The Perils of Distracted Work - It should be illegal. I'm on a rant.

Call your Legislator, your Representative. Call the President. Let's rally the Tea Party, any party, its a bipartisan issue. The deadly impact of distracted work isn't getting enough recognition.

On the other hand, distracted driving is getting appropriate attention. The news that legislatures around the country are recognizing the dangers of distracted driving and passing legislation that would outlaw activities like texting, phoning, eating, and general fiddling is based on the same science that suggests that distracted work is equally perilous. The actions of our legislative bodies are well supported by research and science. There is danger in distracted driving.

However, I'm really talking about multitasking at work. And just like there are many who would adamantly brag about their ability to drive and use their cell phone, there are many managers who insist that multitasking is a prerequisite to today's demanding workplace. However, there is a cost and a danger associated with multitasking and it is not getting attention.

I'm on a rant here because I have been frustrated in my ability make the point that there is peril in multitasking. We know we have to multitask to succeed in today's environment. However there is a myth about multitasking not supported by research, science, and results.

Others are also meshing with this topic in agreement. Blogger Terry Starbucker in The Secret To A Lifetime Of Productivity - And Five Ways to Find It when he wrote that one of the five keys to is:

Reduce the multitasking - severely. Think about how hard it is to have a meaningful phone conversation while you are answering e-mail or Tweeting at the same time. Now add the critical task of prioritization on top of that. Tilt!! Our minds are a marvel of nature, but there not that good!

Further meshing of the concept came as I read Gary Woodill's post Stop Multitasking and Start Working on Workplace Learning Today blog where he cited a New York Times article Meet the Life Hackers. I could only laugh as the article noted that, "And each time a worker was distracted from a task, it would take, on average, 25 minutes to return to that task." Don't they know that many of us have work days that typically includes 3 to 4 hours of meetings with 30 or 60 minutes blocks of time between those meetings. The calendar image is my actual schedule for tomorrow and I don't think that it is unusual in my work.

Let's do some simply math. If you have 60 minutes between meetings to work on an ongoing task, you spend the first 25 minutes reacquainting yourself with your work. That leave's 35 minutes to focus. But 35 minutes assumes that there were no colleagues looking for you to return from your meeting and waiting to "GAM" you. (GAM is the acronym that I use to frame the outcome of when a colleague says those three magic words, "got a minute?")

I'm on an uncharacteristic Lead Quietly rant. I first brought up the challenges of multitasking almost exactly one year ago when I reviewed the wonderful book Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by Dr. John Medina. In Brain Rules, Medina's cautions about multitasking. His approach is much more scientific in proposing that, in reality, the brain simply cannot multitask.

In fact, as I was searching today, I failed to find a single proponent of multitasking. But I'll keep looking. In the meantime consider two quotes from a PBS Frontline interview with Standford professor, Clifford Nass:

We have not yet found something that [multitaskers] are definitely better at than people who don't multitask.

we could be essentially undermining the thinking ability of our society....Multitasking is one of the most dominant trends in the use of media, so we could be essentially dumbing down the world.

I'm looking for opinions on multitasking via comments. Do you feel that your workplace encourages you to take on more and more tasks in parallel? Can you cite instances of successful multitasking. Perhaps most importantly, do you have recommendations that would help quiet leaders resist the demand for multitasking.

Thanks for reading. Please stay focused, keep meshing, and lead quietly.

Don

Good News for Quiet Leaders - Thoughts about your skills for the future

If you are a quiet leader and aspire to the type of leadership skills and approaches that we describe here at Lead Quietly, there is good news. These are exactly the skills that will allow you to thrive in the future. Your skills around community, collaboration, and learning will match perfectly to the skills you will need to achieve in our new networked world.

This notion was validated recently by a post on the Harvard Business Review blog by Bill Drayton and Valeria Budinich entitled Get Ready to Be a Changemaker. the post contains insightful descriptions of our changing world.

I have stated frequently on this blog that everyone can and should lead. Here is the one statement from the Drayton and Budinich post that first caught my attention.

We are transitioning from a world in which a small elite runs everything to a world in which everyone needs to be a player.

Drayton and Budnich propose that command and control leadership will not work in a complex world. Everyone must be a leader.

Fifty years ago, Detroit was the symbol of American ingenuity and prosperity. Henry Ford and his small group of managers did all the thinking and told everyone else what to do. This command-and-control approach works in a relatively static world where most tasks are repetitive — such as building cars on an assembly line. It does not work in today's fast-paced, change-is-the-name-of-the-game world; and it will not work tomorrow.

