Bob leads the international business of a consumer goods company. He finds it difficult to concentrate in meetings and becomes impatient and aggressive with people who cannot get their point across in 30 seconds or less.
Sarah has a C level role at a global financial services company. She complains bitterly that she can no longer find time to do any strategic thinking. In a recent 360 degree assessment her peers and boss commented on this and criticized her for her lack of vision and long range plans.
Andrew is a senior executive at a fast growing social media company. He is sleep deprived and feels tired all the time. Nevertheless he find it impossible to go to bed without first checking his email, facebook and twitter accounts. Inevitably he then spends a further hour reading, following links and responding before he gets into bed. Most of it is recreational.
Pamela has a C-suite role at an airline. She loves literature and used to read a novel a week in either English or French. It’s been 6 months since she last completed a book. She says she just can’t concentrate long enough to get gripped by the story.
What do these people and many like them have in common? They are all suffering from Engagement Deficit Disorder (EDD). That’s right. They find themselves unable to engage with anything for longer than a few minutes.
Our collective inability to concentrate and engage is a major epidemic. The causes are well documented. Our brains are wired to seek new information so it’s no surprise that the internet as the perfect provider of bright and shiny new things, is turning out to be the ultimate tool of distraction and the nemesis of our ability to focus. I’m not the first to write about this and frankly this isn’t what interests me. Since Pandora’s ‘inbox’ is well and truly opened, I’m much more focused on what we can do to overcome it.
Recently I’ve been doing research interviews with HR SVPs, and Chief Learning Officers from Fortune 100 companies. Each of them cited low employee engagement scores in their top 3 issues keeping them awake at night. Each of them had programs in place to improve how well their companies are engaging with their employees.
Interesting.
You see, I’m observing a clear link between low employee engagement, and the general ability of our employees (ie us) to concentrate. If we’re finding it hard to engage with anything, then why would work be the exception?
I’ve seen many engagement surveys, and I haven’t come across a single one that explores how engaged the respondent is with areas of their lives outside of work. Surely that’s a vital piece of information. If our overall capacity for engagement is dropping, then we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s also declining at work.
I look regularly at the questions that make up engagement surveys and I do wonder if what they measure is actually employee engagement with their everyday work. I spend significant chunks of time one-on-one with senior executives exploring their work and career issues. Whilst these individuals may be highly motivated and feel involved with their work in general, I can testify that many find it difficult to engage in the moment with the work on their desk.
As you read this, are you identifying with it? Do you suffer from a deficit of concentration? Difficulty in really focusing on something without jumping to your email? Impatience with slow talkers? Inability to get gripped by books and movies that once would have held your attention?
If so, you’re definitely not alone.
Instead of designing organization-wide programs to help the corporation engage better with its employees, we should be designing education programs that teach our employees how to engage in general….with anything…..at anytime….in all areas of their lives. We can’t isolate work from this epidemic, so the antidote is necessarily going to be broad spectrum.
The good news is that our ability to focus, concentrate and engage is a skill that is trainable. Sure we’re all losing it, but there are definite steps we can take to retrain our plastic, malleable brains and win back our attention spans, maybe even improve them. I’m seeing great results with my clients though it does require them to concentrate a little to learn how to do it. The starting point is to become aware of our distractions and when they’re most likely to divert us. The next step is to log the pattern of our distraction – it’s usually quite shocking to discover how much time we spend diverted and how little time we focus. Depending on the results, we need a program tailored to reduce our distraction and increase our concentration. This can include relatively small steps like carefully scheduling our days so that our distractions are confined to specific timeslots, all the way through to hard core actions like 30 minutes of meditation each day to settle our busy brains and re-acquaint them with calm and sustained focus.
The correlation between success and ability to concentrate is well documented in every area of human endeavor so even though it may be something of a slog to win it back, the ROI is fabulous….and not just for the individual, but for the corporation too.
Very interesting blog Helen. A timely reminder for me that even those of us in the business of coaching and teaching others need to take the time to re-engage with things that matter at a deeper level. Now when does that yoga class start this morning…………. Think I’m up for a bit of meditation.
You have ignored that the majority of employeees don’t sit at desks or have access to emails/internet.
You have ignored that disengagement at work reduces productivity, it can also create negative consequences in peoples personal lives outside of work including the ability to concentrate.
You’ve posed an answer to a question no one is asking – and for good reason.