I was a Mexican Quality Award assessor for more than 20 years. I lead the achievement of the Quality Award for both American Express and Sony. My career in Quality allowed me to see, very closely, the value of metrics, including how time is measured. There was cycle time, lead time, downtime, response time, schedule adherence and on-time delivery. My first job involved doing reports on time response, at a time where Xerox’ technicians repaired the copiers and printers. From the moment we got the call to when the equipment was repaired.
Later, I focused on enforcing first-class customer call responses at Amex. What I learned here was that, in quality-driven operations, time is anything but vague. Cycle times, inspection times, response times, corrective-action closures and delivery commitments have always been carefully measured and monitored.
Looking at time through a different lens
In the many manufacturing plants I visited and assessed, a production line in Mexico measured delays in minutes, or even seconds. In these environments, quality standards, delivery schedules and customer commitments leave little room for ambiguity.
At the same time, a meeting in the same organization may begin late, run longer than planned or change direction because an unexpected issue needs attention. A leader may interrupt the agenda to resolve a problem, respond to a client or have a conversation that cannot easily be postponed.
To someone arriving from a more linear-time culture, these two realities can seem contradictory. How can a culture often described as flexible about time also manufacture or serve their clients with such precision?
Throughout my years working in quality, process improvement and organizational evaluation, I’ve seen a variety of Mexican companies operate with discipline, meet demanding standards and compete successfully in global markets. And at the same time, these organizations can be warm-hearted, people-first, and relationship focused. This taught me that flexibility and precision are not opposites — they often coexist, sometimes within the same company, the same team, and even the same person.
One well-known example is Cemex, which was featured in a Wired article by Peter Katel back in the 90s. Back then, the Mexican company was described as replacing rigid delivery schedules with a dynamic system that could respond to traffic, weather, customer changes and other real-time variables. The result was greater precision: in Guadalajara, more than 98% of its deliveries arrived within ten minutes of the promised time. Flexibility, in this case, became part of the system’s reliability.
Following the operational clock
This first clock I’ll cover is driven by processes and consequences.
On a production floor, a delay may stop a line, affect a customer or create additional costs. Deadlines, specifications and controls are explicit. Everyone understands what needs to happen, when it must happen and what is at risk if it does not. Everything is clockwork driven.
Quality models examine whether the entire system is aligned to deliver consistent results from end to end. Processes translate that system into clear steps, roles and responsibilities. ISO standards require critical processes to be defined, controlled, monitored and supported by evidence. Quality Control verifies whether the output meets the established requirements, while quality assurance looks further upstream.
In this environment, deadlines, measurements and records are anything but flexible. Precision is built into the system. Time becomes measurable and structured. Reliability is demonstrated through consistency, quality and delivery.
Understanding the relational clock
The second clock responds more closely to people and circumstances.
A conversation may take longer because preserving trust matters. A manager may change priorities because a senior leader has made a new request. A team member’s urgent problem may be addressed immediately, even when it was not part of the original plan.
Here, responsiveness also communicates responsibility. Following the schedule while ignoring the situation could be perceived as rigid or insensitive.
The challenge is that international leaders, from countries with linear times, may recognize the operational clock but struggle to understand the relational one. What they interpret as poor planning may actually reflect one team’s focus on responding to requests from senior leaders or adapting to changing circumstances.
Of course, Mexico does not follow a singular, unchanging formula — industry, profession, organizational culture, international experience and personality all influence how people relate to time. A finance team can follow a different clock compared to their sales team, even inside the same organization.
How your clock can change the way you collaborate
Problems arise when people assume everyone is following the same clock. “Tomorrow” may mean first thing in the morning to one person and sometime before the end of the day to another. “Urgent” may mean stop everything now—or simply move this higher on the list.
An intercultural leader can make these expectations visible by asking themselves:
- Is this deadline fixed, or is there room to adjust?
- What are the consequences if it moves?
- When should a change be communicated?
- Which priority takes precedence if something unexpected occurs?
People do not need to experience time in the exact the same way. They do need shared agreements about what must be delivered.
Perhaps the question is not whether Mexico is punctual or flexible. A more useful question is: Which clock are we using here, and have we made that clear to everyone?
