With the invention of the mechanical clock in 1283, the clock began to ring, and monks became the first to organize their lives after the clock by dividing the day into time and rituals. To the sound of the clock, monks divided the 24 hours of the day into parts: work time, study time, prayer time, meal time, and bed time [4]. Clock bells became more and more common in Europe during the 13th century. Town hall bells offered towns an audible identity by marking hours, fires, funerals, work times, meetings, and curfews. The larger the town hall tower the more powerful the town. Town hall clocks were not very precise, but people obeyed the bells, and so time discipline spread from the monasteries to the common populace. In less than 100 years, clock time defeated people’s biological time. An example of this can be found in In Praise of Slowness [5], in which the Canadian journalist, Carl Honoré, describes how the temporal organization of work life changed for the population of Cologne between the years of 1374 and 1398: “In the course of one generation, people in Cologne went from never knowing with any certainty what time of day it was, to allowing a clock to dictate when they worked, how long they ate lunch, and when they went home every night.”

People lost an important time battle back then; a battle that has had a large impact on the way we organize our lives today. Imagine living in Cologne in the 1300s and suddenly having to obey a town hall bell that rang when you had to work, when you should eat lunch, and when you had to return home. The person who rings the bell has the power. Who was ringing the bell? And why do we still obey noiseless clocks ringing within us? It is remarkable that we still organize our lives to follow the bells that disciplined our forefathers in time. As a matter of fact, our culture is still deeply rooted in the agricultural society, despite the fact that fewer and fewer people are working in the farming industry today.

Productivity and quality of life can be improved by letting people synchronize their work lives with their biological clocks [4,6]. I call it chronoleadership. Chronoleadership focuses on the optimal working times for each employee. Our differences in circadian rhythms are a great competitive advantage in knowledge-based society, where technological developments and globalization make it possible as well as necessary to work at different times. I recommend that you work with chronoleadership in following areas:

• Global work. Match circadian clocks with time zone work. As a part of a globalized world, we need people in Europe who can communicate with Chinese businesses early in the morning and American businesses late in the evening.

• Team work. Visualize your team’s work rhythms. I have worked with team’s who discovered that they were active 22 of the 24 hours in the day [4]. By making our work hours visible, we can create more efficient teams where we work together or individually when our energy levels peak. It does not make sense for A-persons to take phone meetings in the evening, and it is unproductive for B-persons to meet at 8 A.M.

• Shift work. With respect to shift team work, it makes sense to plan work hours to match the circadian rhythms of the employee. Give A-persons more day shifts and B-persons more evening shifts.

• Working 24/7. Create sustainable working hours. We need people who work around the clock any time of year—without burning out.