Interruptions Lower IQs

From an article in New Scientist magazine, April, 30 2005:

The next time your boss complains you are not focused enough, blame it on email and phone calls. Even smoking dope has less effect on your ability to concentrate on the task in hand.

At least that's what Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist King's College London, found when he and his team asked 80 volunteers to carry out problem-solving tasks, first in a quiet environment and then while being bombarded with emails and phone calls.

Despite being told to ignore the interruptions, the average IQ of the volunteers dropped by about 10 points. Not everyone was equally affected - men were twice as distracted as women. Studies have also shown that IQs of people high on pot drop by only 5 points.

"If left unchecked, 'infomania' will damage a worker's performance by reducing their mental sharpness," says Wilson. "This is a very real and widespread phenomenon." Information overload can reduce a person's ability to focus as much as losing a night's sleep can, he adds.

Self-Induced Distractions

More than four years ago Johns Hopkins University researchers concluded that using a cellphone -- even with a hands-free device -- may distract drivers because the brain cannot easily handle both tasks. The brain directs its resources to either visual input or auditory input, but cannot fully activate both at the same time. Despite these findings, MORE people are multi-tasking WHILE they drive.

"Our research helps explain why talking on a cell phone can impair driving performance, even when the driver is using a hands-free device," says research leader Steven Yantis, Ph.D. in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

"Directing attention to listening effectively 'turns down the volume' on input to the visual parts of the brain," he noted. "When attention is deployed to one modality -- say, in this case, talking on a cell phone -- it necessarily extracts a cost on another modality -- in this case, the visual task of driving.”

Despite these findings, MORE people are multi-tasking WHILE they drive. This is madness, pure and simple. Do you want to be on the road when such people are driving by? Do you want your children to be?

Focusing on the Wrong Things?

I couldn’t help but be amused when I came across this Forbes article on the dangers to a company when top executives are distracted by opportunities for “adulation.”

“Cancel That Cover Shoot”
by Dana Wechsler Linden, Forbes, January, 31, 2005

Everyone knows about the Sports Illustrated cover jinx. Does the same misfortune happen to executives who become celebrities? Anecdotally, to be sure. FORBES picked the Charles Schwab Corp. as the company of the year in 2001. Within two years the stock dropped to $7 from $30, and 35% of the employees were on the street.

Now two economists--Ulrike Malmendier of Stanford and Geoffrey Tate of Wharton--have gone beyond anecdotes. As specialists in "behavioral corporate finance," they studied the performance of more than 500 chief executives from 1975 to 2002. Half won media awards, such as best manager or
entrepreneur of the year, and became pseudo-celebrities. The other half didn't win awards but had company performances and profiles remarkably similar to the ones who did.

Guess what? Celebrity leads to hubris--and lower returns for shareholders. Malmendier and Tate don't name names, but here's some of what they found.

* Return on assets at companies with "celebrity" executives deteriorated steadily for at least three years after a big award, while those without did consistently better than the superstars.

* Award-winners write more books than nonwinners--autobiographies, collections of self-help advice and homespun philosophy. Ghostwritten or not, they're distractions from the bottom line.

* The more awards chief executives win, the more likely they are to sit on three or more boards, leaving less time for their own directors.

None of this surprises Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, head of the Yale School of Management's Chief Executive Leadership Institute. "The truth is, people do get distracted. You can almost see them start to grow weary of the business and thrilled with the adulation."