Workplace Accidents Are Deadlier After Lunch

2011 July 8 By

Researchers at the University of Burgos (in Spain) have discovered that, at least in the construction field, workplace accidents are more severe and more likely to be fatal between 1pm and 5pm.

The hours between 1pm and 5pm accounted for 18.2% of all accidents and 29.4% of fatalities.

This “lunch effect” was first observed by Pete Kines in Denmark, who found that the greatest number of falls by construction workers through roofs (in Sweden and Denmark) occurred before 1pm (in the morning between 7am and 12:59pm), except that the largest number of falls that resulted in death took place in the afternoon (between 1pm and 3:59pm). Kines (2002) did not find alcohol to play an important role, but rather fatigue, routine, and/or time constraints.

In the study by López and colleagues (2011), over 10 million accidents of construction workers were analyzed between 1990 and 2002. They found that the largest number of accidents (57.3%) occurred between 9am and 12:59pm. Interestingly, while only 18.2% of the accidents happened around lunchtime (between 1pm and 4:59pm), those accounted for 29.4% of deaths.

Other possible causes of workplace accidents include not taking naps (recall my post about the importance of sleep) and alcohol and drug consumption.

References

Kines, P. (2002). Construction workers’ falls through roofs: Fatal versus serious injuries. Journal of Safety Research, 33(2), 195–208. doi: 10.1016/S0022-4375(02)00019-1

López, M. A. C., Fontaneda, I., Alcántara, O. J. G., & Ritzel, D. O. (2011). The special severity of occupational accidents in the afternoon: “The lunch effect”. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 43(3), 1104-1116. doi:10.1016/j.aap.2010.12.019

Plataforma SINC (2011, June 30). Workplace accidents are worse after lunch, Spanish study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 30, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/06/110630073342.htm

Filed Under: Organizational Psychology, Occupational Health Psychology, Training & Development, Teams, Health & Wellness Tagged With: , , , ,

Failure is a Better Teacher than Success

2011 June 15 By

“Failure is not fatal. Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. It should challenge us to new heights of accomplishments, not pull us to new depths of despair. From honest failure can come valuable experience.” -William Arthur Ward, American author and teacher

We prize success over failure. You see articles and book titles with the words “success” or “succeed” splattered on bookstore shelves. However, research shows that when it comes to learning, failure may just be good for us after all. In fact, failure is a better teacher than success. Madsen and Desai (2010) discovered that the knowledge gained from our failures lasts longer than those from our successes. They advise organizations, to neither ignore nor dismiss failure but to, treat failure as a learning opportunity.

To illustrate the point, they used the flights of the 2002 space shuttle Atlantis and 2003 space shuttle Columbia. During the 2002 Atlantis flight, a piece of insulation broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster but did not impede the mission or the program. However, there was little follow-up or investigation.

During the launching of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, another piece of insulation broke off and struck the leading edge of Columbia’s left wing. When Columbia reentered the earth’s atmosphere after a 16-day mission, “damage sustained from the foam’s impact compromised the orbiter’s thermal protection system, leading to the failure of the left wing and to the eventual disintegration of the orbiter” (Madsen & Desai, 2010, p. 451).

Tragically, all seven astronauts on board were killed. The Columbia disaster resulted in the suspension of shuttle flights and led to a major investigation resulting in 29 recommended changes to prevent future disasters.

Obviously, the point is that, while we should not fail on purpose, failure (while sometimes tragic) is an important teacher. For organizations, the advice is this: study your small failures and close calls to extract useful information instead of waiting for a major catastrophe.

“Organizational leaders should neither ignore failures nor stigmatize those involved with them; rather, leaders should treat failures as invaluable learning opportunities, encouraging the open sharing of information about them” (Madsen & Desai, 2010, p. 471).

Reference

Madsen, P. M., & Desai, V. M. (2010). Failing to learn? The effects of failure and success on organizational learning in the global orbital launch vehicle industry. Academy of Management Journal, 53(3), 451-476.

Filed Under: Organizational Psychology, Training & Development, Attitudes & Emotions, Teams, Leadership, Stress, Happy & Unhappy, Meaningful Work, Coaching Psychology, Coaching, Executive Coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Which is More Distracting at Work – Surfing the Web or Trying to Resist?

