Understanding Distractibility and Its Impact on Performance
Information and rapid change is bombarding leaders. We refer to this as the firehose of information and expectations. I know by experience, and as a TAIS (The Attentional and Interpersonal Style) practitioner, that managing the accelerating distractions of leadership work is becoming increasingly challenging.
What’s distracting us? Foreign wars, trade interruptions, elections, civil unrest, economic stressors, the warp speed of technology changes, and the instability and unpredictability of a more diverse workforce. Each day, it’s the overloaded schedule, results expectations, and demands of employees, customers and family.
The 2024 U.S. election saw many people obsessed with the news. Each candidate, so very different in their focus, would have a direct impact on someone’s freedoms and finances. High distraction was at play and had been for months. Then, with a decided winner, a new distraction became what people wanted to focus on. From front desks to boardroom tables, discussions centered on what the outcome means for business and personal implications. This changed our focus, time management, and conversations.
The question that needs an answer: How can leaders perform and achieve results with the mounting number of distractions impacting the normal flow of business?
In my leadership development work, I feel that leaders are at an all-time high for distractibility. Pivotal Growth’s team of coaches (me included) are spending more time helping leaders manage the noise so they can focus on the growth of the their people and, ultimately, the company. After all, we are humans dealing with the same 24-hour clock, but what’s on their plate of responsibility warrants a 48-hour clock.
“Our noisy environment has morphed faster than our human capacities have evolved.” - Robin Pratt, President, Enhanced Performance Services
I wanted a deeper expert analysis on the current state of executive performance, as the executive work day often feels more weighted. I sought the insights of two of our trusted network partners, Robin Pratt and Cameron Anderson. They have spent their careers assessing the behavioural patterns and performance of high-level professionals using TAIS.
TAIS is our psychometric inventory of choice. Having trained under Cameron and been certified by Robin, I can attest that TAIS has helped me deliver my best work for our clients.
Cameron Anderson, Co-President of Practica Learning, is a consultant and coach to many global leaders. When asked about leading in today’s distractions, he reflects, “Over the course of history, there have been many inflection points like what we are going through now. It’s not that different. Leaders aren’t more distracted, but they are managing a deluge of information, which requires rapid cognition.”
“We’ve always had to prioritize. But what’s needed now is the ability to make quicker decisions, or be left behind.” - Cameron Anderson, Co-President of Practica Learning
Using your rapid cognition enables people to process information swiftly and accurately in high-stress environments. This improves their ability to prioritize and make sound decisions under pressure. Here are some of the methods used to enhance rapid cognition.
Rapid Cognition Application – Develop mental agility to filter information rapidly and efficiently with high distractions.
Practical Assessment – Prioritize and eliminate distractions that aren’t key to your priorities.
Shift Focus with Clarity – Don’t let others change your focus. You decide.
Intuition and Pattern Recognition – Identify patterns using informed intuition based on previous experiences in business, which helps speed up decision-making.
For more insights, re-read Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.
When you use rapid cognition, does that mean you are multitasking? Often, we hear people proudly state they are multitaskers, and there is a perception that they are doing their jobs more efficiently. Cameron responds, “You can’t multitask. You must do ‘rapid sequential tasking,’ in that you do one thing and move on to the next task, and then the next.” For leaders trying to navigate this, he adds, “For some people, it’s easy. But there are those that have a relatively low affinity for information processing, and they like to move slower and ease into one task at a time and spend more time on it. But if you are the opposite and have high preference for processing a lot of information quickly, you like rapid decision-making and having 100 balls in the air at a time versus 10.”
Stress Causes Distractibility
Robin Pratt, PhD, is a TAIS expert. His background in psychology makes him unique in doing performance profiles to help senior leaders understand how they show up under stress. There are plenty of arenas that can show how people perform under pressure, with the most obvious one being sports. Robin’s fascination in the sub-field of sports psychology led to him helping business leaders. He says, “People in business have a lot of the same challenges as in sports, not physically but mentally.”
Robin emphasizes, “The world has become more complex with so many more sources of input. The human brain is designed to make sense of complex environments, but we have a limited capacity to pay attention.”
This limited ability to process new information is called channel capacity, or bandwidth. It has not changed over generations or during one’s life. Expertise is knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore, according to Robin. To support what Cameron has said, he adds that savvy leaders learn to chunk relevant information or patterns so that they can make sense out of what seems confusing to the less insightful.
