It’s fair to say that the pace of the corporate world has sped up over the past 10 years, technology has played a big role in this with same time e-mails, Skype and other similar media. Add to this the fact that a lot of organisations have streamlined their headcount in an attempt to maintain a profit whilst keeping a competitive edge, and a perfect storm has been created for chaos to rule.
Attention Span
A recent study conducted by Microsoft in Canada showed that the average attention span for a human has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000 down to 8 seconds, meanwhile a Goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds! The researchers showed that
“(those who consume more media, are multi-screeners, social media enthusiasts, or earlier adopters of technology) struggle to focus in environments where prolonged attention is needed.”
Smartphones are being blamed for this decrease in attention span and the researchers are suggesting that multitasking has improved with people being able to dual screen by their ability to watch TV and use their phone!
I’ve never really bought into the whole thing around multitasking, how can anyone ever be fully present to 2 things at the same time?
Creating Time to Think
Call me old school if you like but I like the old saying “Think twice, cut once” if this rule was applied to leaders within organisations, it would force them to become more strategic in their thinking because they would have to spend double the amount of time thinking things through before taking any action.
I’m hearing from leaders more and more that they are getting caught up in the operational aspects of their organisations and don’t seem to have enough time to sit and think about the strategic direction they are wanting to set sail towards.
Up Stream Thinking is another way to look at the importance of spending time on the strategic aspects of running a team / business. In recent years most organisations that were part of the industrial revolution built their manufacturing plants by a river and used the water as part of their manufacturing processes, in the early 1900’s there was little concern for the waste that was pumped back into the water supply.
This meant that little thought went into the how the water was gathered and subsequently pumped back into the river (obviously not in the same condition). Nowadays companies are regulated and have strict criteria in how they operate when using a local water supply.
The Up Stream Thinking model has been gaining traction when thinking about the impact certain decisions are going to have within their organisations, it’s reminding leaders of the importance and the reward when they set aside time to thoroughly think things through.
Potential solutions, here are just a few amongst many:-
Turn your mobile off and have set times for answering your missed calls.
Have selected times of the day where you answer e-mails.
Schedule meetings with a 30 minute gap to allow for time to reflect and time to think about the next meeting.
If you have a day working from home, make sure you protect this from calls and meetings to allow you to do some reflective thinking and to do some work on the strategic direction.
