“Respecting Their Time” — Speed or Undivided Attention?

Meeting with visitors at the office. Zofia suggests a quick lunch at their laptops so the visit does not take up too much of the guests’ day. Karim sees it very differently.

— Let’s eat here. No need to take up half their day.
— At our laptops? We won’t even get a chance to talk — Karim thinks.

Zofia sees efficiency as respect for the guests’ time. Karim worries they will feel as though the company is trying to get rid of them quickly.

What really happened

Zofia shows respect by saving other people’s time: keep things quick, focused, and avoid taking half a day. Karim shows respect in almost the opposite way: give people time, sit together, and signal that the relationship is more than a transaction. Both rules make sense. A quick lunch can look efficient or cold. A long lunch can look hospitable or wasteful. Zofia and Karim are a useful pairing for this conflict, but the scene should not be reduced to a national stereotype. These are two specific people using different rules to decide what time means in a relationship.

What the research says

Trust at work can be built through assessments of competence, reliability, and predictability, but it can also have a strong relational layer built through personal connection and experience (cognition-based and affect-based trust; McAllister, 1995; Chua, Ingram & Morris, 2008). Cross-cultural research also shows differences in how people organise time and relationships, but it does not justify predicting an individual solely from their country. A more useful map is therefore time as a resource to save ↔ time as an investment in the relationship, rather than “culture A versus culture B.”

How to handle it

The simplest solution is to ask about the preferred rhythm. You can also separate the meeting into a working part and a relationship-building part so neither side has to guess what the format means. With new partners, agree not only on the agenda but on the style of the meeting: a quick working lunch or a more relaxed meal with time to talk. The general rule is: time in a relationship is not only a number of minutes; it can also communicate respect, importance, and willingness to build trust.

How Empatyzer and Em can help

Empatyzer can show that Zofia and Karim are not really disagreeing about the length of lunch but about two different definitions of respect. The assessment and cultural layer can help identify whether someone tends to build trust through efficiency and not taking more of another person’s time, or through presence, relationship, and deliberately spending time together. Comparing profiles does not give Em a simple verdict about who is right. It helps design the meeting so both needs are considered — for example, a short working session followed by a more relaxed meal, or a question in advance about the partner’s preferred format. If similar differences appear across a wider group, team insights can show that “too fast” and “too long” may be different relationship codes rather than judgments about people. Micro-lessons reinforce one of Empatyzer’s most useful habits: instead of assuming what respect means to the other person, check before your well-meant gesture sends the opposite message.