we compartmentalize; this makes it possible to concentrate on one thing at a time, but it also denies us context. EFTA_R1_00613826 EFTA02064229