GOAL SETTING: ITS SYSTEMIC BEHAVIORAL IMPACT – CHAPTER – 02

***Continued from Chapter 01 (Covered previously: Case Studies on Goals going Awry, Inappropriate Calibration of Goals, Impact of Time Horizon on Goals,)

Link to Chapter 01:

GOAL SETTING: ITS SYSTEMIC BEHAVIORAL IMPACT – CHAPTER 01

Goals Becoming Too Challenging

Proponents of goal setting claim that a positive linear relationship exists between the difficulty of a goal and employee performance. Specifically, they argue that goals should be set at the most challenging level possible to inspire effort, commitment, and performance—but not so challenging that employees see no point in trying. This logic makes intuitive sense, yet stretch goals also cause serious side-effects like:-

Shifting Risk Attitudes:-> Goal-setting often distorts risk preferences. People motivated by specific and challenging goals adopt riskier strategies and choose riskier gambles than do those with less challenging or vague goals. Related literature has found that goals harm negotiation performance by increasing risky behavior. Negotiators with goals are more likely to reach an inefficient impasse than are negotiators who lack goals. A negotiator who has obtained concessions sufficient to reach their goal, will satisfies and accept the agreement on the table, even if the value maximizing strategy would be to continue the negotiation process. Clearly, in some domains, goal setting can significantly harm performance rather than promote better outcomes.

In the 1996 Mt.Everest disaster in which eight climbers died due to the decisions of the two team leaders is an example of destructive goal pursuit. On Mt. Everest, world-class high-altitude guides, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, identified so closely with the goal of reaching the summit that they made risky decisions that led to their own and 6 of their clients’ deaths. Some warning signs of leaders who have become excessively fixated on goals may be:

Unethical Behavior:-> Goal setting has been promoted as a powerful motivational tool, but substantial evidence demonstrates that in addition to motivating constructive effort, goal setting can induce unethical behavior. Goal setting can promote two different types of such behavior:

First, when motivated by a goal, people may choose to use unethical methods to reach it. For example, at Sears (reference – case study from chapter 01), mechanics told customers that they needed unnecessary repairs and then performed and charged them for this unneeded work.

Second, goal setting can motivate people to misrepresent their performance level—in other words, to report that they met a goal when in fact they fell short. For example, in 1993, employees at Bausch and Lomb who were driven to reach sales targets reported sales that never took place. They falsified financial statements to meet earnings goals.

Goal setting, of course, is not the only cause of employee unethical behavior, but it is certainly an important, understudied ingredient. A number of factors serve as catalysts in the relationship between goal setting and cheating: lax oversight, financial incentives for meeting performance targets, and organizational cultures with a weak commitment to ethics.

The interplay between organizational culture and goal setting is particularly important. An ethical organizational culture can reign in the harmful effects of goal setting, but at the same time, the use of goals can influence organizational culture. Specifically, the use of goal setting, like “management by objectives,” creates a focus on ends rather than means. Goal setting impedes ethical decision making by making it harder for employees to recognize ethical issues and easier for them to rationalize unethical behavior.

Psychological Costs of Goal Failure:-> One problem embedded in stretch goals is the possibility that the goal may not be reached. In negotiations, for example, challenging goals can increase negotiation and task performance, but decrease satisfaction with high-quality outcomes. These decreases in satisfaction influence how people view themselves and have important consequences for future behavior. It was found that giving someone a challenging goal versus an easy goal on an attention task or an intelligence test improved performance, but left people questioning their concentration abilities and overall intelligence. These goal-induced reductions in self-efficacy can be highly detrimental, because perceptions of self-efficacy are a key predictor of task engagement, commitment, and effort.

Fostering  Collaboration and Learning in Goals

In order to adapt to a competitive landscape, organizations need employees who are able to learn and collaborate with their colleagues. Goals can inhibit both learning and cooperation.

Goals inhibit learning :->  When individuals face a complex task, specific and challenging goals may inhibit learning from experience and degrade performance. A person who is narrowly focused on a performance goal, will be less likely to try alternative methods that could help her learn how to perform a task. The narrow focus of specific goals can inspire performance but prevent learning.

“Learning goals” can be used in complex situations rather than “performance goals.” In practice, however, managers may have trouble determining when a task is complex enough to warrant a learning, rather than a performance goal. In many changing business environments, perhaps learning goals should be the norm. Even when tasks are complex enough to clearly warrant learning goals, managers face the challenge of identifying the specific, challenging goal levels for learning objectives.