2011 June 5 By

Harvard Business School researchers Bucciol, Houser, & Piovesan (2011) have discovered something quite remarkable. In their paper “Temptation at Work,” they extended earlier research by finding that using willpower to delay gratification can negatively impact performance in the workplace.

In a previous post I wrote about how multitasking does not work, and that still holds true. The research from Bucciol, Houser, & Piovesan (2011) does not discount that. What they found was that by trying to resist temptation, we become distracted enough that our work actually suffered (Blanding, 2011).

I apologize in advance (because I’ve been quite busy), but I will simply post what they found and direct you to an article (“Is Web Surfing Distracting Your Workers?”) about their work.

Key concepts include:

  • Psychologists have theorized that the energy spent resisting temptation takes attention away from other tasks, but this is the first experiment to test it in the context of a work environment.
  • Researchers found that subjects exhibited a decrease in productivity when they were tempted to watch a funny video but then told not to do so. Comparatively, subjects who were allowed to watch the video were more productive.
  • The research indicates that prohibiting private Internet use at work is actually bad for employees’ productivity. That effect could be especially critical in jobs where small mistakes could mean a big difference in performance.

The researchers suggest (Bucciol, Houser, & Piovesan, 2011, p. 4):

Employers should not prohibit the Internet and yet leave it available. Instead, employers should either remove it entirely or, when doing this is impractical, allow employees a certain amount of time – maybe even as often as several minutes per hour – for personal Internet activity. Perhaps lunch-breaks can be somewhat shortened to accommodate “surf-time”. Alternatively, employers might consider allowing regular Internet breaks, in the same way that many currently accommodate short but not infrequent cigarette or coffee breaks.

References

Blanding, M. (2011, May). Is Web Surfing Distracting Your Workers? HBS Working Knowledge. Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/pdf/item/6657.pdf

Bucciol, A., Houser, D., & Piovesan, M. (2011, February). Temptation at work. Harvard Business School Research Paper No. 11-090. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1772815

Filed Under: Organizational Psychology, Training & Development, Teams, Stress, Happy & Unhappy, Meaningful Work Tagged With: , , , ,

Whining Is Caused by Thinking Errors

2011 May 27 By

The New Oxford American Dictionary (2005) defines whine as a verb that means: complain in a feeble or petulant way.

Whining is a powerless way to complain about something to which we do not believe we have the power to change.

In the world of counseling, therapists/counselors/psychologists often bring up an idea called locus of control. Locus of control is the belief we have about the location (source) of the causes of events in our lives. There are two types of locus of control – internal (within you) and external (outside of you) (Donatelle, 2011).

People with an internal locus of control are those who believe that their behaviors are guided by their personal decisions and efforts and that they have control over those things they can change. Because individuals with an internal locus of control believe that they are in control over their circumstances, they tend to manage stress better. On the other hand, people with an external locus of control see their behaviors and their lives as being controlled by luck or fate. These individuals often view their lives and circumstances as victims of life and bad luck.

Having an internal locus of control (believing you have power over your own actions) is tied to self-efficacy, which is the belief you have about being able to do something successfully (Donatelle, 2011).

Generally, people who whine are those who tend to be preoccupied with cognitive distortions or thinking errors. Thinking errors are our tendencies to focus on insufficient or inappropriate information and then jump to conclusions or make predictions (Palmer & Szymanska, 2007). These patterns of thinking often are the causes of negative thinking and lead to the nasty habit known as whining.

Some common thinking errors include:

  • Mind-reading/Jumping to conclusions – jumping to a conclusion without the relevant information.
  • All-or-nothing thinking – evaluating experiences on the basis of extremes. For example, “I always lose.”
  • Blame – not taking responsibility and blaming someone else or something else for the problem.
  • Magnification – blowing things out of proportion.
  • Personalization – taking things personally.
  • Fortune-telling – thinking you know what the future holds.
  • Labeling – labeling or rating yourself. For example, “I’m a loser” or “I’m an idiot.”
  • Minimization – minimizing the part one plays in a situation. For example, “It must have been an easy test because I got a good grade.”
  • Low frustration tolerance or ‘I-can-stand-it-itis’ – lowering our ability to endure frustrating or stressful situations by telling ourselves, “I can’t stand it.”

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain.”
–Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company

References

Donatelle, R. (2011). Health: The basics (Green ed.). San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings.

