Overloaded circuits: why smart people underperform
by Edward M Hallowell
Bio: Dr. Edward (Ned) Hallowell is a US-based child and adult psychiatrist and the founder of The Hallowell Centre for Cognitive and Emotional Health. He is regarded as one of the foremost experts on the topic of ADD and has co-author of several books about ADD including Driven to Distraction, and Answers to Distraction. This year Dr Hallowell released his latest title about ADD - CrazyBusy - Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap! Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD
This article has been reproduced with the kind permission of the Harvard Business Review
Modern office life and an increasingly common condition called ‘attention deficit trait’ are turning steady executives into frenzied underachievers.
David drums his fingers on his desk as he scans the e-mail on his computer screen. At the same time, he’s talking on the phone to an executive halfway around the world.
His knee bounces up and down like a jackhammer. He intermittently bites his lip and reaches for his constant companion, the coffee cup. He’s so deeply involved in multitasking that he has forgotten the appointment his Outlook calendar reminded him of 15 minutes ago.
Jane a senior vice-president, and Mike, her CEO have adjoining offices so they can communicate quickly, yet communication never seems to happen.
David, Jane and Mike aren’t crazy, but they’re certainly crazed. Their experience is becoming the norm for overworked managers who suffer – like many of your colleagues, and possibly like you – from a very real but unrecognised neurological phenomenon that I call attention deficit trait, or ADT.
Caused by brain overload, ADT is now epidemic in organisations. The core symptoms are distractibility, inner frenzy and impatience. People with ADT are having difficulty staying organised, setting priorities, and managing time. These symptoms can undermine the work of an otherwise gifted executive.
If David, Jane, Mike and the millions like them understood themselves in neurological terms, they could actively manage their lives instead of reacting to problems as they happen.
As a psychiatrist who has diagnosed and treated thousands of people over the past 25 years for a medical condition called attention deficit disorder, or ADD (now known clinically as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), I have observed first-hand how a rapidly growing segment of the adult population is developing this new, related condition.
The number of people coming into my clinical practice has mushroomed by a factor of 10 in the past decade.
Unfortunately, most of the remedies for chronic overload proposed by time-management consultants and executive coaches do not address the underlying causes of ADT.
Unlike ADD, a neurological disorder, that has a genetic component and can be aggravated by environmental and physical factors, ADT springs entirely from the environment. Like the traffic jam, ADT is an artefact of modern life.
It is brought on by the demands on our time and attention that have exploded over the past two decades. As our minds fill with noise – feckless synaptic events signifying nothing – the brain gradually loses it capacity to attend fully and thoroughly to anything.
The symptoms of ADT come upon a person gradually. The sufferer doesn’t experience a single crisis, but rather a series of minor emergencies while he or she tries harder and harder to keep up.
Shouldering a responsibility to ‘stuck it up’ and not complain as the workload increases, executives with ADT do whatever they can to handle a load they simply cannot manage as well as they’d like.
The ADT sufferer therefore feels a constant low level of panic and guilt. Facing a tidal wave of tasks, the executive becomes increasingly hurried, curt, peremptory, and unfocused, while pretending that everything is fine.
To control ADT, we first have to recognise it. And control it we must, if we as individuals and organisational leaders are to be effective.
Rather than being rooted in genetics, ADT is purely a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live.
Indeed, modern culture all but requires many of us to develop ADT. Never in history has the human brain been asked to track so many data points. Everywhere, people rely on their cell phones, e-mail, and digital assistants in the race to gather and transmit data, plans and ideas fast and faster.
This is your brain
While brain scans cannot display anatomical differences between people with ‘normal’ brains and people suffering from ADT, studies have shown that as the human brain is asked to process dizzying amounts of data, its ability to solve problems flexibly and creatively declines and the number of mistakes increases. To find out why, let’s go on a brief neurological journey.
Blessed with the largest cortex in all of nature, owners of this trillion-celled organ today put singular pressure on the frontal and pre-frontal lobes, which I’ll refer to in this article as simply the frontal lobes.
This region governs what is called, aptly enough, executive functioning (EF). EF guides decision making and planning; the organisation and prioritisation of information and ideas; time management; and various other sophisticated, uniquely human, managerial tasks. As long as your frontal lobes remain in charge, everything is fine.
Beneath the frontal lobes lie the parts of the brain devoted to survival. These deep centres govern basic functions like sleep, hunger, breathing and heart rate, as well as crudely positive and negative emotions.