Goals create a culture of competition :->  Organizations that rely heavily on goal setting may erode the foundation of cooperation that holds groups together. An exclusive focus on profit maximization can harm altruistic and other behavioral motives. Similarly, being too focused on achieving a specific goal may decrease extra-role behavior, such as helping coworkers. Goals may promote competition rather than cooperation and ultimately lower overall performance.

When Goals Harm Motivation Itself:-> As goal setting increases extrinsic motivation, it can harm intrinsic motivation – engaging in a task for its own sake. This problem is important, because managers are likely to over-value and over-use goals. Although people recognize the importance of intrinsic rewards in motivating themselves, people exaggerate the importance of extrinsic rewards in motivating others. In short, managers may think that others need to be motivated by specific and challenging goals far more often than they actually do. By setting goals, managers may create a hedonic treadmill in which employees are motivated by external means (goals, rewards, etc.) and not by the intrinsic value of the job itself.

Implementation and Calibration of Goals

Proponents of goal setting have long championed the simplicity of its implementation and the efficiency of its effects. In practice, however, setting goals is a challenging process, especially in novel settings.

Goal setting can become problematic when the same goal is applied to many different people. Given the variability of performance on any given task, any standard goal set for a group of people will vary in difficulty for individual members; thus, the goal will simultaneously be too easy for some and too difficult for others. Conversely, idiosyncratically tailoring goals to each person can lead to charges of unfairness. This has important implications, because employee perceptions of whether rewards fairly match effort and performance can be one of the best predictors of commitment and motivation.

When reaching pre-set goals matters more than absolute performance, self-interested individuals can strategically set (or guide their managers to set) easy-to-meet goals. By lowering the bar, they procure valuable rewards and accolades. Many company executives often choose to manage expectations rather than maximize earnings. In some cases, managers set a combination of goals that, in aggregate, appears rational, but is in fact not constructive. In reality, CEOs (and many Wall Street executives) face asymmetric rewards—a large bonus for meeting the goal in one year, but no fear of having to return a large bonus the following year for underperforming.

Harnessing the Power of Goals

Goals can inspire employees and improve performance as well. Just as doctors prescribe drugs selectively, mindful of interactions and adverse reactions, so too should managers carefully prescribe goals. To do so, managers must consider—and scholars must study—the complex interplay between goal setting and organizational contexts, as well as the need for safeguards and monitoring.

According to General Electric’s Steve Kerr, an expert in reward and measurement systems, “most organizations don’t have a clue how to manage ‘stretch goals’”. He advises managers to avoid setting goals that increase employee stress, to refrain from punishing failure, and to provide the tools people need to meet ambitious goals.

It’s one thing to know about goal setting, and how it can help us, but another entirely to know how to actually set goals and stick with them. Goal setting tools are a great way to help us set goals, keep track of, and stay focused on what we are trying to achieve. These tools can be informal, for instance:

There are several concepts and tools for Goal Setting. Which tool is right for us will depend on what our goals are, how long we want to take to achieve them, and whether it is an individual or group goal.

Here are some popular tools:

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

GOAL SETTING: ITS SYSTEMIC BEHAVIORAL IMPACT – CHAPTER 01

For decades, goal setting has been used as a tool for improving employee motivation and performance in organizations. Across hundreds of experiments, dozens of tasks, and thousands of people across four continents, the results are clear. Compared to vague, easy goals (e.g., “Do your best”), specific and challenging goals boost performance. Locke (1964) is credited with the very first Goal Setting Theory, where he focused on goal setting within the workplace.

He found that employees were motivated more by clearly set goals and actionable feedback to help them achieve those goals. Locke also found that motivation is key to achieving our goals, and we feel more motivated when we’re not 100% certain we can achieve the goal we’ve set for ourselves. Taking on challenges is highly motivational as it allows us to develop our skills, flex our problem-solving muscles, and gain a deeper sense of personal achievement.

But has the systematic harm caused by goal setting been largely ignored? When managers set targets for specific dimensions of a problem, they often fail to anticipate the broader results of their directives. Goals inform the individual about what behavior is valued and appropriate. The very presence of goals may lead employees to focus myopically on short-term gains and to lose sight of the potential devastating long-term effects on the organization.

Case Studies to Consider:

Consider Sears, Roebuck and Co.’s experience with goal setting in the early 1990’s. Sears set sales goals for its auto repair staff of $147/hour. This specific, challenging goal prompted staff to overcharge for work and to complete unnecessary repairs on a company-wide basis. Ultimately, Sears’ Chairman Edward Brennan acknowledged that goal setting had motivated Sears’ employees to deceive customers.