McKean, E. (Ed.). (2005). The New Oxford American Dictionary (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Palmer, S, & Szymanska, K. (2007). Cognitive behavioural coaching: An integrative approach. In S. Palmer and A. Whybrow (Eds.), Handbook of coaching psychology: A guide for practitioners (pp. 86-117). London: Sage.

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Leadership, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Information Overload-When Information Becomes Noise

2011 May 18 By

In “Information Overload: Causes, Symptoms and Solutions,” an article for the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Learning Innovations Laboratory (LILA), Joseph Ruff says that we are bombarded with so much data that we’re on information overload. Simply put, information overload is when our ability to process information has passed its limit, and further attempts to process information or make accurate decisions from the surplus of information leads to information overload.

Ruff argues that information overload interferes with our ability to learn and engage in creative problem-solving. For instance, venture capitalists with too much information cannot make accurate adjustments to their evaluation process, and because of this their learning is impeded.

“Once capacity is surpassed, additional information becomes noise and results in a decrease in information processing and decision quality…[H]aving too much information is the same as not having enough” (Ruff, 2002, p. 4).

There’s even a new name for it, Information Fatigue Syndrome (IFS). Its symptoms include:

  • Poor concentration due to the overloading of short-term memory
  • Polyphasic behavior or multi-tasking often resulting in diminished rather than increased productivity
  • Hurry sickness, which is the belief that one must constantly rush to keep pace with time
  • Pervasive hostility resulting in a chronic state of irritability near anger or even rage
  • Habituation or over stimulation which causes the brain to shut down and enter a trance-like state
  • “Plugged in” compulsion is the strong need to check email, voice mail and the Internet in order to stay “in touch”
  • Traditional stress including lowered immune response, endocrine imbalance, depression and the experience of “burn out”

Ruff offers a list of strategies to manage information overload. He divides the solutions into proactive and reactive strategies. Proactive strategies are attempts at preventing information overload. Reactive strategies, on the other hand, are implemented after information overload has occurred. Below is Ruff’s list (verbatim) [to see a more detailed list click on the link to his PDF in the reference section or click HERE]:

Proactive

  • Devise a pulse-taking system to form a constantly changing up-to-date mental model of the organization and key stakeholders
  • Create a personal system for storing and retrieving information (i.e. notebook, planner, system for filing and organizing email)
  • Do not overwhelm yourself with a waste-not want-not mentality; throw it away or delete it
  • Time management training
  • Business writing training
  • Software and technology training
  • Information literacy training
    • Traditional and digital communication skills
    • Thinking and decision making skills
    • Creativity, innovation and risk taking
    • Computer literacy
    • Subject matter literacy
    • Learning how to learn
    • Electronic resources
  • Chunking and mnemonics training
  • Perception’s role in information overload training

Reactive

  • Filtering – focusing attention only on the most useful and essential information while purposefully ignoring other sources
  • Multitasking – performing two or more job functions at the same time [I strongly disagree. See my post Multitasking Doesn’t Work]
  • Queuing – performing initial steps to tasks that will be completed at a latter time
  • Escaping – eliminating disturbances by psychologically or physically limiting disruptions from outside world (i.e. not answering phone, closing door)
  • Prioritizing – determining and approaching most important tasks first
  • Delegating – determining which tasks can be given to other workers
  • Refusing – determining which tasks can be left undone
  • Limiting – not being seduced by thinking that more information is better
  • Satisficing – seeking “good enough” solutions; not perfection
  • Altering – changing perception of a task by performing it in a different way or place (i.e. view documents on paper instead of a computer screen; move to a lounge or coffee shop)
  • Shifting – changing perception of situation by accepting it as just part of the job

Reference

Ruff, J. (2002). Information Overload: Causes, Symptoms and Solutions. Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Learning Innovations Laboratory (LILA). Retrieved from http://lila.pz.harvard.edu/_upload/lib/InfoOverloadBrief.pdf

Filed Under: Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Health & Wellness, Leadership, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Failure to Recognize and Address Issues Quickly

2011 May 5 By

The ability to manage conflicts is one of a leader’s greatest challenges. Many teams and entire organizations struggle with the different/conflicting views about how things should run and how change should be implemented. It is crucial for a leader to possess the ability to manage people’s differences in a way that reduces their destructive energy while channeling their constructive energy.