When you are doing well and operating at peak level, the deep centres send up messages of excitement, satisfaction, and joy. They pump up your motivation, help you maintain attention, and don’t interfere with working memory, the number of data points you can keep track of at once.
But when you are confronted with the sixth decision after the fifteenth interruption in the midst of a search for the ninth missing piece of information on the day that the third deal has collapsed, your brain begins to panic, reacting just as if that sixth decision were a bloodthirsty, man-eating tiger.
When the frontal lobes approach capacity and we begin to fear that we can’t keep up, the relationship between the higher and lower regions of the brain takes an ominous turn.
Thousands of years of evolution have taught the higher brain not to ignore the lower brain’s distress signals. In survival mode, the deep areas of the brain assume control and begin to direct the higher regions.
As a result, the whole brain gets caught in a neurological catch-22. The deep regions interpret the messages of overload they receive from the frontal lobes in the same way they interpret everything: primitively.
They furiously fire signals of fear, anxiety, impatience, irritability, anger or panic. These alarm signals shanghai the attention of the frontal lobes, forcing them to forfeit much of their power.
The brain and body are locked in a reverberating circuit while the frontal lobes lose their sophistication, as if vinegar were added to wine.
In this state, EF reverts to simpleminded black-and-white thinking; perspective and shades of grey disappear. Intelligence dims. In a futile attempt to do more than is possible, the brain paradoxically reduces its ability to think clearly.
This neurological event occurs when a manager is desperately trying to deal with more input than he possibly can. In survival mode, the manager makes impulsive judgements, angrily rushing to bring closure to whatever matter is at hand.
They feel compelled to get the problem under control immediately, to extinguish the perceived danger lest it destroy them.
The manager is robbed of his or her flexibility, their sense of humour, and their ability to deal with the unknown. They forget the big picture and the goals and values they stand for.
The manager loses their creativity and ability to change plans. At this moment, they are prone to melting down, to throwing a tantrum, to blaming others, and to sabotaging themself.
Regardless of how well executives appear to function, however, no one has total control over his or her executive functioning.
Managing ADT
Unfortunately, top management has so far viewed the symptoms of ADT through the distorting lens of morality or character. Employees who seem unable to keep up the pace are seen as deficient or weak.
Consider the case of an executive who came to see me when he was completely overloaded. I suggested he talk the situation over with his superior and ask for help.
When my client did so, he was told that if he couldn’t handle the work, he ought to think about resigning. Even though his performance assessments were stellar and he’d earned praise for being one of the most creative people in the organisation, he was allowed to leave.
Because the firm thought to preserve the myth that no straw could ever break its people’s backs, it could not tolerate the manager stating that his own back was breaking. After he went out on his own, he flourished
How can we control the rampaging effects of ADT, both in ourselves and in our organisations? ADT can be controlled only by creatively engineering one’s environment and one’s emotional and physical health.
I have found that the following preventative measures go a long way toward helping executives control their symptoms of ADT.
Promote positive emotions: The most important step in controlling ADT is not to buy a super-turbocharged Blackberry and fill it up with to-dos, but rather to create an environment in which the brain can function at its best.
This means building a positive, fear-free emotional landscape, because emotion is the on/off switch for executive functioning. There are neurological reasons why ADT occurs less in environments where people are in physical contact and where they trust and respect one another.
When you comfortably connect with a colleague, even if you are dealing with an overwhelming problem, the deep centres of the brain send messages through the pleasure centre to the area that assigns the resources to the frontal lobes.
The bottom line is this: Fostering connections and reducing fear promote brainpower. When you make time at least every four to six hours for a ‘human moment’, a face-to-face exchange with a person like you, you are giving your brain what it needs.
Take physical care of your brain: Sleep, a good diet, and exercise are critical for staving off ADT. Though this sounds like a no-brainer, too many of us abuse our brains by neglecting obvious principles of care.
You may try to cope with ADT by sleeping less, in the vain hope that you can get more done. This is the opposite of what you need to do, for ADT sets in when you don’t get enough sleep.
There is ample documentation to suggest that sleep deprivation engenders a host of problems, from impaired decision-making and reduced creativity to reckless behaviour and paranoia.
Diet also plays a crucial role in brain health. Many hardworking people habitually inhale carbohydrates, which cause blood glucose levels to yo yo.
This leads to a vicious cycle: rapid fluctuations in insulin levels further increase the craving for carbohydrates. The brain, which relies on glucose for energy, is left either glutted or gasping, neither of which makes for optimal cognitive functioning.
The brain does much better if the blood glucose level can be held relatively stable. To do this, avoid simple carbohydrates containing sugar and white flour (pastries, white bread and pasta for example).
