Early in my career, I worked in a dangerous city neighborhood. One day, two of my coworkers were robbed on the street outside our offices leading management to arrange a workshop on personal safety for staff. I learned tactics to defend myself effectively using every day articles like my car keys, a clipboard, or even a rolled up newspaper. Our instructor (a policewoman) identified vulnerable body parts and demonstrated simple moves to temporarily disable an attacker. It was all new to me, but it also corresponded with what I expected to learn. What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was her guidance about alertness.
“Pay attention to your surroundings,” she told us. “If you are preoccupied or lost in thought, you are much more likely to become a target.”
I commented that I often read a newspaper or paperwork while walking down the street. She told me that although I had not yet made myself a victim, my obvious lack of alertness put me at substantially increased risk. Thus, long before the term multitasking became popular, I had already learned about one significant downside of doing two or more things at once.
When you are preoccupied or dividing your attention, you miss cues that are otherwise very obvious. A classic demonstration of this is available on the web. See for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pK0BQ9CUHk or search for selective inattention. Most people prove to be oblivious to even basic messages when their attention is diverted by other tasks.
If you frequently, or routinely, multitask, you’ll miss much more than you would ever guess. If you handle e-mail while on a phone call, for example, you will recall much less of the content of either than you would if you handled the tasks sequentially rather than simultaneously. I had a problem with inattention and forgetfulness at work that I finally cured by training myself to match my body language to the demands of the situation. For example, when my assistant entered my office to pass on a message, I completely stopped what I was doing and turned to face her directly. I gave her my full attention rather than listening as I continued to type or to read on the computer screen. By forcing myself to end one task by changing my position and focus, I prepared myself to consciously switch attention. As a consequence, I heard and retained more. I also conveyed more respect, which was a significant added benefit.
Psychologists who study memory have confirmed that the first crucial step in and remembering something is seen, hearing, or feeling it in the first place. You must first be aware, and that is largely based on attention vs. distraction. Magicians understand the same principle. The hand is not quicker than the eye, but often the eye only sees what it expects to see. It is very easy to distract most people. Indeed, one of the challenges for a novice magician is to have confidence that a magic demonstration will actually fool the audience since the “effect” is so obvious once you know it.
My wife and I are amateur magicians and have learned that minimal distractions can divert awareness effectively, especially when they seem completely natural. As a CEO and as a consultant, I have seen the same thing as management teams struggle with group problem solving and decision-making when they are distracted by multiple, simultaneous demands on their attention.
There is value in unstructured discussions, when they enable groups to explore issues fully and flexibly. However, I have found it helpful to add structure, for example using a whiteboard to track key points of agreement and disagreement, in order to keep groups on task. Using tools to hold attention to the task at hand reduces distractions and enables people to make progress by building on each other’s ideas constructively. The goal is to take advantage of the knowledge and experiences in a group by focusing attention rather than having the discussion wander and repeat because of selective attention or inattention.
Application: it is important to practice habits of attention and alertness at work. When you move from one task to another, consciously swing your attention to the new task and support it with your body language as well. When you physically demonstrate attention, you turn away from distractors. You will then be in a position to pick up cues, process them, and remember them. Without attention, effective learning cannot even begin.