How much time do you spend checking messages each day for fear of missing something? There’s an unwritten expectation that we should all be online 24/7. After all, just spending a little time checking messages is less likely to miss something. The average American checks their phone at least every 12 minutes.
But at what cost? Ever-online and ever-expanding teams across time zones are making more and more leaders ineffective as they face synchronous communication, a traditional, even outdated, expectation that there should be no delayed response. Companies are already aware of the impact.
Getting addicted to communication can take longer than you think. According to a RescueTime survey, knowledge workers spend an estimated 29 per cent of their day dealing with email and chat messages. But data from RescueTime’s time-tracking app suggest the true figure is much higher. In fact, when you factor in messages in collaboration tools, they typically affect 76 percent of the day.
When you consider that this affects the entire team, you can see how serious the problem is.
High expectations are also a heavy problem. The same survey found that 63 percent expected a message sent to have an impact within an hour. It’s a little surprising that only one out of 10 people feel in control of their day.
Timely response reduces efficiency. Mailbox constraints have a measurable impact on our ability to solve problems. Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, studies the effects of technology on people. In one oft-cited study, she found that when a person is interrupted, it takes about 23 minutes (23 minutes and 15 seconds) to rebuild focus.
People who are frequently disturbed often have to adapt to a compensatory way of working. Work as fast as possible, rather than further, to make up for lost time expected to be interrupted. Mark also found that they suffered higher and longer workloads, stress, frustration and loss as a result.
One potential solution is to make asynchronous communication part of the team culture, not an option. Doing so allows everyone to organize and optimize their day so that they have enough time to focus on the work that needs them most.
Good communication takes time to develop. Jason Fried, CEO and co-founder of Basecamp, has been advocating a return to asynchronous communication for years. Truly urgent things don’t happen very often, he argues, and most meaningful work requires being left undisturbed and focused.
In an interview about regaining sanity at work, HRB notes that when managers promote a culture of quick response, work hours disappear and real work becomes disjointed. It’s easy to get bored. It’s like watching a conveyor belt conversation: We get dragged into something we don’t need to be dragged into, just waiting to see if we need to be dragged into it. This is totally out of control.
Instead, the interview suggests using “quiet time” at the office to answer questions like “Do you have time?” Such as enabling remote working, or fostering a culture of asking questions about when real-time communication is needed and when it can be done asynchronously.
As a result, teams are able to think things through and do more effective work in a less stressful and anxious environment.
“When the conversation is controlled by the originator, a very distracting document is created,” the interview noted. “When the conversation is controlled by the receiver, the receiver can reply when he is ready to reply, and you have a quieter environment.
Original: www.upwork.com/blog/2019/1…
Fenglin