There are two things that a leader can do to ensure this happens (Heifetz & Linsky, 2002):

  1. Create a safe place to allow for the conflicts to come up.
  2. As the conflict is boiling, make certain that you, the leader, control that it doesn’t boil over.

In one company, middle managers were unhappy with their leader because they felt restricted about not being able to run their departments in a manner that they believe is best. When the managers raised their concerns, the leader would often respond with minimizing statements or just outright dismiss the concerns as insignificant.

It’s easy to see that the leader’s tendency to minimize and discount concerns created a growing level discontentment that eventually led to the exit of one of the managers.

In “The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave (2005),” Leigh Branham outlined the reasons why employees often head for the exit door:

  • Reason #1: The Job or Workplace Was Not as Expected
  • Reason #2: The Mismatch Between Job and Person
  • Reason #3: Too Little Coaching and Feedback
  • Reason #4: Too Few Growth and Advancement Opportunities
  • Reason #5: Feeling Devalued And Unrecognized
  • Reason #6: Stress From Overwork and Work-Life Imbalance
  • Reason #7: Loss of Trust and Confidence in Senior Leaders

There are two distinct periods when someone considers quitting. The first period is the time between the first thoughts of leaving and the later decision to leave. The second period in which the employee considers leaving is the time between the decision to leave and actually leaving.

For this middle manager, the two biggest reasons were: (1) too few growth and advancement opportunities (reason #4), and (2) feeling devalued and unrecognized (reason #5). The manager had devoted a considerable amount of time and energy into developing his expertise and competence, only to discover that there was not an opportunity for him to advance. Furthermore, when the manager brought up his concerns or offered suggestions or ideas for improvements, he never felt “heard.”

Unfortunately for the company, when an opportunity came, the manager happily jumped ship and accepted a position where his skills and work ethics were appreciated.

There are three tips that the leader could have followed to avoid losing this valuable manager:

  1. Inspire confidence in a clear vision, a workable plan and the competence to achieve it.
  2. Back up words with actions.
  3. Have trust and confidence in your workforce.

References

Branham, L. (2005). The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave. Broadway, NY: AMACOM.

Heifetz, R., & Linsky, M. (2002). A survival guide for leaders. Harvard Business Review, 80(6), 65-72.

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Leadership, Meaningful Work, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Teaching Character Education as a Business Ethics Course

2011 April 26 By

This post is actually from a comment I made to Debbe Kennedy’s Putting Our Differences to Work blog back in 2009. It seems worthwhile to repost it here.

I’ve always believed that many of the things we do as adults can and should be learned from children and the process by which we educate them. When we talk about honoring each other’s differences and watching our words and actions, I think that children are our best teachers. For instance, I contend that character education (teaching children how to be better, more honorable world citizens by treating one another with respect) is also a great way to teach adults and business leaders.

Imagine teaching character education as a business ethics course!

Here are six qualities/pillars of character that can be taught:

Trustworthiness
Be honest • Don’t deceive, cheat or steal • Be reliable — do what you say you’ll do • Have the courage to do the right thing • Build a good reputation • Be loyal — stand by your family, friends and country

Respect
Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule • Be tolerant of differences • Use good manners, not bad language • Be considerate of the feelings of others • Don’t threaten, hit or hurt anyone • Deal peacefully with anger, insults and disagreements

Responsibility
Do what you are supposed to do • Persevere: keep on trying! • Always do your best • Use self-control • Be self-disciplined • Think before you act — consider the consequences • Be accountable for your choices

Fairness
Play by the rules • Take turns and share • Be open-minded; listen to others • Don’t take advantage of others • Don’t blame others carelessly

Caring
Be kind • Be compassionate and show you care • Express gratitude • Forgive others • Help people in need

Citizenship
Do your share to make your school and community better • Cooperate • Get involved in community affairs • Stay informed; vote • Be a good neighbor • Obey laws and rules • Respect authority • Protect the environment

Taking any one of these, we can easily apply its lesson to our lives as adults and to our workplaces. For example, under “Respect”, we have “Be tolerant of differences • Use good manners, not bad language • Be considerate of the feelings of others” and under “Responsibility”, we learn to “Always do your best • Use self-control • Be self-disciplined • Think before you act — consider the consequences.”

Somewhere along the way towards adulthood, we have forgotten these valuable lessons about character taught to us (hopefully) as children. I think it’s important that we each reach deep within to learn again (or for the first time) these principles of humanity (compassion, decency, honor, respect, and citizenship).