There are three separate and distinct attentional styles and how leaders pay attention.
We go into our head to think and plan.
We read the room, paying particular attention to what people are doing.
We get really focused on tasks to get things done.
Choosing Your Priorities
What people need to learn is how to make choices to keep their priorities.
One of his many areas of expertise is Attentional Control Training, developed by Robert Nideffer, PhD and founder of TAIS. When reflecting on today’s leaders, Robin agrees that they are experiencing more difficulty in finding how to prioritize tasks. But Attentional Control Training helps them identify what is a signal (wanted input) versus what is noise (unwanted input).
“You can train people to let go of a distraction and have them get back to what they are working on. For instance, I learned how to stop myself from doing mental walk-abouts,” he says.
The Inverse Relationship Between Distractibility and Performance
Robin’s analogy on the performance impact of a person who is at maximum capacity is that, “On cars, there’s a red line for overrevving your engine.” He highlights that the brain lacks a visible warning system. He suggests, “You must make choices in the way you communicate. For instance, the way you raise your eyebrow, your tone of voice, your use of phrase.” If your brain/engine is past the red line, he says, there are things you can do simplify your environment, to calm yourself down, but it takes time.”
It's proven that with stress, you lose flexibility, and make more mistakes, which then adds to the stress. Stress causes people to get stuck on one thing, and thus lose temporarily the capacity to switch or juggle tasks, which is required. “Leaders need to emphasize managing information overload, especially during times of change. Maintaining clarity amidst complexity can enhance decision-making and effectiveness,” Robin states.
“Stress causes mistakes. When people are calm, they perform well.” Robin Pratt
Robin’s sports psychology and martial arts background often leverage breathwork. He says, “Once you learn to consciously control your breathing, you have control over your relaxation state. Once you are in a controlled state, you can make better decisions.”
For instance, in sports, you could be in a golf tournament and at a hole you’ve shot so many times before, but you talk yourself out of it. With breathing, and mentally rehearsing the shot, you then activate a mental success role. You know you have the mental and physical capacity to do it, you just have to get out of your own way, Robin notes. The key to doing this is to learn to take a deep breath and refocus on your task and, in the process, let go of the nagging thoughts.
Cameron also regularly does a breathing exercise that Robin taught him to help him focus. “Breathing is centering yourself when you are under stress. If you aren’t managing your environment particularly well and you are feeling overwhelmed and ineffective, just breathe.”
The Distractions Leaders Face
Like the three ways leaders pay attention and the attentional styles shared above, there are three primary distractors, or noises, for us to manage.
TAIS identifies distractions as:
External Distractibility – noise and activities around us
Internal Distractibility – racing thoughts and mental chatter
Reduced Flexibility – emotional reactions that stall attentional shifts and slow down decision-making
Consider distractions as the weeds of concentration and that these lapses in attention contribute to errors.
Measuring Your Attention and Distractibility Style
Are you interested in understanding your attention processes? A TAIS debrief can reveal how you pay attention, what distracts you, and how to create a personalized plan to improve your leadership performance.
Contact us at Diagnostics@pivotalgrowthinc.com to plan your TAIS Under Pressure Profile Debrief.
About Cameron O. Anderson
Cameron O. Anderson, MBA, CMC, is the Co-President of Practica Learning, a Toronto-based company specializing in immersive, one-on-one virtual learning experiences aimed at enhancing business communication skills. Under his leadership, Practica Learning has developed evidence-based methodologies, such as deliberate practice, to help professionals master crucial sales, coaching, and leadership conversations. With a background in psychology and performance assessment, Anderson has dedicated his career to understanding and improving human performance across various domains, including business leadership. His extensive experience includes training and certifying professionals in The Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS) framework, providing valuable insights into attentional control and stress management. Anderson's work has significantly contributed to the development of leaders and high-performing individuals, equipping them with tools to navigate complex environments and optimize their performance.
About Robin W. Pratt, Ph.D. President, Enhanced Performance Services
Dr. Pratt is a distinguished expert in psychology and performance assessment, specializing in The Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS) framework. With a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, he has dedicated his career to understanding and enhancing human performance across various domains, including sports and business leadership. Dr. Pratt's extensive experience includes training and certifying professionals in TAIS methodologies, providing valuable insights into attentional control, and stress management. His work has significantly contributed to the development of leaders and high-performing individuals, equipping them with tools to navigate complex environments and optimize their performance.
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