May 2008 - Posts
A
research study finds that you can reduce the effects of information overload:
Information overload:
why some people seem to suffer more than others
in ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 189 (Proceedings of the
4th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: changing roles.) Ruud
Janssen, Henk de Poot. 2006. p397 - 400.
We studied information overload among senior managers in an industrial company.
We used the critical incident collection technique to gather specific examples
of information overload and coping strategies. We then used textual
interpretation and the affinity diagram technique to interpret the interviews
and to categorize our respondents, the critical incidents they described, and
the coping strategies they mentioned. Our results show that the extent to which
people suffer from information overload is closely related to the strategies
they use to deal with it.
In
other words, you can do something about it!
One
doctor has argued that the explosion of interruptions, input, and information has
generated a sort of Culturally-Induced Attention Deficit Trait. As one
web site put it, our poor brains just can't handle it all, and need time off,
less stimulation, more sleep, and more fun, among other things. How to control ADT’s ravaging impact on performance?
The doctor, Ed Hallowell.,
suggests:
Foster positive emotions by connecting face-to-face with people you like throughout the day.
Take physical care of your brain by getting enough sleep, eating healthfully, and exercising regularly.
Organize for ADT, designating
part of each day for thinking and planning, and setting up your office to foster mental functioning (for example, keeping part of your desk clear at all times).
Overloaded
Circuits: Why Smart People Underperform, Edward M. Hallowell. 2005. Harvard
Business Review, January. Get the pdf via vera, or find a download here.
Abstract. Frenzied executives who fidget through
meetings, lose track of their appointments, and jab at the "door
close" button on the elevator aren't crazy – just crazed. They suffer from
a newly recognized neurological phenomenon that the author, a psychiatrist,
calls attention deficit trait, or ADT. It isn't an illness; it's purely a
response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live. But it has become
epidemic in today's organizations. When a manager is desperately trying to deal
with more input than he possibly can, the brain and body get locked into a
reverberating circuit while the brain's frontal lobes lose their
sophistication, as if vinegar were added to wine. The result is black-and-white
thinking; perspective and shades of gray disappear. People with ADT have
difficulty staying organized, setting priorities, and managing time, and they
feel a constant low level of panic and guilt. It is possible to control ADT by
engineering one's environment and one's emotional and physical health. Make
time every few hours for a "human moment" – a face-to-face exchange
with a person you like. Get enough sleep, switch to a good diet, and get adequate
exercise. Break down large tasks into smaller ones, and keep a section of your
work space clear. Try keeping a portion of your day free of appointments and
e-mail.
Online,
quite a few places post their summaries and advice following this article: here
are a few worth looking at
Advice from a consulting
firm
A
detailed summary from an executive coaching firm
Another
take from a professional organization
Finally,
this may be a nice complement to our toolkit ideas: Ed Hallowell's advice on scheduling
(scroll down).
If
you want to learn more about ADT (and ADD), check out the Halowell center site.
What allows you to be resilient?
An optimistic approach can help. Not too optimistic, of course, but an appropriately positive view of things can really help cultivate your ability to bounce back from setbacks. That's the message from the research on learned optimism.
I recommend you take the online quiz at the
authentic happiness site. Where do you fall? Do you think you should try to cultivate a more optimistic explanatory style?
If so, don't forget the ABDCE strategy--here's
a very useful summary of the main ideas, plus some tips on when to use optimism and when not to.
There's a similar suggestion from
psychologists Karen Reivich and
Andrew Shatte, who also consider the cognitive strategies to combat negative thinking in their book,
“The Resilience Factor.” They address tendancy of people who feel anxiety to catastrophize – “dwell
on a current adversity and within a few minutes have imagined a chain of
disastrous events stretching into the future.”
Reivich and Shatte outline a five-step method for countering catastrophic thinking:
1. Name your adversity and the
worst-case things you believe could happen as a result
2. Evaluate the probability that
each of these events will happen. You’ll see the odds are long against any of
them coming to pass.
3. Next, think of the best-case
scenarios possible. They should be so unrealistic that they make you smile, or
even laugh. You want to break your “doom and gloom” thinking.