Rely on the complex carbohydrates found in fruits, whole grains, and vegetables.
Protein is important: Instead of starting your day with coffee and a Danish, try tea and an egg or a piece of smoked salmon on wheat toast. Take a multivitamin every day, as well as supplementary omega-3 fatty acids, an excellent source of which is fish oil.
If you think you can’t afford the time to exercise, think again. Sitting at a desk for hours on end decreases mental acuity, not only because of reduced blood flow to the brain, but for other biochemical reasons as well.
Physical exercises induces the body to produce an array of chemicals that the brain loves, including endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, as well as two recently discovered compounds, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and nerve growth factor (NGF).
Both compounds promote cell health and development in the brain, stave off the ravages of ageing and stress, and keep the brain in tip-top condition.
Nothing stimulates the production of BDNF and NGF as physical exercise, which explains why those who exercise regularly talk about the letdown and sluggishness they experience if they miss their exercise for a few days.
You will more than compensate for the time you invest on the treadmill, with improved productivity and efficiency.
To fend off the symptoms of ADT while you’re at work, get up from your desk and go up and down a flight of stairs a few times, or walk briskly down a hallway. These quick, simple efforts will push your brain’s reset button.
Organise for ADT: It’s important to develop tactics for getting organised, but not in the sense of empty New Year’s resolutions. Rather, your goal is to order your work in a way that suits you, so that disorganisation does not keep you from reaching your goals.
First, devise strategies to help your frontal lobes stay in control.
These might include breaking down large tasks in onto smaller ones and keeping a section of your work space or desk clear at all times (you do not need to have a neat office, just a neat section of your office).
Similarly, you might try keeping a portion of your day free of appointments, e-mail, and other distractions so that you have time to think and plan.
Because e-mail is a wonderful way to procrastinate and set yourself up for ADT at the same time, you might consider holding specific ‘e-mail hours,’ since it isn’t necessary to reply to everyone’s email right away.
When you start your day, don’t allow yourself to be sucked into vortices of e-mail or voicemail or into attending to major tasks that eat up your time but don’t pack a punch.
Attend to a critical task instead. Before you leave for the day, make a list of no more than five priority items that will require your attention tomorrow.
Short lists force you to prioritise and complete your tasks. Additionally, keep torrents of documents at bay. Pay attention to the times of day when you feel that you perform your best; do your most important work then and save the rote work for other times.
Set up your office in a way that helps mental functioning. If you focus better with music (if need be use earphones). If you think best on your feet, work standing up, or walk around frequently.
If doodling or drumming your fingers helps, figure out a way to do so without bothering anyone, or get a fidget toy to bring to meetings. These small strategies sound mundane, but they address the ADT devil that resides in distracting details.
What leaders can do
All too often, companies induce and exacerbate ADT in their employees by demanding fast rather than deep thinking. Firms also ask employees to work on multiple, overlapping projects and initiatives, resulting in second-rate thinking.
Worse, companies that ask their employees to do too much at once tend to reward those who say yes to overload, while punishing those who choose to focus and say no.
Moreover, organisations make the mistake of forcing their employees to do more and more with less and less by eliminating support staff.
Such companies end up losing money in the long run, for the more time a manager has to spend being his own administrative assistant and the less he is able to delegate, the less effective he will be in doing the important work of moving the organisation forward.
Additionally, firms that ignore the symptoms of ADT in their employees suffer its ill effects. Employees underachieve, create clutter, cut corners, make careless mistakes, and squander their brainpower.
As demands continue to increase, a toxic, high-pressure environment leads to high rates of employee illness and turnover.
To counteract ADT and harness employee brainpower, firms should invest in amenities that contribute to a positive atmosphere.
Leaders can also prevent ADT by matching employees’ skills to tasks. When managers assign goals that stretch people too far or ask workers to focus on what they’re not good at, rather than what they do well, stress rises.
By contrast, managers who understand the dangers of ADT can find ways of keeping themselves and their organisations on track.
ADT is a very real threat, to all of us. If we do not manage it, it manages us. But an understanding of ADT and its ravages allows us to apply practical methods to improve our work and our lives.
In the end, the most critical step an enlightened leader can take to address the problem of ADT is to name it.
Bringing ADT out of the closet and describing its symptoms removes the stigma and eliminates the moral condemnation companies have for so long mistakenly leveled at overburdened employees.
By giving people permission to ask for help and remaining vigilant for signs of stress, organisations will go a long way toward fostering more productive, well-balanced, and intelligent work environments.