Lots of people are wearing a special device to track physical activity and sleep habits. Consider the following useful information:
- During sleep mode, when your body is completely at rest and unmoving, your tracker records that you are asleep.
- A restless state of sleep indicates that you moved from a very restful position into one involving greater movement.
This just in: When I awake in the morning, I instantly know how I slept and don’t need some type of tracker.
Peter Drucker, the father of business consulting, would never have worn one of these devices. He reminded us that in order to be successful, we have to possess the ability to “get the right things done.” This involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive.
More is less
All of this was easier back in Drucker’s day, when we couldn’t talk on the phone during the daily commute, we didn’t bring multiple devices on vacation and planes didn’t have Wi-Fi.
Today, most of us feel guilty if we don’t respond to an email within minutes or hours at most. Most of us like the feeling of being wanted and are more than happy to answer questions.
The information and time crunchers also cause our personality types to come even more to the surface. As leaders, most of us have been labeled as an expert. In this role, experts usually try to exercise control and are great individual contributors because of their pursuit of continuous improvement and perfection.
However, the downside of this attitude is that, as managers, they are terrible, because they are completely sure they are right. This, combined with time management goals, can interfere with listening and really considering other options.
Step back
As leaders, we have a responsibility to alter these norms, given how markedly information overload decreases the quality of learning and decision-making.
First, let’s not pretend that multitasking is fabulous and instead conclude that it’s counterproductive. As the technological capacity for the transmission of information continues to expand and quicken, the pressures will only increase.
As leaders we need to become hardnosed about stepping back from all but the areas that we alone must address. If you have 20 items on your desk, delegate them all — even though it requires time and communication with others to allow them to handle tasks effectively, with clarity of expectations on both sides.
Form new habits
Addressing information overload requires self-discipline. I have to force myself each day to find time to focus and filter out the unimportant — a to-don’t list.
We have to determine how members of teams support each other in creating the necessary time and space to perform at their best and how they enable others, throughout the organization, to do the same.
The benefits of lightening the burden of information overload — in productivity, creativity and business — will more than justify the effort. And the more we recognize the benefits, the easier it will be to make new habits stick.
Elliot N. Dinkin is the President and CEO of Cowden Associates Inc. Elliot’s strategic approach assists clients in the development of a total compensation benefit package that controls costs, adds efficiencies and enables the employer to attract, retain, motivate and keep employees engaged while meeting company objectives. Through his guidance, employers become more competitive by creating total compensation packages verses viewing benefits in silos.