In the late 1990’s, specific, challenging goals fueled energy-trading company Enron’s rapid financial success. Enron’s incentive system was of paying a salesman a commission based on the volume of sales and letting him set the price of goods sold. Even during Enron’s final days, Enron executives were rewarded with large bonuses for meeting specific revenue goals. In sum, Enron executives were meeting their goals, but they were the wrong goals. By focusing on revenue rather than profit, Enron executives drove the company into the ground.

In the late 1960’s, the Ford Motor Company was losing market share to foreign competitors that were selling small, fuel-efficient cars. CEO Lee Iaccoca announced the specific, challenging goal of producing a new car that would be “under 2000 pounds and under $2,000” and would be available for purchase in 1970. This goal, coupled with a tight deadline, meant that many levels of management signed off on unperformed safety checks to expedite the development of the car—the Ford Pinto. One omitted safety check concerned the fuel tank, which was located behind the rear axle in less than 10 inches of crush space.

Lawsuits later revealed what Ford should have corrected it in its design process: the Pinto could ignite upon impact. Investigations revealed that after Ford finally discovered the hazard, executives remained committed to their goal and instead of repairing the faulty design, calculated that the costs of lawsuits associated with Pinto fires (which involved 53 deaths and many injuries) would be less than the cost of fixing the design. In this case, the specific, challenging goals were met (speed to market, fuel efficiency, and cost) at the expense of other important features that were not specified (safety, ethical behavior, and company reputation).

As these disasters suggest, the harmful effects of goal setting have received far too little attention in the management literature. Although prior research has acknowledged “pitfalls” of goal setting, we argue that the harmful side effects of goal setting are far more serious and systematic than has been acknowledged.

Calibration Of Goals

Advocates of goal setting argue that for goals to be successful, they should be specific and challenging. Countless studies find that specific and challenging goals motivate performance far better than “do your best” kind of goals. According to these findings, specific goals provide clear, unambiguous, and objective means for evaluating employee performance. Specific goals focus people’s attention; lacking a specific goal, employee attention may be dispersed across too many possible objectives. In turn, because challenging goals, or “stretch” goals, create a discrepancy between one’s current and expected output, they motivate greater effort and persistence. However, here are what can cause disarray:

When Goals Are Too Specific:-> Unfortunately, goals can focus attention so narrowly that people overlook other important features of a task (example – the Ford Motor Company Case). This focusing problem has broad application and direct relevance to goal setting.

When Goals Are Too Narrow:-> With goals, people narrow their focus. This intense focus can blind people to important issues that appear unrelated to their goal. Suppose that a university department bases tenure decisions primarily on the number of articles that professors publish. This goal will motivate professors to accomplish the narrow objective of publishing articles. Other important objectives, however, such as research impact, teaching, and service, may suffer. Consistent with the classic notion that you get what you reward, goal setting may cause people to ignore important dimensions of performance that are not specified by the goal setting system.

When Goals Are Too Many:-> A related problem occurs when employees pursue multiple goals at one time. People with multiple goals are prone to concentrate on only one goal. Related research suggests that some types of goals are more likely to be ignored than others. When quantity and quality goals are both difficult, people tend to sacrifice quality to meet the quantity goals. Goals those are easier to achieve and measure (such as quantity) may be given more attention than other goals (such as quality) in a multi-goal situation.

Impact of Time Horizon on Goals

Even if goals are set on the right attribute, the time horizon may be inappropriate. For instance, goals that emphasize immediate performance (e.g., this quarter’s profits) prompt managers to engage in myopic, short-term behavior that harms the organization in the long run. The efforts to meet short-term targets occur at the expense of long-term growth. Some companies are learning from these mistakes; Coca Cola announced in 2002 that is would cease issuing quarterly earnings guidance and provide more information about progress on meeting long-term objectives.

The time horizon problem is related to the notion that it can lead people to perceive their goals as ceilings rather than floors for performance. For instance, a salesperson, after meeting her monthly sales quota, may spend the rest of the month playing golf rather than working on new sales leads.

An excellent example of this problem comes from a study of New York City cab drivers. This study answers the age-old question of why it is so hard to get a cab on a rainy day. Most people blame demand: when it is raining, more people hail cabs than when the weather is clear. But as it turns out, supply is another important culprit. As a day progresses, cabs start disappearing more quickly from Manhattan streets on rainy days than on sunny days. Why? Because of the specific, daily goals that most cab drivers set: a goal to earn double the amount it costs them to rent out their cabs for a 12-hour shift. On rainy days, cabbies make money more quickly than on sunny days (because demand is indeed higher), hit their daily goal sooner, and then they go home (the problem of goals as ceilings).