Autonomy is a among the best motivators and is needed to get the most from people. An organization needs to allow employees to be leaders.

Companies like Google and Apple are attracting great thinkers and doers — not because they promise to tell their employees what to do but precisely because they pledge to give them the autonomy to do what they are best at and to act as critical players no matter their position in the organizational structure.

So how do the quiet leader skills fit in. Consider this match.

To be effective in this new world, you will need to master the skills of empathy and teamwork, as well as leadership and driving change. You will need to know how to function in a world that is not a hierarchy but a kaleidoscopic global team of teams, with no boundaries between sectors and change that happens at an escalating pace.

My quiet leader recommendation is to continue to learn and grow in your quiet leader skills. Community, team, and collaboration may be the most important skills of all.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly and keep meshing up.

Don

Change is Inevitable, but it's sad when it happens.

“Change is inevitable. Change is constant."
Benjamin Disraeli

In the nearly three years that I have been blogging at Lead Quietly, there have been countless changes in the makeup of the blogosphere.

Yes, blogs come and go and most of this activity goes unnoticed. In reality, the loss of a single blog from among 126 million isn't worth mentioning. Unless it is a blog that you cherish.

I am saddened by today's "game over" announcement at Joyful Jubilant Learning.

I have never met or talked to Rosa Say but she has influenced my thinking immensely. It started when I cited her work in May 2007 in my fifth post on Lead Quietly titled, 12 Rules for Self Leadership. I was amazed that Rosa visited my blog on the same day and left a comment. At that moment I was hooked on the concept of blogging as a form of learning and community.

In the final post at JJL, Rosa asked us to share a favorite post. In her words,

Point to a post you fondly remember in our archives, and share what the reading of that post may have contributed to your learning.

In July 8, 2007, I posted "It's All About Learning" and in the link I cited 7 Wonders of Joyful Jubilant Learning, the JJL collaboration to assemble 777 learning links to commemorate the date 07/07/07. Nearly three years later, a review of the collaboration is still a great learning experience. Just as important to me, as a novice blogger at the time, this post introduced me to several great thinkers and communicators that I still follow today, including David Zinger, Joanna Young, and Phil Gerbyshak.

Thank you Rosa for leading and facilitating this important discussion. And know that I will continue to follow your efforts wherever it goes. It's all about learning.

Thanks for reading. Please Lead Quietly and keep Meshing Up
Don

Bragging Quietly

We don't appreciate when people brag. We've all been in conversations where out of the blue we hear,

"My child just made the all-star team"

or

"I just bought a new ........"

and we respond by rolling our eyes.


On the other hand, there are other individuals in our lives where we might know the same information but it was presented in a manner that didn't have us rolling our eyes.

What is the difference? It appears that some people have mastered the art of bragging. What is the difference?

A review of the British Psychological Society Research Digest blog recently revealed a research study conducted by Dr. Nurit Tal-Or from the University of Haifa that provides an answer and insight to our question. Her research measured the impact of bragging approaches conducted in a study of over a hundred undergrads. The study offers "some insight into how to brag without coming across as big-headed."

The differences in approach came down to the simple notion of context. Quoting from the digest where Avi, a bragger and the study's subject, is bragging about his "A" grade on an exam,

The crux of it: context is everything when it comes to boasting. If Avi's friend raised the topic of the exams, Avi received favourable ratings in terms of his boastfulness and likeability, regardless of whether he was actually asked what grade he got. By contrast, if Avi raised the topic of the exams, but failed to provoke a question, then his likeability suffered and he was seen as more of a boaster. In other words, to pull off a successful boast, you need it to be appropriate to the conversation.

The research suggests a concept that we easily recognize. If you are boasting in context to the current conversation, you pass. If you boast "I bought a new (insert a favorite toy)!" without prompting or out of context, you will appear big-headed. Although, I am convinced that many of the hero-types in our midst might not mind appearing big-headed, big-headedness doesn't seem like a meshable, lead quietly type of posture.

Thanks for reading. Please keep meshing up and when you brag, keep it in context.

Don

FYI: My #themeword for the year is Mesh.

My #ThemeWord for 2010: Mesh

I want to Mesh up in a big way!

I learned and was inspired by the work of fellow blogger Jim Harris when he posted My #ThemeWord for 2010: KARMA on New Year's day. He introduced me to the concept of a #Themeword as an alternative to a New Year's resolution.

The challenge is simple and yet challenging. Think of a single word that reflects your hopes and dreams for the year.

I agonized about this for days. My whiteboard is fully covered with #themeword nominations.