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Incivility, Leadership, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Meeting and More Meetings

2011 April 18 By


I have always been fascinated by why organizations and supervisors insist on continuing the maddening idea of having so many meetings. I have seen places where they seem to have a meeting just to talk about planning for the next meeting. I call it a “meeting about another meeting.” I have seen this “meeting-about-another-meeting” phenomenon in schools, churches, and private and non-profit businesses.

I came across a study by Luong and Rogelberg (2005) that supported what, I believe, many of us already know about too many meetings. The authors said work meetings are similar to interruptions and daily hassles. For one week, participants were to keep a daily diary account of their daily meetings and self-reports about the employee’s well-being. Not surprisingly, the authors found that more meetings were associated with increased feelings of fatigue and workload, confirming their initial hypothesis that meeting load has a negative effect on well-being, similar to the effects of interruptions and daily hassles.

To counteract the countless, and dare I say useless, meetings, I want to share what Charan (2006) suggests about holding effective meetings.

He says decisive meetings have four characteristics:

  1. Open—their outcomes are not predetermined. Questions such as “What are we missing?” communicate an honest search for and a willingness to hear alternative perspectives.
  2. Candid—encourage people to air the conflicts that undermine apparent consensus, a willingness to speak the unspeakable. Candor “prevents the kind of unnecessary rework and revisiting of decisions that saps productivity.”
  3. Informal—informal meetings encourage people to be honest, open, and less defensive. Meetings should not feel like they were scripted. When people are comfortable and able to react in an honest way, “spontaneity is energizing.”
  4. Marked by Closure—while informality helps loosen up the meeting, closure establishes discipline. “Closure means that at the end of the meeting, people know exactly what they are expected to do.” In my opinion, this is key because, as Charan explains, it assigns accountability and deadlines to people.

Take-Away Message

  • Holding too many meetings can lead to increased feelings of fatigue and workload.
  • Effective meetings have four characteristics: open, candid, informal, and marked by closure.
  • At the end of the meeting, people should know exactly what they are expected to do.

References

Charan, R. (2006). Conquering a Culture of Indecision. Harvard Business Review, 84(1), 108-117.

Luong, A., & Rogelberg, S. G. (2005). Meetings and more meetings: The relationship between meeting load and the daily well-being of employees. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 9(1), 58-67. doi:10.1037/1089-2699.9.1.58

Filed Under: Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Happy & Unhappy, Leadership, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

When Clowns Run The Circus

2011 April 11 By

We all know the “bossholes,” Robert Sutton’s description of a boss who’s domineering or overbearing, an a$$hole. But it takes more than simply avoiding the land mines of the world of “bossholes” to qualify one to be a good boss. Effective bosses understand that having authority means being able to use power appropriately and timely. In “Good Boss, Bad Boss,” Sutton says one mindset that is characteristic of a good boss is the ability to find a balance between over-managing (or micromanaging) and under-managing. He says good bosses know when to exert more control and when to back off. They know when to coach and when to discipline.

If you ever watch the circus, you have probably seen clowns running around. They’re really entertaining and often add to the overall experience of going to the circus. However, you might also notice that clowns never take charge. They don’t take charge over the circus because that’s not their role. Instead, clowns always take their cues from the ringmaster — the boss of the circus.

In a similar fashion, bosses are not that different in their roles at work from circus ringmasters. When the boss is “too nice,” the jerks, bullies, and bigmouths who report to them will actually be the ones running the show. Sadly, these poor bosses are viewed as powerless pushovers, leaders by title but not by respect. In these situations, the clowns in the office are running the circus (aka, the workplace).

In one workplace, a manager often relinquishes authority over to an administrative assistant who has been with the organization for almost two decades. When ask why she does this, the boss explains she doesn’t want to upset the assistant. It is actually fascinating to watch because there exists a very clear power struggle between the manager and secretary. While the manager doesn’t like it, she would always reluctantly, but surely, give in to the demands of the office assistant. Part of her fear of not doing so is the rationalization that this secretary is simply too valuable to let go. Thus, each day brings with it a different drama, depending on the fickle mood swings of this secretary.

In a post that parallels some of what I’ve just shared, Jill Geisler has a nice piece titled, “What Great Bosses Know About the 7 Deadly Sins of the Too-Nice Boss.” In it, she outlines seven things that can go wrong when a boss is too nice.

