Stuart Albert - When the art of perfect timing

Stuart Albert has given us an important, witty, and, yes, timely book about the role of timing in our decision-making. He helps us see that the timing of decisions lies within our control and that doing a timing analysis and having a temporal design remains key to the success of any new venture. With examples not only from the business world, but also from politics and the arts, Albert reveals the fascinating complexity of something that we all engage in and yet rarely think about. What St. Augustine said about time applies as well to timing: If no one asks, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it I do not know. This book does a fabulous job of explaining timing; read it and you will know.

Thomas Fisher, dean, College of Design, University of Minnesota

Stuart Albert takes us to a whole new level of understanding of the role of time. We learn how to see windows of opportunity, identify when risks materialize, and map rhythms, rates, sequences, and intervals so as to be able to see their patterns and act in the right moment. When is a gift to those wanting to learn not just what to do but when to do it, as we attempt to lead in a dynamic, unfolding world.

Deborah Ancona, Seley Distinguished Professor of Management and professor of organization studies, MIT, and director, MIT Leadership Center

Cover image: Adrian Morgan

Cover design: Laurence Mouton | Getty Images

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Albert, Stuart, 1941

When : the art of perfect timing / Stuart Albert. 1 Edition.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-22611-7 (hardback), 978-1-118-41950-2 (ePDF),

978-1-118-42109-3 (ePUB)

1. Time management. I. Title.

HD69.T54A43 2013

650.1'1 dc23

This book is for Rosita

Conventional wisdom suggests that any attempt to understand timing is futile. No one, it is said, can time the market or credibly predict the future. The world is too complex. There are too many unknowns. Every situation is different in some important way that makes past experience an imperfect guide. Moreover, sometimes getting the timing right is just a matter of luck, being in the right place at the right time with the right product or service. There is an element of truth in all of these observations. But the view that we cannot acquire skill in matters of timing is not only overly pessimistic; it is simply not true. With the right tools, we can be far better at managing and deciding issues of timing than conventional wisdom suggests. This book describes the nature of those tools and how to apply them.

For me, the key insight into issues of timing came in 2004. I was working in a makeshift office in my mother-in-law's apartment in So Paulo, Brazil. My wife and I were staying there as Dona Ella fought her final battle with cancer. A life was ending, and time was on my mind. Each morning, the cold winter sun would brighten the dark rosewood wall in our bedroom, and I would listen for the sound of the rooster that had always been present in past visits. But this year the rooster was silent. The last sounds of the city's rural past had vanished. In this apartment, where we had stayed during summers and Christmas vacations for more than thirty years, I discovered the concept of temporal architecture that forms the heart of this book. Although I didn't quite realize it at the time, this concept opened up a new way to approach the challenge of timing.

When I first began the study of timing in the spring of 1991, I made an explicit decision not to follow the norms of my profession. I am a professor in a business school, trained in the hard and social sciences. In contrast to the work of my colleagues, there was no hypothesis or explanation of the facts that I needed to test, no controlled experiments to run or large-scale surveys to administer. I didn't need a computer to analyze the data or build mathematical models. I didn't need statistics because there was nothing to count or measure. In short, I didn't need any of the sophisticated tools of modern social science. Instead, I went back to the time before they were invented. I became a hunter-gatherer.

I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist cover to cover and clipped out every article, regardless of subject matter, that had anything to do with timing. I paid particular attention to timing errors: an action begun too soon or too late, a project unexpectedly delayed, and a sound business that, to everyone's surprise, collapsed overnight. In each case, I tried to determine how better timing could have improved the outcome.

I slowly began to create a classification system to keep track of the clippings I was acquiring, now over two thousand. This was not just an academic exercise. One reason we fail to see timing issues in advance is that we don't have a practical way to search for them. The best way to find anything is to give it a name and address within a known structure. That is what this book will do: give you a way to find, name, and address timing issues anywhere in your work and life.