Multitasking...Address It Now!

A recent McKinsey Quarterly article provides insights for the multitasking dilemma we all face in leading globally distributed teams and organizations. First the downside of multitasking:

 The root of the problem is that our brain is best designed to focus on one task at a time. When we switch between tasks, especially complex ones, we become startlingly less efficient: in a recent study, for example, participants who completed tasks in parallel took up to 30 percent longer and made twice as many errors as those who completed the same tasks in sequence. The delay comes from the fact that our brains can’t successfully tell us to perform two actions concurrently.

• Slows us down
• Hampers creativity
• Makes us anxious and is addictive

Address multitasking directly by:

• Focus 

Create times when you focus on the specific decisions and problems that you need to address--no email, no phone, no text

• Filter

Establishing an effective, day-to-day information-management support structure is a critical success factor for leaders. Work with those you lead so they know when you need to be involved and follow the old strategy of delegating those decisions that do not require your input directly.

• Forget

Downtime is important. Plan for exercise, personal time, and other non-work activities to re-energize and restore energy.

Leaders of large programs and initiatives can take the lead for their teams and organizations by considering the following:

1. ...acknowledge and reevaluate the mind-sets that attach us to our current patterns of behavior. We have to admit, for example, that we do feel satisfied when we can respond quickly to requests and that doing so somewhat validates our desire to feel so necessary to the business that we rarely switch off. .

2. ...become more ruthless than ever about stepping back from all but the areas that they alone must address. There’s some effort involved in choosing which areas to delegate; it takes skill in coaching others to handle tasks effectively and clarity of expectations on both sides. But with those things in place, a more mindful division of labor creates more time for leaders’ focused reflections on the most critical issues and also develops a stronger bench of talent.

3. ... redesign working norms together with your teams. One person, even a CEO, cannot do that alone—who wants to be the sole person on the senior team who leaves the smart phone behind when he or she goes on vacation? Absent some explicit discussion, that kind of action could be taken as a lack of commitment to the business, not as a productive attempt to disconnect and recharge. So we encourage leaders and their teams to discuss openly how they choose to focus, filter, and forget; how they 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.