This finding flies in the face of the economic tenet of wage elasticity, which predicts that people should work more hours on days when they can earn more money and less on days when they earn less. If NYC taxi drivers used a longer time horizon (perhaps weekly or monthly), kept track of indicators of increased demand (e.g., rain or special events), and ignored their typical daily goal, they could increase their overall wages, decrease the overall time they spend working, and improve the welfare of drenched New Yorkers.

***To be continued in Chapter 02 (Goals Becoming too Challenging, Fostering Collaboration and Learning in Goals, Implementation and Calibration of Goals, Harnessing the Power of Goals, Goal Setting Tools) Link to Chapter -02:

GOAL SETTING: ITS SYSTEMIC BEHAVIORAL IMPACT – CHAPTER – 02

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

INFLUENCING BEHAVIORS: WHY FACTS DON’T ALTER MINDS

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”- Leo Tolstoy.

Why don’t facts change our minds? And why would someone continue to believe a false or inaccurate idea anyway? How do such behaviors serve us?

The Logic of False Beliefs

Humans need a reasonably accurate view of the world in order to survive. If our model of reality is wildly different from the actual world, then we struggle to take effective actions each day. However, truth and accuracy are not the only things that matter to the human mind. Humans also seem to have a deep desire to belong.

“Humans are herd animals. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and to earn the respect and approval of our peers. Such inclinations are essential to our survival. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors lived in tribes. Becoming separated from the tribe—or worse, being cast out—was a death sentence.”- James Clear – Atomic Habits

Understanding the truth of a situation is important, but so is remaining part of a tribe. While these two desires often work well together, they occasionally come into conflict. In many circumstances; social connection is actually more helpful to our daily life than understanding the truth of a particular fact or idea. People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples, rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true.

We don’t always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to the people we care about.If a brain anticipates that it will be rewarded for adopting a particular belief, it’s perfectly happy to do so, and doesn’t much care where the reward comes from. False beliefs can be useful in a social sense even if they are not useful in a factual sense. For lack of a better phrase, we might call this approach “factually false, but socially accurate.”  When we have to choose between the two, people often select friends and family over facts.

This insight not only explains why we might hold our tongue at a dinner party or look the other way when our parents say something offensive, but also reveals a better way to change the minds of others.

Facts Don’t Change Our Minds. Friendship Does.

Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing them to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. We can’t expect someone to change their mind if we take away their community too. We have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome.The way to change people’s minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into our tribe, to bring them into our circle. Now, they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially.

The British philosopher Alain de Botton suggests that we simply share meals with those who disagree with us. Sitting down at a table with a group of strangers has the incomparable and odd benefit of making it a little more difficult to hate them with impunity. Prejudice and ethnic strife feed off abstraction. However, the proximity required by a meal – something about handing dishes around, unfurling napkins at the same moment, even asking a stranger to pass the salt – disrupts our ability to cling to the belief that the outsiders who wear unusual clothes and speak in distinctive accents deserve to be sent home or assaulted. Perhaps it is not difference, but distance that breeds tribalism and hostility. As proximity increases, so does understanding. Facts don’t change our minds. Friendship does.

The Spectrum of Beliefs

The people who are most likely to change our minds are the ones we agree with on 98 percent of topics. If someone we know, like, and trust believes a radical idea, we are more likely to give it merit, weight, or consideration. But if someone wildly different than us proposes the same radical idea, well, it’s easy to dismiss them as a crackpot.

One way to visualize this distinction is by mapping beliefs on a spectrum. If we divide this spectrum into 10 units and we find ourselves at Position 7, then there is little sense in trying to convince someone at Position 1. The gap is too wide. When we are at Position 7, our time is better spent connecting with people who are at Positions 6 and 8, gradually pulling them in our direction.

The most heated arguments often occur between people on opposite ends of the spectrum, but the most frequent learning occurs from people who are nearby. The closer we are to someone, the more likely it becomes that the one or two beliefs we don’t share will bleed over into our own mind and shape our thinking. The further away an idea is from our current position, the more likely we are to reject it outright.When it comes to changing people’s minds, it is very difficult to jump from one side to another. We can’t jump down the spectrum – we have to slide down it.

