• Telephone calls, conference calls, and voicemail—24% of IP time
• Shared network usage—18% of IP time
• Portal Web site—8% of IP time
• Instant messaging/text messaging—5% of IP time4
FIGURE 1.1 Where You Get Information
The survey results also suggest that less than 50 percent of respondents feel that they are in control of how they manage all of this information. The most surprising finding, though, is that most survey respondents have simply not thought about this issue very much, and thus are not conscious of strategies for managing their personal information.5 The scary thing is that you are probably looking at these numbers above and thinking, “I wish that were me! That ‘average user’ has it easy!”
“I bought a cell phone in 2005. I finally caved. I just didn’t want to be known as ‘that guy without the cell phone.’”
– TAYLOR HESS6
Another interesting aspect of this research is that it doesn’t look at other forms of technology that we are increasingly using, such as digital music players, digital video recorders, satellite radio, and the Internet. When lumped together with the usual suspects—e-mail, voicemail, and cell phones—it becomes clear that information (and entertainment) is finding and filling every remaining minute of time in our lives.
Surveys like the ones noted above suggest that the pendulum is just starting to swing from unmitigated fascination with technology-enabled access to information to the necessity of having strategies for managing information overload and its negative impact on our productivity.
Another sign that the pendulum may be starting to swing back toward the center is the nascent field of interruption science. This branch of study is gaining a lot of attention because it seeks to understand when it’s best and most efficient to interrupt a person at work.
Doesn’t this strike you as odd? We have so much technology that interrupts us that we are now studying how to use technology to improve the productivity of interruptions! It seems that we have come to the realization that the constant stream of information, along with its inevitable interruptions, needs to be managed proactively just so we can get something done!
Computers, of course, are both the hero and the villain. As Clive Thompson put it, in an article about interruption science in the New York Times Magazine, personal computers began life as “little more than glorified word-processors and calculators,”8 but then things began to change. Thompson continues:
“The information glut is hardly the apocalypse that some imagined might come about at the millennium. The world’s not ending, it’s just becoming incomprehensible.”
– JOEL ACHENBACH7
“‘Multitasking’ was born; instead of simply working on one program for hours at a time, a computer user could work on several different ones simultaneously. Corporations seized on this as a way to squeeze more productivity out of each worker, and technology companies like Microsoft obliged them by transforming the computer into a hub for every conceivable task, and laying on the available information with a trowel. The Internet accelerated this trend even further, since it turned the computer from a sealed box into our primary tool for communication (emphasis added). As a result, office denizens now stare at computer screens of mind-boggling complexity, as they juggle messages, text documents, PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets and Web browsers all at once. In the modern office we are all fighter pilots.”9
“To perform an office job today, it seems, your attention must skip like a stone across water all day long, touching down only periodically.”
– CLIVE THOMPSON10
Fighter pilots indeed. Organizations make incredibly large investments in technology. What is the purpose of all of these systems and devices? To help us perform better, of course. What other reason could possibly justify the spending?
Given the focus on information technology investment in the average organization, it often seems that we put much more effort into selecting systems and devices than we do in understanding how they will actually help us communicate and perform better.
SO, HOW DO WE COM-MU-NI-OATE?
Several important trends are having a profound impact on the way we communicate with each other. First, as stated above, technology has given us many ways to communicate. Second, we are now working in many different places (and often alone). Third, globalization and technology have come together to enable us to work remotely and get things done from the car or airplane or basement office, and communicate in myriad different ways. Finally, layers of management have been consolidated and many of us serve as both leaders of others and individual contributors.
“Imagine what we could accomplish if we spent the same time, energy, and money to use the information skills we already know as we do on the tools and technologies otherwise labeled as Information Technology.”
– NATHAN SHEDROFF11
Of course, these trends can have a positive impact on competitiveness by allowing each segment of work to find the lowest available costs. They are also changing how we communicate, in ways both good and bad.
It’s convenient that we can call from the car on the way home to see whether we need any last-minute groceries. It feels more secure to know that our kids and our parents have immediate access to us if they need us. And it’s energizing to be able to collaborate with talented people no matter where they are in the world.
There is also a downside—a downside that people are just beginning to realize. These new ways of communicating have changed the content of our communications. Almost without realizing it, we have begun to communicate in bits and bullets.
“When the bullets are flying, no one is safe.”
– JOHN SCHWARTZ12
And now we’re addicted. Like any addiction, after a while it becomes hard to imagine a future without this new stuff. Over time, our behaviors change and we fall into a predictable, repeated pattern. If you are one of those people who say, “I’m not addicted. I can stop if I want to,” just recall the last time you were caught checking your e-mail while someone was talking directly to you. Gotcha!
“A researcher at Microsoft, Mary Czer-winski, has studied how the average computer user behaves and has found them to be “as restless as hummingbirds…. On average, they juggled eight different windows at the same time—a few email messages, maybe a Web page or two and a PowerPoint document. More astonishing, they would spend barely 20 seconds looking at one window before flipping to another.”
– CLIVE THOMPSON13
In an organization, rules for communication are established the same way as rules that govern any community of people. Social conventions, norms, and accepted ways of communicating are built up and when one becomes part of that community, one must live by those rules. This socialization is beneficial in that it helps us get work done and not have to spend time inventing ways to communicate. We don’t have to think too much about it.
But therein lies the problem. Because we don’t have to spend time thinking through our communications, we don’t. We go back to the usual ways of communicating. And when it comes to high-stakes communications—communications affecting leadership, mission, ethical behavior, and teamwork—we most often find ourselves on the losing side of the battle for hearts and minds. Many times, leaders lose the chance to ignite the performance of their people because they have chosen the expediency of bits and bullets over a more rich and engaging approach.
“Get to the point…I don’t have all minute!”
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