The Seven Deadly Sins of the Too-Nice Boss (verbatim from her post):

  1. Your ideas get overshadowed by others in the organization who are more assertive about making their cases.
  2. Workplace problems fester as you postpone dealing with them.
  3. Mediocrity flourishes as you hold back from challenging underperformers.
  4. Needed change is delayed as you hesitate to nudge people out of their comfort zones.
  5. You do other peoples’ work when they complain about schedules, shifts or duties.
  6. Bullies and bigmouths win.
  7. You can lose respect — from your bosses, other managers, your staff — or all of them.

Take-Away Message

  • Good bosses know when to exert control and when to back off. They know when to coach and when to discipline.
  • Bosses who are “too nice” or who are viewed as pushovers will be dominated by office clowns (the jerks, bullies, and bigmouths subordinates who report to them).
  • When the office clowns run the show, drama and problems will arise, and the workplace will start to look like a circus.
  • “Too-nice” bosses will not gain the respect of their employees.

References

Geisler, J. (2011). What Great Bosses Know About the 7 Deadly Sins of the Too-Nice Boss. Retrieved from http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/leadership-management/what-great-bosses-know/125251/what-great-bosses-know-about-the-7-deadly-sins-of-the-too-nice-boss/

Sutton, R.I. (2010). Good boss, bad boss: How to be the best…and learn from the worst. New York: Business Plus.

Filed Under: Organizational Psychology, Training & Development, Attitudes & Emotions, Teams, Leadership, Stress, Coaching Psychology, Coaching, Executive Coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Multitasking Doesn’t Work

2011 April 4 By

Multitasking is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. But it’s important to understand what it is and why it doesn’t work. Multitasking is when we juggle multiple things (thoughts and actions) at the same time. For example, people multitask when they drive and talk on their cell phones (Donatelle, 2009). It may surprise you to hear, however, that people who multitask are actually less productive than those who just concentrate on one project a time.

A recent Harvard Business Review post says that multitasking leads to as much as a 40% drop in productivity, increased stress, and a 10% drop in IQ (Bergman, 2010).

Need more proof? Perhaps no other example better illustrates why multitasking doesn’t work than distracted driving. Studies have found that driving while distracted (being on the phone or texting) is actually more dangerous than driving drunk.

  • 20 percent of injury crashes in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving. (NHTSA)
  • 28 percent (or 1.6 million crashes per year) of accidents involve talking, texting on cellphones. (National Safety Council).
  • Using a cell phone while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (Source: University of Utah)

The September 2010 Harvard Mental Health Letter (a Harvard Health Publication) cited a study to explain why talking on the phone while driving is more distracting than talking to a fellow passenger in the same car. Researchers found those who talked on the cell phone were more likely to drift into the other lane and more likely to miss an exit. Further analyzing conversations, researchers discovered that drivers and passengers in the car tended to adjust their conversations in response to traffic cues. For instance, they both stopped talking if there was a traffic problem or the passenger would give advice to help the driver navigate. On the flip side, conversations on cell phones didn’t vary based on traffic conditions because, obviously, only the driver can see the road.

Finally, for those who still argue that they’re great at multitasking, research indicates that even though we think we’re “multitasking” it’s actually our brain rapidly switching from one task to another, rather than processing them simultaneously. People who seem to be good at multitasking are simply good at being faster at switching back and forth between two things (Scientific American, 2009).

Take-Away Message

  • People who multitask are less productive/efficient than those who simply concentrate on one project a time.
  • We don’t actually “multitask” because your brain switches rapidly between handling one task and then another.
  • Simplify your life and your tasks. Do fewer things — better.

References

Bergman, P. (May 2010). How (and why) to stop multitasking. Harvard Business Review, May 20, 2010. Retrieved from http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/05/how-and-why-to-stop-multitaski.html

Distracted Driving Statistics

http://www.distraction.gov/stats-and-facts/

http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/Resources/Documents/NSC%20Estimate%20Summary.pdf

http://www.nsc.org/safety_road/Distracted_Driving/Pages/KeyResearch.aspx

Donatelle, R. (2009). Health: The basics (8th ed.). San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings.