Any idea that is sufficiently different from our current worldview will feel threatening. And the best place to ponder a threatening idea is in a non-threatening environment. As a result, books are often a better vehicle for transforming beliefs than conversations or debates. In conversation; people have to carefully consider their status and appearance. They want to save face and avoid looking stupid. When confronted with an uncomfortable set of facts, the tendency is often to double down on their current position rather than publicly admit to being wrong. Books resolve this tension. With a book, the conversation takes place inside someone’s head and without the risk of being judged by others. It’s easier to be open-minded when you aren’t feeling defensive.

Arguments are like a full-frontal attack on a person’s identity. Reading a book (or a text/email/letter) is like slipping the seed of an idea into a person’s brain and letting it grow on their own terms. There is enough wrestling going on in someone’s head when they are overcoming a pre-existing belief. They don’t need to wrestle with you too.

Why False Ideas Persist

There is another reason bad ideas continue to live on, which is that people continue to talk about them. Silence is death for any idea. An idea that is never spoken or written down dies with the person who conceived it. Ideas can only be remembered when they are repeated. They can only be believed when they are repeated.

People also repeat bad ideas when they complain about them. Before we can criticize an idea, we have to reference that idea. We end up repeating the ideas we are hoping people will forget—but, of course, people cannot forget them because we keep talking about them. The more we repeat a bad idea, the more likely people are to believe it.

Each time we attack a bad idea, we are feeding the very monster we are trying to destroy. Our time is better spent championing good ideas than tearing down bad ones. The best thing that can happen to a bad idea is that it is forgotten. The best thing that can happen to a good idea is that it is shared.

What Is The Goal?

There are instances when it is useful to point out an error or criticize a bad idea. But we have to ask ourselves, “What is the goal?” Presumably, we want to criticize bad ideas because we think the world would be better off if fewer people believed them. In other words, we think the world would improve if people changed their minds on a few important topics.If the goal is to actually change minds, then, criticizing the other side may not be the best approach.

Most people argue to win, not to learn. People often act like soldiers rather than scouts. Soldiers are on the intellectual attack, looking to defeat the people who differ from them. Victory is the operative emotion. Scouts, meanwhile, are like intellectual explorers, slowly trying to map the terrain with others. Curiosity is the driving force. If we want people to adopt our beliefs, we need to act more like a scout and less like a soldier. Are we willing to not win in order to keep the conversation going?

Be Kind First, Be Right Later

“Always remember that to argue, and win, is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.”- Haruki Murakami

When we are in the moment, we can easily forget that the goal is to connect with the other side, collaborate with them, befriend them, and integrate them into our tribe. We are so caught up in winning that we forget about connecting. It is easy to spend our energy labelling people rather than working with them.The word “kind” originated from the word “kin.” When you are kind to someone it means you are treating them like family. Develop a friendship. Share a meal. Be Kind.

**Source Credits: 1)  Language, Cognition, and Human Nature: Selected Articles by Steven Pinker.   2) Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton.  3) “Why you think you’re right — even if you’re wrong” by Julia Galef.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS AND PRODUCTIVITY: BEHAVIOURS ASSOCIATED

Story – The Ivy Lee Method:

By 1918, Charles M. Schwab was one of the richest men in the world. Schwab was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the largest shipbuilder, and the second-largest steel producer in America at the time. The famous inventor Thomas Edison once referred to Schwab as the “master hustler.” He was constantly seeking an edge over the competition. One day in 1918, in his quest to increase the efficiency of his team and discover better ways to get things done, Schwab arranged a meeting with a highly respected productivity consultant named Ivy Lee. Lee was a successful businessman in his own right and is widely remembered as a pioneer in the field of public relations.

The Ivy Lee Method:. . . . . . . . During his 15 minutes with each executive, Ivy Lee explained this simple set of daily routine steps for achieving peak productivity:

1. At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow.
2. Do not write down more than six tasks.
3. Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
4. When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task.
5. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
6. Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion.
7. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
8. Repeat this process every working day.

The strategy sounded simple, but Schwab and his executive team at Bethlehem Steel gave it a try. After three months, Schwab was so delighted with the progress his company had made that he called Lee into his office and wrote him a check for $25,000. A $25,000 check written in 1918 is the equivalent of a $400,000 check in 2015.

The Ivy Lee Method of prioritizing our to-do list seems stupidly simple. How could something this simple be worth so much?

A) It is simple enough to actually work: . . . . . . . . The primary critique of methods like this one is that they are too basic. They do not account for all of the complexities and nuances of life. What happens if an emergency pops up? What about using the latest technology to our fullest advantage? Sometimes, complexity is actually a weakness because it makes it harder to get back on track. Emergencies and unexpected distractions will arise. Ignoring them as much as possible, dealing with them when we must, and getting back to our prioritized to-do list as soon as possible is what brings productivity. The use of simple rules to guide complex behaviour often serves the best results.

