The Case of the Rapidly Shrinking Attention Span
Filed under: Career, Innovation, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leading the Generations, Life and Business, Social Commentary, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
I wrote a post last year entitled, “Yeah, Why Don’t Managers Think Deeply,” prompted by an article in Harvard Business Review. Judging by the posted comments as well as the e-mails that I received, the notion that we seem to almost discourage creating opportunities to think deeply about our business, our strategies and our jobs, resonates with many people.
Are we losing our ability to focus?
Maybe. Maybe we never had it, and it is the exception instead of the rule, but it just seems so much harder in this noisy, interruption-driven, always-on world to focus on an issue and work through it to creative, complete solutions. We’re too busy racing from one sound-bite opportunity to another, focusing our precious gray matter on topics for nanoseconds before the next interruption comes along.
If left alone without new stimuli for more than a few minutes, we seek them out on-line via social networking sites, through e-mail or even in the ubiquitous and mostly useless meetings that dominate our corporate calendars. Go a few minutes without an e-mail, and I’m willing to bet that you are worried that something is wrong.
I’ve discussed this with many other colleagues and neighbors, and perhaps it is generational, but we all see and sense the same chronic societal attention deficit disorder.
No one seems to pay attention for long. In the work environment, our cellphones and e-mail devices are on and we engage constantly about the urgent and often the unimportant. We don’t seem to solve and create as much as we should.
Our children only exist in “heavy noise” environments, where socializing includes talking, interacting with many on the web, texting on the cell phone, playing music and studying (??) all at the same time.
Social networking sites are powerful and exciting and valuable for certain things. I love LinkedIn and Twitter for the opportunities they afford to meet and connect with old and new acquaintances and for pure networking. However, they can also be addicting and suck precious time out of your days and nights interacting in sound-bites.
I’ve noticed that I struggle to read many books from cover to cover anymore. True, most of the books I’ve been reading lately are fairly boring business books, where all of the meat is in the introduction, the first chapter and the last chapter. Nonetheless, I find that I want the essence of the book quickly and then I want to move-on to my next intellectual stimulus.
During the few minutes that I’ve been writing this, a quick glance indicates that 3 new e-mails have come in, I’ve got several Twitter updates and someone has decided to follow me, so courtesy says I ping them back. I just received a blog comment that indicated my posts are too long (tough, don’t read them!), someone is dialing me on Skype, I have a fresh text from my son at college (definitely looking for money!) and I have a new voice mail message. THE NOISE IS DEAFENING!
OK, I’ve designed my work environment to allow for all of those interruptions, so I have no one to blame but myself. My guess is however, that your work environment is not too dissimilar. We have created an interruption-driven world where we consciously choose to be interrupted and not to think deeply.
The lack of deep thinking is not a good thing.
Maybe you can “Create” in this noisy environment, but I cannot do it effectively. Nor can most people that I know.
I need to wrap up this post and focus on a new leadership keynote, create some new tools for an upcoming workshop and get back to work on my e-book. I now turn off my internet connection and cell phone just to concentrate. The more I do this the more I create, solve, innovate and produce.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Be careful about becoming an actor in The Case of the Rapidly Shrinking Attention Span. As a leader, you want people and teams to focus. You need to create opportunities to create for your teams and for yourself.
Educate your associates on the power of focus and silence. Do the same for yourself. Don’t let your ability to think deeply be stolen by the false idol of Always-On communication.
Vacation Reading
One of the biggest challenges that I face every vacation is trying to decide what I’m going to read. Usually, I don’t decide and I end up lugging 40 pounds of books with me just in case I might be in the mood for a certain work. (Note: I know that the Kindle from Amazon will solve this problem…I just can’t get beyond my “I don’t buy the first generation of any consumer electronics” rule.) Eventually, I thrift my choices down to a full duffel bag (for driving trips), and when my wife is not looking, I sneak a few additional volumes into someone else’s bag or under the seat. I guess I’m a book smuggler.
Here’s the latest list of great reads that will make it into my traveling book bag this season:
- The Glorious Cause, volume two in the Revolutionary War series by historical fiction writer, Jeff Shaara. If you like historical fiction, you’ll love Jeff.
- The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu Goldratt…a classic business novel and something I’ve been meaning to revisit for the last decade.
- Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I re-read this classic of objectivism every few years and it’s time.
- A biography of one of the founding fathers to match up to Shaara’s book. I’ve always enjoyed pairing a good piece of historical fiction with the real thing. It’s kind of like Stilton Blue Cheese and a glass of vintage port…they just go together.
- Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch and Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss…both authors and both books are must-reads for the independent professional and invaluable reference tools for me.
- Marketing Metaphoria by Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman. A review of this one prompted my “Why Don’t Managers Think Deeply” blog posting a few weeks ago.
- The last two issues of Harvard Business Review. In particular, the July/August issue is themed as “Honing Your Competitive Edge” and has some great looking articles.
I’m probably approaching a stuffed duffel bag of books at this point, so I’m pushing my luck (and the limits of my time), but if I can slide a couple under the back seat, they will be:
- Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the story of Lincoln’s challenges and successes in managing his less than friendly cabinet.
- Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. I started reading this unique take on the development of cultures and societies last year and got sidetracked. It’s been on my to-read list for some time and it’s time to finish it.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I’ll keep you posted on my progress and I’ll look forward to the incredible material for blogging that I will gain from the list above. I love great business books, but I’ve always believed that the best leadership and management material is found somewhere other than the business aisle in the bookstore. I look forward to reporting back to you after vacation.
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