Emotional Intelligence in the Information Age

by Interim Management Executive Paul Travis

Growing up, you may have heard the expression, “Put yourself in the other person’s shoes”. The much heralded realm of Emotional Intelligence centers around this very type of empathy (the other half being self understanding).

My point today is that we always have opportunities to do this — whether speaking to a boss, reviewing an employee, pitching a prospective customer, and on and on.

Sometimes they’re “big things” and other times not. The question “are they sandals, boots, clogs, or moccasins” is a mental trigger for me to ask whether I’ve really imagined how the other person is experiencing our interaction.

Two great example of how this can happen every day, at a very small level, whether we’re conscious or not, came to me today in playing tag to schedule a call with another businessperson.

1. He was scheduling with Outlook, and putting notes into the “email portion”. I was receiving with Mac Mail, which only shows that text if I drill all the way into the calendar.

Yes, it would be nice to have Apple and Microsoft get their act together — but I think we might have better luck moving to the South Pacific the island where I live! And it’s really bigger than that — just understanding that all the different systems (Google Mail/Calendar, Blackberry, Palm Pre, iPhone, Android, ….) may or may not do things the same was as our system does.

2. More significantly, he titled his meeting request as “Updates”. Now his memory may be phenomenal so that when he looks at his calendar, he thinks “Paul Travis”! But all that happens for me when I look at my calendar is to wonder, who was I supposed to have updated and how was I to have done that? It feels like an incomplete, and puts me into worry mode — what was I thinking that I would have made such a note?

My suggestion for this, on both the receiving and initiating end, is to entitle the appointment with both (a) parties involved and (b) responsibility. My standard format is “Travis calls Smith”. Yes, a couple more characters than “Updates” but dramatically more helpful for both parties in recalling the discussion.

Bottom line: people are people, online or offline — so remember to ask yourself what kind of shoes they’re wearing the next time you’re interacting with another person.

This post has been republished from Paul Travis’ blog, Marketing 2020.

Overcoming Continuous Partial Attention

There is a good case for the argument that the improvements in technology, especially information technology, has made our lives more difficult. We are now constantly connected to others via our mobile devices, and constant streams of information from the internet can be overwhelming. One of the consequences of the abundance of easily accessible information is the potential to distract us from focusing on high priority tasks.

Find a Zen-like place to work

Sometimes I struggle to focus when working from home because there are many distractions. I will notice clutter that I should organize or be tempted to watch a show I recorded on DVR. I have found it helpful to escape these distractions by finding a place where I can better focus on the task at hand. For me this is a Starbucks, for others it could be the library, or the park.

Lock away your mobile device

Many of us are addicted to our mobile devices. For some it is an extension of our bodies and we can feel incomplete without it. To avoid being tempted to check your mobile for text messages, the Twitter stream, or being interrupted by calls, put your mobile device out of reach. This could be in the other room or in your coworkers desk. Anything that makes it more difficult to habitually check your phone should help.

Let go of the need to know everything

Former Apple and Microsoft executive Linda Stone wrote this over at BusinessWeek:

In the case of continuous partial attention, we’re motivated by a desire not to miss anything. There’s a kind of vigilance that is not characteristic of multi-tasking. With CPA, we feel most alive when we’re connected, plugged in and in the know. We constantly scan for opportunities – activities or people – in any given moment. With every opportunity we ask, “What can I gain here?”

The fear of missing things is often overblown. The book The 4 Hour Work Week suggests that you should completely avoid reading news and rather ask others if anything interesting is going on. It is good to revisit the consequences of not reading every blog post in your RSS reader or reading every Tweet from the people you are following. You will see that a lot of the information that you consume on a daily basis is insignificant and you would be just fine if you ignored most of it.

Photo by totalaldo

Debunking the Multitasking Myth

There is a common belief that you can do multiple things at once and be more productive. The problem is that your brain can not focus on more than one thing at once, unless they are tasks that require very little thinking. For instance you can chew gum while you work, however your brain can not simultaneously focus on multiple complex tasks at the same time. Instead your brain must switch its attention from one thing to another, and every time you do this your brain undergoes a process that takes a fractions of a second or more.

According to the book Brain Rules by John Medina

Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention is a myth. The brain naturally focuses on sequentially, one at a time. This attentional ability is not capable of multitasking…To put it bluntly. Research shows that we can’t multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention rich inputs simultaneously.

Every time you switch tasks, your brain must undergo a specific process called rule activation. When your brain wants to start a new task, your anterior prefrontal cortex activates and sends out a two part message. The two parts include a search query to find the neurons responsible for doing the task, and a command to arouse the specific neurons once discovered. When you need to switch your attention to something else your brain must disengage from the current task, then activate the anterior prefrontal cortex, which sends out a new message to find the neurons you need for the next task and activate them. This process takes several tenths of a second.

“Studies show that a person who is interrupted takes 50% longer to accomplish a task. Not only that, he or she makes up to 50% more errors.”
-Brain Rules

Some evidence that shows how bad we are at multitasking is the awful driving performance of people who drive while talking on their cell phone.

According to Brain Rules “Cellphone talkers are a half second slower to hit the brakes in emergencies, slower to return to normal speed after an emergency, and more wild in their following distance behind the vehicle in front of them. In a half second a driver going 70 miles per hour travels 51 feet…50% of the visual cues spotted by attentive drivers are missed by cell phone talkers…they get in more wrecks than anyone except very drunk drivers.”

So if you are serious about getting more done, turn off the email alerts and close your email, close the internet browser windows you are not using, and limit unscheduled co-worker interruptions. You’ll be more productive and probably less stressed by not trying to do a million things at once.