Leaders Eat Last

Multitasking, it turns out, does not make us faster or more efficient. It actually slows us down. According to the American Psychological Association, “shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.”

When a worker is interrupted, it takes them around twenty-three minutes to return to their original task.

The more external interruptions we experience, like a text or an e-mail alert, the more we engage in self-interruption, that is, interrupting ourselves mid-task to check our e-mail or phones without any notification from a ring or a bing.

In a Stanford University study of college students, self-proclaimed chronic multitaskers made more mistakes and remembered less than those who considered themselves infrequent multitaskers.

If e-mail is down or if we leave our phone at home, many of us actually start to get anxious. It’s not just that our behavior seems to look like that of addicts, it may be that we actually are addicts. The biology is the same.

More than 40 percent of children who discover alcohol before age fifteen will become alcoholics later in life.

thirteen-to-eighteen-year-olds are left almost completely vulnerable to the addictive qualities of dopamine-releasing activities online and on their devices at the very moment they are most susceptible to them. Of course, not all kids who use smartphones or engage in social media will form addictions, but the risk is real and significant. And even if they don’t form addictions, their developing brains will, without question, be affected.

“How a young person chooses to spend their time will have a profound effect on what their brain will be like for the rest of their lives,”

Again, the biology and the mechanics of addiction are exactly the same for most other dopamine-producing things, like gambling, smoking, texting and engaging with social media. When our children are conditioned to look for a digital hit when they are stressed, for the rest of their lives, when they suffer social stress, financial stress or career stress, they will turn not to a person for support but to a device.

After only a few months in their jobs, many were considering quitting. Rather than questioning their expectations or giving things some time, they assumed the job was the problem.

When Millennials stand at the foot of that mountain, looking up at the thing they want to achieve, they, like all of us, must remember that the summit serves only to set the direction in which we will march. Opportunities to lead and feelings of safety and belonging do not suddenly appear when we reach the mountain peak. These are the things we find and develop on the journey up.

Not only are virtual relationships a poor substitute for real ones, but social media can actually make us feel lonelier.

When we are immersed in a Facebook-Instagram-Snapchat world, where everyone’s lives are on display, it’s hard not to compare ourselves to others. And it’s easy to become envious and doubt the quality of our own lives when our friends’ posts come off like a highlight reel of the year’s best movies.

Millennials have become well practiced at curating their lives. They know better than anyone how to manage their personal brands and present themselves as they want to be seen . . . not necessarily as they are. They may look confident. They may sound like they have all the answers and know exactly how to navigate their lives and the world. However, behind the filter, many are plagued by more self-doubt and uncertainty than they let on.

I do not believe that there are digital solutions to these very real issues that Millennials, and the generation to follow, face. There’s no app to fix addiction, depression, suicide or other anti-social behavior. These are human problems that require human solutions.

The kids who are still growing up require parents and caregivers who help them develop self-esteem with intrinsic motivation at its foundation, teach problem-solving and non-digital coping strategies and take more control over access to smartphones and social media.

These days, too many leaders of organizations seem to be wasting the good will of people.

It is not when things come easily that we appreciate them, but when we have to work hard for them or when they are hard to get that those things have greater value to us.

WHEN ASKED, “WHAT was one of your best days at work?” very few of us recount the time everything went smoothly and the big project we were working on came in on time and under budget.

WHEN ASKED, “WHAT was one of your best days at work?” very few of us recount the time everything went smoothly and the big project we were working on came in on time and under budget. Considering how we work so hard to make things go well, that example should count as a pretty good day at work. But strangely, the days everything goes smoothly and as planned are not the ones we remember with fondness.