Harvard Mental Health Letter. (September 2010). In Brief: The Quirky Brain: Why cell phone conversations distract drivers. Retrieved from http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Mental_Health_Letter/2010/September/why-cell-phone-conversations-distract-drivers

Scientific American. (2009, July). The Myth of Multitasking. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=the-myth-of-multitasking-09-07-15

Filed Under: Organizational Psychology, Training & Development, Attitudes & Emotions, Teams, Stress, Meaningful Work, Coaching Tagged With: , , , , ,

Humans, True Grit, and Teaching Resilience

2011 March 27 By

In an HBR article titled “Building resilience,” Dr. Martin Seligman (2011) talks about building resilience after failing. Failure is a common trauma we all face in life. But each of our responses is different. While some seem to bounce back shortly after, others seem to spiral more and more into depression and despair, paralyzing them to even think about the future.

Seligman contends that resilience can be measured and taught. In fact, the U.S. Army is putting Seligman’s ideas into practice through its Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program. In essence, CSF’s goal is to prepare soldiers psychologically for stress and trauma just like boot camp prepares them physically for battle. A key part of CSF is something called “master resilience training” (MRT) where drill sergeants learn to embrace resilience and then pass it on, by building mental toughness, signature strengths, and strong relationships.

Challenging Seligman’s idea, Stix’s article (“The neuroscience of true grit”) in Scientific American (2011) offers what I consider a much more balanced perspective to resilience and the human capacity to recover. Beyond the hype about teaching resilience, the article points out that people do, in fact, recover from disasters and they do so more often than many people realize. While each person’s way towards recovery is different, coping ugly as a researcher in the article says, it serves to help him/her adapt to the crisis.

George A. Bonanno of Teachers College at Columbia University has devoted his career as a psychologist to documenting the varieties of resilient experience, focusing on our reactions to the death of a loved one and to what happens in the face of war, terror and disease. In every instance, he has found, most people adapt surprisingly well to whatever the world presents; life returns to a measure of normalcy in a matter of months.

And it’s Bonanno who raises concern about Seligman and the military’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program and its lack of evidence for its effectiveness. More importantly than whether it works or not, I agree with Bonanno that there’s a potential for a much greater danger – whether more harm than good might result from interfering with people’s ability to naturally bounce back.

If most people are resilient, as they seem to be in all the studies we’ve done, what happens to those people if you give them stress-inoculation training? -Dr. George A. Bonanno

What’s more, even those in the military aren’t jumping on Seligman’s resilience training. “William P. Nash, a physician formerly charged with overseeing stress-monitoring programs for the U.S. Marines, says there is little evidence for prophylactic resilience training” (Stix, 2011, p. 33).

Take-Away Message

  • Humans have an amazing capacity to recover and bounce back from disasters and traumas, even without assistance or, in the case of resilience training, interference.
  • It is critical to always consider whether more harm than good might result from interfering (this includes interventions to teach resilience) with people’s natural ability to bounce back from trauma.

References

Seligman, M. (2011, April). Building resilience. Harvard Business Review, April, 100-106. Retrieved from http://hbr.org/2011/04/building-resilience/ar/1

Stix, G. (2011, March). The neuroscience of true grit: When tragedy strikes, most of us ultimately rebound surprisingly well. Where does such resilience come from? Scientific American, 304(3), 29-33.

Filed Under: Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Health & Wellness, Leadership, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Successful Strategic Execution Is Hard

2011 February 18 By

Successful strategic execution is hard to achieve because of five key reasons (Franken, Edwards, & Lambert, 2009):

  1. Relentless pressure from shareholders for greater profits. This forces top business leaders to redefine their strategy more often.
  2. Increased complexity of organizations. For example, the activities it requires to create products and services span various functional, organization, and even geographical boundaries.
  3. Balancing demands of executing complex change programs with business performance. In particular, in cases where management is tied to rewards based on performance, it can be difficult to get buy-in into creating strategic plans for the future.
  4. Low levels of involvement of managers at the beginning stages of strategic execution.
  5. Difficulty securing the required resources to execute the strategy. As a result of the large number of concurrent change programs, many of the company’s resources will already be allocated and even if they are available, managers will aggressively compete for them.

Reference

Franken, A., Edwards, C., & Lambert, R. (2009). Executing strategic change: Understanding the critical management elements that lead to success. California Management Review, 51(3), 49-72.

Filed Under: Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Leadership, Organizational Psychology, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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