{"id":5043,"date":"2025-05-12T20:14:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T20:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=5043"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:45:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:45:42","slug":"focusing-on-the-past-vs-the-present-vs-the-future-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/focusing-on-the-past-vs-the-present-vs-the-future-at-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Focusing on the Past vs. the Present vs. the Future at Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Are you not seeing eye-to-eye with your boss or a colleague? It may be that you focus more on the past, present, or future than they do\u2014and this could be both good and bad.<\/p>\r\n

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp<\/a> of Texas Christian University said that talking with your boss and colleagues about your temporal orientations\u2014how often you both tend to think about the past, the present, and the future\u2014can be illuminating and may even enable better collaboration.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI work with somebody that, when we compare these things, they\u2019re very much present- and past-focused, and so they\u2019re the person that is constantly telling me, \u2018You\u2019ve come so far; look at what you\u2019ve done\u2014do you remember this happened five or 10 years ago?\u2019\u201d Shipp said. \u201cWhereas I\u2019m saying, \u2018You need to know that my future focus is really pushing me into the future, because things are uncertain, and I haven\u2019t done enough yet\u2014I need to do more.\u2019<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI\u2019m pushing, pushing, pushing, whereas they\u2019re saying, \u2018Wait, hold on, savor this, acknowledge where you\u2019ve been,\u2019 and vice versa; \u2018I\u2019ve helped that person with strategic planning and things that don\u2019t come as naturally to them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cAs individuals, we need to understand where your mind naturally tends to go and understand too how other people\u2019s minds might look different than yours.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Although different temporal orientations or ways of perceiving time can be helpful, Shipp noted that they can also lead to conflicts among colleagues within a team or department or between bosses and their direct reports.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cOriginally, I got into arguments with the person with whom I worked, because we didn\u2019t realize what different world views we had\u2014we were literally opposite,\u201d Shipp said. \u201cHe would say, \u2018Why are you always thinking about this thing going forward?\u2019 and I would say, \u2018What? Why can\u2019t you think about something that\u2019s so important?\u2019<\/p>\r\n

\u201cUnderstanding yourself, making that temporal orientation explicit for yourself and for the people that you work with\u2014that\u2019s when you can start to see, \u2018Oh, hey, you\u2019re focused on this other period of time\u2019 so that I might ask you to fill in the gaps of the things that I can\u2019t see because I\u2019m so future-focused,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A sample of Shipp\u2019s AOM research findings:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n