The Dangers of MultiTasking
Anastasia Goodstein's blog Ypulse, which provides "daily news & commentary about Generation Y for media and marketing professionals," has a posting called The Madness of Generation M, that references a Time Magazine cover story called The MultiTasking Generation. It makes important reading for anyone trying to understand the generation of professionals entering / poised to enter our firms; how they will view their work; and in this case, possible impacts on quality.
A key characteristic of Gen Ms (aka Millennials / Gen Ys) is an extreme ability to multitask. Or so we think. The article suggests that there is actually no such thing, because the brain doesn't work that way. When "multitasking," the brain actually focuses superficially on different things in sequence, back and forth, rather than simultaneously doing several things well. This has critical implications, especially in precision driven professions like law and accounting, where deep thought and accurate conclusions are paramount.
Quoting from the article:
"The ability to multiprocess has its limits, even among young adults. When people try to perform two or more related tasks either at the same time or alternating rapidly between them, errors go way up, and it takes far longer--often double the time or more--to get the jobs done than if they were done sequentially, says David E. Meyer, director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan: "The toll in terms of slowdown is extremely large--amazingly so." Meyer frequently tests Gen M students in his lab, and he sees no exception for them, despite their "mystique" as master multitaskers. "The bottom line is that you can't simultaneously be thinking about your tax return and reading an essay, just as you can't talk to yourself about two things at once," he says.
Multiprocessing and interpersonal connectivity is now so commonplace that it's easy to forget how quickly it came about. Just fifteen years ago, most home computers weren't even linked to the Internet. A 1990 survey of adolescents revealed that the one medium they couldn't live without was a radio/CD player. How quaint. In a 2004 follow-up, the computer won hands down. There is a huge jump from those that were adolescents in 1990 (i.e. in their early 30s now) and those that were in their mid-teens in 2004 (and are now at high school or college and will enter the workplace in a couple of years.) If we think that we have a technology-induced intergenerational issue now, then as the song goes: "we ain't seen nothing yet!"
It would be amazing if strategy and management practices had evolved fast enough to keep up. The reality? They haven't. Not even close. While I do not want to seem a troglodyte, there would seem to be serious disconnects between what young professionals take completely for granted, and the demands for extreme precision and intellectual rigor required to serve clients adequately. On the other hand, we can't turn back the clock and deny either the technological advances that continue to accelerate, or the mindsets that this is creating in those that grow up with succeeding generations of technology. Finding the correct balance is likely to be a major challenge for professional service firm leaders over the next few years.
Comments, as always, are most welcome. Please post them below.
Rob, Great blog and so true. Try reading
"Freedom from Busyness" by Michael Zigarelli.