4. Now that you’ve plotted the
extreme cases – you’ve identified the worst and the best results possible –
focus on the most-likely outcomes of the adversity.
5. Then, with your newfound
perspective, come up with a solution to remedy the problem.
Now, it might be that negtive thinking and pessimism are not problems for you and your team, and this advice might be moot! But tuck these ideas away in case they come in handy in the future for you or your colleagues, employees, or reports. A
Boston Globe article overviews some of these ideas in a piece entitled, "
Set priorities with a dose of confidence and resilience" that connects to work-life balance issues too. For more thoughts on the work of Seligman and Shatte, click through to read a
transcript of a radio interview in which they link neurobiology to how organizations can help their employees handle adversity and anxiety better.
I think that the main idea to remember is that the way you interpret things can have a massive impact on how you handle events. I don't want to end without mentioning another component of resilience that I consider important: a growth mindset. Like optimism, it's something you can cultivate in yourself--and even in others around you. This short, readable article,
the effort effect, gives you a sense of the work of Carol Dweck on how to cultivate an orientation that helps you enjoy challenges.
Finally, consider how to get your daily dose of happiness. This blog is one of those sites, like lifehacker, that I've spent a bit too much time looking at, but you may find it fun, too:
THE HAPPINESS PROJECT. The author shares blow-by-blow details of an entire year she
spent, in her words, “test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific
study I could find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or
Oprah...[to] gather these rules for living and report on
what works and what doesn’t. On this daily blog, I recount some of my
adventures and insights as I grapple with the challenge of being happier.”Happy reading!
Earlier this year, I talked with students about what skills and attributes mark a successful management professional. We linked these to habits and practices, which my class seeks to build and reinforce.
Here's the question I've been pondering. Does managing your emotions--and others'--fit in there too?
What do you think?
If you want to see what researchers in this area say, start by considering the
Emotional Competence Framework, first published in 1998 as a distillation of a
variety of sources but heavily influenced by the work of Daniel Goleman. Their list of the key attributes:
First, in the
EMOTIONAL domain, there's
Self-Awareness, which includes:
-
Recognizing one’s emotions and their effects
-
Knowing one’s strengths and limits
- Sureness
about one’s self-worth and capabilities
Also important: Self-Regulation
-
Managing disruptive emotions and impulses.
-
Maintaining standards of honesty and integrity.
-
Taking responsibility for personal performance.
-
Flexibility in handling change
- Being
comfortable with and open to novel ideas and new information
and Self-Motivation:
- Striving
to improve or meet a standard of excellence
- Aligning
with the goals of the group or organization
-
Readiness to act on opportunities
- Persistence
in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks
A second cluster of competencies lie in the
SOCIAL domain. First, there's
Social Awareness:
-
Sensing others’ feelings and perspective, and
taking an active interest in their concerns.
-
Anticipating, recognizing, and meeting
customers’ needs
- Sensing
what others need in order to develop, and bolstering their abilities
- Cultivating opportunities through diverse
people
- Reading
a group’s emotional currents and power relationships
And key Social Skills include:
- Wielding
effective tactics for persuasion
- Sending
clear and convincing messages
- Inspiring
and guiding groups and people
- Initiating
or managing change
- Negotiating
and resolving disagreements.
- Nurturing
instrumental relationships
- Working
with others toward shared goals.
- Creating
group synergy in pursuing collective goals
Visit the site to learn more--there's a body of research associated with this work, with quite a bit of validation in workplaces.
There's another approach that's also well-grounded in research, and it's similar in character. This work has its roots in positive psychology--remember the work of Martin Seligman on happiness, optimism, and explanatory style? Well, a recent handbook by Chris Peterson and Seligman lays out a framework for character strengths. Interested in their list? Check out their classification of character strengths.
The site is VIA Institute on Character, a non-profit organization
dedicated to advancing the science and understanding of character development
within the field of positive psychology by acting as a bridge between research and practice The VIA Survey, which helps identify individual character
strengths, was developed by Drs. Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P.
Seligman. It can be accessed online: http://www.viastrengths.org/