B) It forces us to make tough decisions: . . . . . . . . . There is nothing magical about Lee’s number of six important tasks per day. It could just as easily be five tasks per day. However, there is something magical about imposing limits upon ourselves. Sometimes, the single best thing to do when we have too many ideas (or when we are overwhelmed by everything we need to get done) is to prune our ideas and trim away everything that is not absolutely necessary. Constraints can make us better. Lee’s method is similar to Warren Buffett’s 25-5 Rule, which requires us to focus on just 5 critical tasks and ignore everything else. Basically, if we commit to nothing, we will be distracted by everything.

C) It removes the friction of starting: . . . . . . . . . The biggest hurdle to finishing most tasks is starting them. Lee’s method forces us to decide on our first task the night before we go to work. If we decide the night before, we can start work immediately the next day, and not end up wasting time deciding what needs our attention. It is simple, but it works. In the beginning, getting started is just as important as succeeding at all.

Another tool that could be useful here is known as the Eisenhower Box (or Eisenhower Matrix) and it’s a simple decision-making tool. General Dwight Eisenhower had an incredible ability to sustain his productivity for weeks and months. And for that reason, it is no surprise that his methods for time management, task management, and productivity have been studied by many people. Before becoming the 34th President of the United States, Eisenhower was a five-star general in the United States Army, served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, and was responsible for planning and executing invasions of North Africa, France, and Germany.

D) It requires us to single-task: . . . . . . . . . Modern society loves multi-tasking. The myth of multi-tasking is that being busy is synonymous with being better. The exact opposite is true. Having fewer priorities leads to better work. World-class experts in nearly any field—athletes, artists, scientists, teachers, CEOs—have one characteristic that runs through all of them: focus. The reason is simple. We cannot be great at one task if we are constantly dividing our time ten different ways. Mastery requires focus and consistency. The bottom line? Do the most important thing first each day. It’s the only productivity trick we need.

The Myth of Multitasking: Why Fewer Priorities Leads to Better Work

The word priority did not always mean what it does today. In his best-selling book, Essentialism (audiobook), Greg McKeown explains the surprising history of the word and how its meaning has shifted over time.

Yes, we are capable of doing two things at the same time. It is possible, for example, to watch TV while cooking dinner or to answer an email while talking on the phone. What is impossible, however, is concentrating on two tasks at once. Multitasking forces our brain to switch back and forth very quickly from one task to another. This would not be a big deal if the human brain could transition seamlessly from one job to the next, but it cannot. Multitasking forces us to pay a mental price each time we interrupt one task and jump to another. In psychology terms, this mental price is called the switching cost. Switching cost is the disruption in performance that we experience when we switch our attention from one task to another.

For example, A 2003 study published in the International Journal of Information Management found that the typical person checks email once every five minutes and that, on average, it takes 64 seconds to resume the previous task after checking your email. In other words, because of email alone, we typically waste one out of every six minutes.

The myth of multitasking is that it will make us more effective. In reality, remarkable focus is what makes the difference. While we are on the subject, the word multitasking first appeared in 1965 IBM report talking about the capabilities of its latest computer.

Finding Your Anchor Task: . .. . . . . . .  . Doing more things does not drive faster or better results. Doing better things drives better results. Even more accurately, doing one thing as best you can, drives better results. The power of choosing one priority is that it naturally guides our behavior by forcing us to organize our life around that responsibility. Our priority becomes an anchor task, the mainstay that holds the rest of our day in place. If things get crazy, there is no debate about what to do or not to do. We have already decided what is urgent and what is important.

Saying No to Being Busy: . . . . . . . . As a society, we have fallen into a trap of busyness and overwork. In many ways, we have mistaken all this activity to be something meaningful. The underlying thought seems to be, “Look how busy I am? If I am doing all this work, I must be doing something important.” And, by extension, “I must be important because I’m so busy.” The people who do the most valuable work have a remarkable willingness to say no to distractions and focus on their one thing.

Implementation Intentions: Mastering One Thing at a Time

Many people have multiple areas of life they would like to improve. The problem is, even if we are committed to working hard on our goals, our natural tendency is to revert back to our old habits at some point. Making a permanent lifestyle change is difficult.

The approach to mastering many areas of life is somewhat counterintuitive. If we want to master multiple habits and stick to them for good, then we need to figure out how to be consistent. How can we do that? Research has shown that we are 2x to 3x more likely to stick with our habits if we make a specific plan for when, where, and how we will perform the behavior. For example, in one study scientists asked people to fill out this sentence: “During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME OF DAY] at/in [PLACE].”