For awhile, I gave up on a single word thinking that I would need six words. I would cite the work of Rajesh Setty in his Life Beyond Code blog where he proposed a six word elevator pitch. I could make it work with six words.

A couple days later, my reading exposed me to Seth Godin's What Matters Now (download the ebook). I'm a fan of Godin. He has this ability to start a conversation that is insightful, relevant, and contemporary. In his ebook, he compiled the word ideas of seventy big thinkers including the likes of Tom Peters, Chris Anderson, Guy Kawasaki, Dan Pink, and more. I was mesmerized by the book.

On page 71 I found my #Themeword, Mesh.

Written by Lisa Gansky, the word immediately found meaning with me. Here are some highlights from her short work.

• Some things are best shared.
• Quality of life is moving distinctly away from what we own.
• Access trumps ownership.
• Mesh will reshape how we go to market, who we partner with and how we find customers.

As I connected with the idea, I found that expanding on Lisa's thoughts was easy.

• Mesh suggests new levels of collaboration where every voice is welcome.
  
• Mesh promotes learning and sharing.
  
• Mesh suggest a balance of opinion and thought. Don't you wish the partisanship of Congress could be replaced with Mesh.
• Mesh proposes great community, perhaps Seth Godin-like Tribes who share a passion.
• Mesh seems consistent with our Mashup capabilities that combines technology, data, functions or ideas. Let's bring it all together.
• Mesh brings an element of transparency. You can see through mesh. It is not about hidden process or decision.
• Mesh might actually suggest a network that exists at the intersection of learning, sharing, collaboration, and problem solving. There could be millions of intersections in a mesh.
• Mesh is a "we" not "me" approach to problem solving.
• Mesh proposes action for the greater good.

My #themeword for 2010 is Mesh. I aspire to mesh and be meshed. I will try to be meshable. At the end of the year, I hope I can say, "I meshed up."

Interested in participating in the #themeword tradition? Follow these three simple steps:

1. Think of a word that reflects your hopes and dreams for 2010
2. Share your theme word with friends on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog
3. Be sure and use the hashtag #ThemeWord

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly.

Don

Military commander calls for quiet leadership

I was intrigued yesterday by recent comments by Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on his recent trip to Afghanistan.

Each soldier is going to have use leadership in the fight, the chairman said. They are going to have to learn all they can and make important decisions.

“I want to encourage you to do that: to lead quietly, to lead [while] listening, to lead [by] understanding what the challenges are for these people,” Mullen said. “Because in the end, they want to raise their kids to a higher standard of living, [and] they’d like to do it in peace and security, just like you and I.”

via defense.gov

On the surfact, his call for leadership does not seem very military-like but seems appropriate for the times and mission.

First he is asking for every solder to lead. This is a great example of "anyone can lead" when you consider the strict chain of command that the military makes famous. You don't need a title to lead, you don't have to be an officer.

Secondly, I appreciate his call for quiet leadership and interpret this as a call for a calmer more sane approach to the Afghan situation. He describes the importance of listening and understanding. It is very different from the command and control approach that many leaders define as leadership.

The quote gives me a new perspective on the renewed mission in Afghanistan.

This information came to me via a Google Alert that I have set up that alerts me when the phrase "lead quietly" is used on the web or news. I was pretty surprised to see the military reference.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly even if you are in the military.

Don

Posted via web from Intersectable

The Best Leaders are......

Introverts. They draw on important strengths that extroverts may not have.

The intersection of leadership and introversion doesn't get much attention. The reality of our world is that many people just expect leaders to be charismatic heroes, General Patton-types who rally the troops and lead the charge. But as you have read in this blog numerous times, "You don't have to be a hero to lead! Leadership is a choice"

Executive coach Jennifer B Kahnweiler indentifies the important leadership strengths that introverts have in a recent article on Forbes.com. As an introvert, I totally concur with these strengths and propose that the world might be a better place if we seized more leadership opportunities.

Here are the key characteristics that Kahnweiler identifies that may make an introvert a better leader:

1. They think first, talk later.
2. They focus on depth.
3. They exude calm.
4. They let their fingers do the talking.
5. They embrace solitude.

Please read the article. In the end it reminded me of one of my favorite introvert quotes that comes from Jonathan Rauch, writing in The Atlantic,

If we introverts ran the world, it would no doubt be a calmer, saner, more peaceful sort of place.

Kahnweiler's article is also suggesting that quiet leadership could be better, more leaderful. You don't have to be a charismatic hero to lead.

Thanks for reading. Introverts can make the best leaders.