Psychologists call these specific plans “implementation intentions” because they state when, where, and how we intend to implement a particular behavior. For example, implementation intentions have been found to increase the odds that people will start exercising, begin recycling, stick with studying, and even stop smoking. However (and this is crucial to understand) follow-up research has discovered that implementation intentions only work when we focus on one thing at a time.

When we begin practicing a new habit it requires a lot of conscious effort to remember to do it. After a while, however, the pattern of behavior becomes easier. Eventually, our new habit becomes a normal routine, and the process is more or less mindless and automatic. Automaticity is the ability to perform a behavior without thinking about each step, which allows the pattern to become automatic and habitual. But here is the thing: automaticity only occurs as the result of lots of repetition and practice. The more reps we put in, the more automatic a behavior becomes. The most important thing to note is that there is some “tipping point” at which new habits become more or less automatic. The time it takes to build a habit depends on many factors including how difficult the habit is, what our environment is like, our genetics, and more.

The counterintuitive insight from all of this research is that the best way to change our entire life is by not changing our entire life. Instead, it is best to focus on one specific habit, work on it until we master it, and make it an automatic part of our daily life. Then, repeat the process for the next habit. The way to master more things in the long run is to simply focus on one thing right now.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

BEHAVIOURAL LESSONS FROM THE WORK-FROM-HOME ERA

It is safe to assume that an overwhelming majority of the population has now participated in a videoconference. People who may not have even known how to start one six months ago now use them daily—and it is all beginning to feel normal. The technologies that we have all come to rely on have so seamlessly infiltrated our lives that it is easy to overlook their impact. But when we consider the repercussions of remote working, we will see that these platforms have taught us more than just how to use them. They have made us better leaders, collaborators, employees, and employers. Here are some lessons we did not realize we learned from the tools we use to work from home.

Lesson 01- Transparency is not so frightening after all: . . . .. . . . . . .  

Many of us who came of age in the business world between the 1980s and the 2010s have an innate fear of letting a client see anything before it is “ready.” As businesses, we are entrusted to lead projects that constitute millions of dollars in revenue, which has led to the belief that if work is shared with a client before it’s “perfect,” then that trust will be lost. However, after five months of remote work during the most unpredictable time in most of our lives, it’s clear that nothing is perfect and the notion that we need to pretend it is has no place in our minds. Being open and vulnerable in business isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Lesson 02- Our significance is no longer tied to our location: . . . .. . . . . . .  

Good talent is expensive. You get what you pay for, and the best talent in the world is either totally undiscovered or very successful (hence the high cost). Employers did not know what they could not see, so if you were not directly in front of them, they had no idea you existed. The global pandemic has completely changed that.

With budgets being slashed, offices closed, companies shuttering, and the gig economy being revitalized, we have all been forced to realize that remote work works. The past notions of “oh, they work in a metro/ tier 1 city, so they must be good” are gone, and as people across the country were able to refine their work-from-home setups and became familiar, even comfortable, with Slack, Zoom, Dropbox, etc., the playing field was levelled. The migration of talent and remote work reckoning will afford talented creators and businesspeople from across the globe more opportunities and shake businesses clean of the attitude that someone is less valuable if they are not in a big city. After all, in today’s world, if you have tech tools, Wi-Fi, and talent, you can get the job done.

Lesson 03- Our collaboration skills might want improvement: . . . .. . . . . . .  

Between zoom, slack, chat, messenger, texting, and a good old-fashioned conference call or two, there are endless channels for socially distanced conversations to take place. But collaboration is something entirely different, and it is important to remember that talking is not co-thinking, and co-thinking is what gets things done. Energy, attitude, and personality cannot be ‘remoted’ through even the best fiber optic lines. (**quoted – Jerry Sinefield).

Every video call platform has managed to make it more obvious than ever how often team members speak over one another. It is an honest mistake, but even the slightest lag has taught many of us to wait our turn, take a second, and make sure we are not infringing on someone’s time to speak. This small change many have unconsciously implemented has made all the things that feed innovative thinking that much better.

The truth is that as humans, we adapt. Sometimes it happens so quietly that we don’t even notice. So, the next time we notice ourselves waiting our turn to speak, being more vulnerable with a client or co-worker, or not second-guessing our value, we can say a silent “thank you” to all of our work-from-home technology for helping us make positive changes from our couch.

Behaviours That Bring More Focus

Focus seems to be the key. It’s hard to imagine achieving anything of value without given it due attention. And whether it’s in relation to family life, work or study, more focus enables more effective setting and achievement of goals. But while most of us can appreciate the benefits of focus, the path to becoming more focused is often elusive. This is especially the case in our modern world: where gadgets, social media and around-the-clock coverage of world events (and non-events) often serve to distract us.

One solution could be to simply avoid the same things highly focused people avoid. Study after study of highly focused (and not-so-focused) people has given us a good idea of the do’s and don’ts of maintaining attention and getting the job done. Here are some behaviours of focused people:

They do not focus their attention on being focused: . . . . . .. . It might seem counterintuitive, but recent research suggests the best way to gain and keep focus is not to try. In other words, maintaining focus could best be undertaken as a defensive sport. Allowing even 200 milliseconds of mental distraction (around 1/5th of second, i.e., the blink of the eye) can disturb our focus for up to 40 minutes. Getting distracted depletes both our physical energy and our brain power. For example, it uses up vital thinking resources and pushes us more quickly towards mental overload—a state wherein we are less able to make decisions. By contrast, placing effort on getting rid of random distractions regains our focus and preserves our scarce, mental reserves.

They reframe dull work to be interesting: . . . . . . . . . We are only focused when we’re interested in the topic. It is no surprise that if the task at hand is incredibly boring, we lose focus quickly. Nonetheless, seldom in life do we get to work things that are always interesting and engaging. For that reason, highly focused people reframe whatever work or tasks they have, to make them more “interesting”. For example, signing a bunch of documents might be reframed as a chance to reflect on the beauty (or ugliness) of your signature. Reading an exceptionally long and poorly structured client brief might allow thoughts of copyediting.

They never begin something without clear, realistic goals. :. . . . . . . . Goal setting is an entire sub-field of management behavioural science. One of its many insights is that setting clear goals increases productivity. However, the mechanism by which goals appear to boost productivity relates to focus: clear goals give a person an object of focus and helps them mark progress. And that leads to something else. The goal-setting literature says our objectives should be challenging; however, they should also be realistic. Goals that are set too high or too low undermines focus and, as a result, productivity.

They chase those goals with flexibility and agility: . . . . . . . .. At the same time, highly focused people do some things that seem counterintuitive. For example, they set goals but do not set rigid ways of achieving them. As a result, high focused people leave themselves open to exploiting opportunities that arise along the way. These opportunities might make their existing goals easer to reach or change them altogether. When people set out with a rigid plan of action towards achieving goals, they are mostly asking “how” and not “why”. Yet. while seemingly harmless, this subtle distinction reduces focus dramatically. For example, as we become bogged down in the details of pursuing a specific action plan, subconsciously, we get lured off-topic by distractions. Part of that might stem from frustrations in not responding to what is happening then and there. By contrast, asking “why” opens the doorway to accepting alternative approaches and revising what we are doing based upon new data. By doing all that, it helps us maintain focus out of maintained interest and engagement.

They use diversions strategically: . . . . . .. .. Diversions are not always bad. While it’s important to distinguish random distractions from those related to our undertakings, there’s even an important place for random distractions in maintaining focus. Brief, strategically timed distractions—often at various intervals while doing our work—helps us “bounce back” into focus. For example, highly focused people might walk outside to observe the hustle and bustle of city streets or go for a walk in nature or even have an irrelevant conversation as a bounce back strategy. The only caveat is if the distraction involves electronic devices—which, for other reasons—can operate on our brains through visual channels and detract from focus.

They prioritize the mind-soul-body connection:. . . . . . . .. Highly focused people understand that their physical, emotional, and even spiritual condition can influence their abilities to maintain attention. Sufficient sleep is important for maintaining focus, even though many believe “all-nighters” or crunching for deadlines are effective ways to work and focus. Highly saturated foods lead to poor focus, and even a slight amount of dehydration kills our attention and leaves our brains foggy.

Having aggressive emotions (such as produced by an argument or by reading a politically-explosive news article) can affect our abilities to reason for some moments after the event—apart from depleting our mental reserves as they arise. The many ancient practices of meditation and prayer offer different ways of gathering focus.

They never befriend their electronic gadgets:. . . . . . . .. Science shows that our devices distract our attention and deplete our focus substantially. That might seem obvious, when considering email or chats, but even the mere presence of a mobile phone near us, impairs our ability to focus. Studies have shown that our grey matter is pivotal in enabling us to switch tasks and regain focus, as well as process information, build memories and other vital functions. Not only is multi-tasking across electronic media distracting, it could progressively impair our abilities to focus over the longer term by affecting our grey matter.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa