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The Idea in Brief

Frenzied executives who fidget through meetings, miss appointments, and jab at the elevator's "door close" button aren't crazy—just crazed. They're suffering from a newly recognized neurological phenomenon called attending arrears trait (ADT). Marked by distractibility, inner frenzy, and impatience, ADT prevents managers from clarifying priorities, making smart decisions, and managing their time. This insidious status turns otherwise talented performers into harried underachievers. And it'due south reaching epidemic proportions.

ADT isn't an illness or character defect. Information technology's our brains' natural response to exploding demands on our time and attention. As data increasingly flood our brains, nosotros lose our ability to solve issues and handle the unknown. Inventiveness shrivels; mistakes multiply. Some sufferers somewhen cook downward.

How to control ADT'southward ravaging bear upon on performance? Foster positive emotions past connecting contiguous with people you similar throughout the day. Have physical care of your brain by getting plenty sleep, eating healthfully, and exercising regularly. Organize for ADT, designating part of each day for thinking and planning, and setting upward your office to foster mental functioning (for example, keeping part of your desk-bound clear at all times).

These strategies may seem like no-brainers. Simply they'll aid yous shell the ADT demon before it tin can strike.

The Idea in Practice

How You lot Tin Combat ADT

Promote Positive Emotions

Negative emotions—peculiarly fear—tin can hamper productive brain functioning. To promote positive feelings, especially during highly stressful times, interact directly with someone you like at least every four to six hours. In environments where people are in physical contact with people they trust, brain functioning hums. Past connecting comfortably with colleagues, you'll aid your brain'south "executive" eye (responsible for determination making, planning, and data prioritizing) perform at its best.

Accept Physical Care of Your Encephalon

Ample slumber, a adept nutrition, and do are critical for staving off ADT. You lot're getting enough sleep if you can awake without an alert clock. You're eating well if you're avoiding sugar and white flour and consuming more fruits, whole grains, vegetables, and protein instead. Yous're exercising enough if you're taking a brisk walk or going upward and down a flying of stairs a few times a twenty-four hours.

Organize for ADT

Instead of getting sucked into the vortices of e-mail or voice postal service first thing in the morn, attend to a critical task. With paperwork, apply the OHIO ("merely handle information technology once") rule: Whenever you lot affect a document, act on it, file it, or throw it away. Do crucial piece of work during times of the day when you perform at your best. Use whatever small strategies help you function well mentally—whether it's listening to music or walking around while working, or doodling during meetings. And earlier you get out for the day, list three to five priority items you'll need to address tomorrow.

What Your Visitor Can Do

In firms that ignore ADT symptoms, employees underachieve, create clutter, and cutting corners. Careless mistakes, illness, and turnover increase, equally people squander their brainpower. To annul ADT and harness employees' brainpower, invest in civilities that foster a positive, productive atmosphere. Example:

Major software company SAS Institute creates a warm, connected, and relaxed work environment by offer employees perks such equally a seven-hour workday that ends at 5:00; a large on-site gym and day-care facility; and a cafeteria that provides baby seats and high chairs so parents can eat dejeuner with their children. The payoff? Employees return the favors with high productivity. And SAS's turnover never exceeds 5%—saving the visitor millions on recruiting, training, and severance.

David drums his fingers on his desk as he scans the e-mail on his computer screen. At the same time, he's talking on the telephone to an executive halfway effectually the world. His knee bounces up and down like a jackhammer. He intermittently bites his lip and reaches for his constant companion, the java cup. He'southward so deeply involved in multitasking that he has forgotten the engagement his Outlook agenda reminded him of 15 minutes ago.

Jane, a senior vice president, and Mike, her CEO, have adjoining offices so they tin communicate rapidly, yet advice never seems to happen. "Whenever I get into Mike'due south office, his phone lights upwards, my prison cell phone goes off, someone knocks on the door, he suddenly turns to his screen and writes an eastward-mail, or he tells me virtually a new issue he wants me to address," Jane complains. "Nosotros're working flat out just to stay afloat, and we're non getting annihilation important achieved. Information technology's driving me crazy."

David, Jane, and Mike aren't crazy, but they're certainly crazed. Their experience is becoming the norm for overworked managers who endure—like many of your colleagues, and perchance similar you—from a very existent but unrecognized neurological phenomenon that I telephone call attention deficit trait, or ADT. Caused past encephalon overload, ADT is now epidemic in organizations. The core symptoms are distractibility, inner frenzy, and impatience. People with ADT have difficulty staying organized, setting priorities, and managing fourth dimension. These symptoms tin can undermine the work of an otherwise gifted executive. If David, Jane, Mike, and the millions like them understood themselves in neurological terms, they could actively manage their lives instead of reacting to problems every bit they happen.

Every bit a psychiatrist who has diagnosed and treated thousands of people over the by 25 years for a medical condition chosen attention deficit disorder, or ADD (now known clinically equally attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), I have observed firsthand how a speedily growing segment of the adult population is developing this new, related status. The number of people with ADT coming into my clinical practice has mushroomed by a cistron of 10 in the by decade. Unfortunately, most of the remedies for chronic overload proposed past fourth dimension-management consultants and executive coaches do not address the underlying causes of ADT.

Unlike ADD, a neurological disorder that has a genetic component and tin be aggravated by environmental and physical factors, ADT springs entirely from the environment. Like the traffic jam, ADT is an artifact of modern life. It is brought on by the demands on our time and attention that have exploded over the by two decades. As our minds fill up with noise—feckless synaptic events signifying goose egg—the brain gradually loses its capacity to attend fully and thoroughly to anything.

The symptoms of ADT come upon a person gradually. The sufferer doesn't feel a unmarried crisis but rather a series of minor emergencies while he or she tries harder and harder to proceed upwardly. Shouldering a responsibility to "suck it upwards" and not mutter as the workload increases, executives with ADT do whatever they can to handle a load they simply cannot manage as well as they'd like. The ADT sufferer therefore feels a abiding low level of panic and guilt. Facing a tidal wave of tasks, the executive becomes increasingly hurried, brusque, peremptory, and unfocused, while pretending that everything is fine.

To control ADT, nosotros first have to recognize it. And control it we must, if we as individuals and organizational leaders are to be effective. In the following pages, I'll offer an analysis of the origins of ADT and provide some suggestions that may help yous manage it.

Attending Arrears Cousins

To understand the nature and treatment of ADT, it'due south useful to know something of its cousin, ADD.

Commonly seen as a learning disability in children, Add besides afflicts about 5% of the adult population. Researchers using MRI scans have plant that people with ADD suffer a slightly diminished volume in four specific encephalon regions that accept various functions such every bit modulating emotion (especially anger and frustration) and assisting in learning. One of the regions, made up of the frontal and prefrontal lobes, generates thoughts, makes decisions, sets priorities, and organizes activities. While the medications used to treat ADD don't modify the anatomy of the encephalon, they alter brain chemical science, which in turn improves function in each of the 4 regions and so dramatically bolsters the performance of ADD sufferers.

Add together confers both disadvantages and advantages. The negative characteristics include a trend to procrastinate and miss deadlines. People with ADD struggle with disorganization and tardiness; they tin be forgetful and drift abroad mentally in the middle of a conversation or while reading. Their performance can be inconsistent: brilliant i moment and unsatisfactory the next. Add together sufferers likewise tend to demonstrate impatience and lose focus unless, oddly enough, they are under stress or treatment multiple inputs. (This is because stress leads to the production of adrenaline, which is chemically similar to the medications we use to treat ADD.) Finally, people with Add sometimes too cocky-medicate with excessive alcohol or other substances.

On the positive side, those with ADD ordinarily possess rare talents and gifts. Those gifts often go unnoticed or undeveloped, however, because of the problems acquired past the status'due south negative symptoms. ADD sufferers can be remarkably creative and original. They are unusually persistent under certain circumstances and often possess an entrepreneurial flair. They brandish ingenuity and encourage that trait in others. They tend to improvise well under pressure. Because they have the power to field multiple inputs simultaneously, they tin be potent leaders during times of change. They besides tend to rebound chop-chop after setbacks and bring fresh free energy to the company every solar day.

Executives with Add typically achieve inconsistent results. Sometimes they fail miserably considering they're disorganized and make mistakes. At other times, they perform brilliantly, offering original ideas and strategies that lead to performance at the highest level.

David Neeleman, the CEO of JetBlue Airways, has ADD. School was torture; unable to focus, he hated to written report and procrastinated endlessly. "I felt like I should be out doing things, moving things along, only here I was, stuck studying statistics, which I knew had no awarding to my life," Neeleman told me. "I knew I had to have an education, merely at the showtime opportunity to start a business, I just blew out of college." He climbed rapidly in the corporate world, making use of his strengths—original thinking, high energy, an power to draw out the all-time in people—and getting assistance with organization and fourth dimension management.

Like nearly people with Add, Neeleman could sometimes offend with his blunt words, simply his ideas were good enough to modify the airline industry. For example, he invented the electronic ticket. "When I proposed that idea, people laughed at me, saying no one would go to the airport without a paper ticket," he says. "At present everyone does, and it has saved the industry millions of dollars." It seems fitting that someone with Add together would invent a way around having to retrieve to bring a newspaper ticket. Neeleman believes Add is one of the keys to his success. Far from regretting having it, he celebrates it. Only he understands that he must manage his ADD carefully.

Attention arrears trait is characterized past Add's negative symptoms. Rather than beingness rooted in genetics, however, ADT is purely a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live. Indeed, modern culture all merely requires many of usa to develop ADT. Never in history has the man brain been asked to track and then many data points. Everywhere, people rely on their cell phones, electronic mail, and digital assistants in the race to gather and transmit information, plans, and ideas faster and faster. One could argue that the chief value of the modern era is speed, which the novelist Milan Kundera described as "the form of ecstasy that technology has bestowed upon modernistic man." Addicted to speed, nosotros demand it even when nosotros can't possibly become faster. James Gleick wryly noted in Faster: The Dispatch of Only Almost Everything that the "shut door" button in elevators is often the one with the paint worn off. As the human being brain struggles to proceed up, it falters and and so falls into the globe of ADT.

This Is Your Brain

While brain scans cannot display anatomical differences between people with "normal" brains and people suffering from ADT, studies take shown that equally the homo brain is asked to procedure dizzying amounts of data, its ability to solve bug flexibly and creatively declines and the number of mistakes increases. To notice out why, let's go on a brief neurological journey.

Blessed with the largest cortex in all of nature, owners of this trillion-celled organ today put singular pressure on the frontal and prefrontal lobes, which I'll refer to in this article every bit simply the frontal lobes. This region governs what is called, aptly enough, executive functioning (EF). EF guides determination making and planning; the organization and prioritization of data and ideas; time management; and various other sophisticated, uniquely human, managerial tasks. As long as our frontal lobes remain in accuse, everything is fine.

Beneath the frontal lobes prevarication the parts of the encephalon devoted to survival. These deep centers govern bones functions like sleep, hunger, sexual desire, breathing, and eye rate, also as crudely positive and negative emotions. When yous are doing well and operating at elevation level, the deep centers transport up messages of excitement, satisfaction, and joy. They pump upward your motivation, help yous maintain attention, and don't interfere with working retentivity, the number of information points you tin can go on runway of at in one case. But when you are confronted with the sixth decision afterwards the fifth break in the midst of a search for the 9th missing piece of information on the solar day that the third deal has complanate and the 12th impossible request has blipped unbidden across your calculator screen, your brain begins to panic, reacting merely as if that sixth decision were a bloodthirsty, man-eating tiger.

As a specialist in learning disabilities, I have found that the almost dangerous disability is non any formally diagnosable condition like dyslexia or Add together. It is fear. Fright shifts u.s.a. into survival mode and thus prevents fluid learning and nuanced agreement. Certainly, if a real tiger is nigh to attack you, survival is the style yous want to be in. But if you're trying to bargain intelligently with a subtle job, survival manner is highly unpleasant and counterproductive.

When the frontal lobes approach chapters and we begin to fear that we can't continue up, the relationship between the higher and lower regions of the brain takes an ominous turn. Thousands of years of evolution take taught the college brain non to ignore the lower brain's distress signals. In survival style, the deep areas of the brain presume control and begin to direct the higher regions. As a result, the whole encephalon gets caught in a neurological grab-22. The deep regions interpret the messages of overload they receive from the frontal lobes in the same way they interpret everything: primitively. They furiously fire signals of fear, anxiety, impatience, irritability, anger, or panic. These alarm signals shanghai the attending of the frontal lobes, forcing them to forfeit much of their power. Because survival signals are irresistible, the frontal lobes get stuck sending messages dorsum to the deep centers saying, "Message received. Trying to work on it but without success." These messages further perturb the deep centers, which transport even more than powerful letters of distress back up to the frontal lobes.

Meanwhile, in response to what'due south going on in the brain, the residuum of the body—particularly the endocrine, respiratory, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and peripheral nervous systems—has shifted into crunch mode and changed its baseline physiology from peace and tranquility to red alarm. The brain and trunk are locked in a reverberating circuit while the frontal lobes lose their sophistication, as if vinegar were added to vino. In this state, EF reverts to simpleminded blackness-and-white thinking; perspective and shades of grey disappear. Intelligence dims. In a futile endeavor to practise more is possible, the encephalon paradoxically reduces its ability to recollect clearly.

This neurological outcome occurs when a managing director is badly trying to deal with more input than he possibly can. In survival mode, the manager makes impulsive judgments, angrily rushing to bring closure to whatever affair is at manus. He feels compelled to get the problem under control immediately, to extinguish the perceived danger lest information technology destroy him. He is robbed of his flexibility, his sense of sense of humor, his ability to deal with the unknown. He forgets the big picture and the goals and values he stands for. He loses his creativity and his ability to change plans. He desperately wants to kill the metaphorical tiger. At these moments he is prone to melting down, to throwing a tantrum, to blaming others, and to sabotaging himself. Or he may go in the opposite direction, falling into denial and full avoidance of the problems attacking him, simply to exist devoured. This is ADT at its worst.

In survival mode, the manager is robbed of his flexibility, his humor, his ability to deal with the unknown. He desperately wants to kill the metaphorical tiger.

Though ADT does not ever accomplish such extreme proportions, it does wreak havoc among harried workers. Because no two brains are alike, some people deal with the condition better than others. Regardless of how well executives announced to function, however, no ane has total command over his or her executive functioning.

Managing ADT

Unfortunately, top management has so far viewed the symptoms of ADT through the distorting lens of morality or character. Employees who seem unable to keep upward the pace are seen as scarce or weak. Consider the case of an executive who came to see me when he was completely overloaded. I suggested he talk the situation over with his superior and ask for help. When my client did so, he was told that if he couldn't handle the work, he ought to think about resigning. Even though his performance assessments were stellar and he'd earned praise for being ane of the most artistic people in the organization, he was allowed to leave. Because the business firm sought to preserve the myth that no harbinger would always break its people's backs, it could not tolerate the manager'southward stating that his dorsum was breaking. Subsequently he went out on his own, he flourished.

How can nosotros control the rampaging furnishings of ADT, both in ourselves and in our organizations? While ADD ofttimes requires medication, the treatment of ADT certainly does not. ADT tin can be controlled only past creatively engineering one's surroundings and one'southward emotional and physical health. I accept constitute that the following preventive measures go a long fashion toward helping executives command their symptoms of ADT.

Promote positive emotions.

The about important step in decision-making ADT is not to buy a superturbocharged BlackBerry and fill up it up with to-dos just rather to create an environment in which the brain can office at its best. This means edifice a positive, fearfulness-free emotional atmosphere, because emotion is the on/off switch for executive operation.

The almost important stride in controlling ADT is to create an environment in which the brain can function at its best.

At that place are neurological reasons why ADT occurs less in environments where people are in physical contact and where they trust and respect one another. When yous comfortably connect with a colleague, even if you lot are dealing with an overwhelming problem, the deep centers of the brain send letters through the pleasure heart to the area that assigns resources to the frontal lobes. Even when you're under farthermost stress, this sense of human connection causes executive functioning to hum.

By contrast, people who work in physical isolation are more probable to suffer from ADT, for the more than isolated nosotros are, the more stressed we go. I witnessed a dramatic example of the danger of a asunder environment and the healing power of a continued one when I consulted for 1 of the earth'due south foremost academy chemical science departments. In the department's formerly hard-driven culture, ADT was rampant, exacerbated by an ethic that forbade anyone to ask for help or even state that anything was incorrect. People did non trust ane another; they worked on projects solitary, which led to more mistrust. Well-nigh people were in emotional pain, but implicit in the department'south civilisation was the notion that great pain led to great proceeds.

In the late 1990s, one of the department'due south most gifted graduate students killed himself. His suicide note explicitly blamed the university for pushing him past his limit. The department'southward culture was literally lethal.

Instead of trying to sweep the tragedy nether the carpeting, the chair of the department and his successor acted boldly and creatively. They immediately changed the construction of the supervisory system and so that each graduate educatee and postdoc was assigned three supervisors, rather than a single one with a death grip on the trainee'southward career. The section set upwards informal biweekly buffets that immune people to connect. (Even the most reclusive pharmacist came out of hiding for food, ane of life'due south great connectors.) The department heads went as far as changing the architecture of the department's main building, taking down walls and adding common areas and an espresso bar complete with a grand pianoforte. They provided lectures and written data to all students about the danger signs of mental wearable and tear and offered confidential procedures for students who needed help. These steps, along with regular meetings that included senior faculty and university administrators, led to a more humane, productive culture in which the students and faculty felt fully engaged. The department's performance remained get-go-rate, and creative inquiry blossomed.

The bottom line is this: Fostering connections and reducing fright promote brainpower. When you lot make fourth dimension at least every four to six hours for a "homo moment," a face-to-face exchange with a person you like, yous are giving your brain what information technology needs.

Have concrete care of your encephalon.

Sleep, a practiced diet, and exercise are critical for staving off ADT. Though this sounds like a no-brainer, likewise many of us abuse our brains past neglecting obvious principles of intendance.

You may try to cope with ADT by sleeping less, in the vain promise that you lot can get more than done. This is the opposite of what you demand to do, for ADT sets in when you don't get plenty sleep. There is ample documentation to suggest that sleep impecuniousness engenders a host of problems, from impaired decision making and reduced inventiveness to reckless behavior and paranoia. We vary in how much sleep we require; a good rule of pollex is that you're getting enough sleep if you tin can wake upwards without an alert clock.

Nutrition too plays a crucial role in brain health. Many hardworking people habitually inhale carbohydrates, which crusade blood glucose levels to yo-yo. This leads to a vicious cycle: Rapid fluctuations in insulin levels further increase the craving for carbohydrates. The brain, which relies on glucose for energy, is left either glutted or gasping, neither of which makes for optimal cognitive functioning.

The brain does much better if the blood glucose level tin can be held relatively stable. To do this, avoid uncomplicated carbohydrates containing carbohydrate and white flour (pastries, white bread, and pasta, for instance). Rely on the complex carbohydrates found in fruits, whole grains, and vegetables. Protein is of import: Instead of starting your day with coffee and a Danish, endeavor tea and an egg or a piece of smoked salmon on wheat toast. Accept a multivitamin every mean solar day as well as supplementary omega-3 fatty acids, an excellent source of which is fish oil. The omega-3s and the E and B circuitous independent in multivitamins promote good for you brain function and may fifty-fifty stave off Alzheimer'south disease and inflammatory ills (which can be the starting signal for major killers like heart affliction, stroke, diabetes, and cancer). Moderate your intake of booze, too, because too much kills encephalon cells and accelerates the development of memory loss and even dementia. As you alter your diet to promote optimal encephalon part and good general health, your body will also shed backlog pounds.

If you remember you can't afford the time to exercise, think again. Sitting at a desk for hours on stop decreases mental vigil, not but because of reduced blood flow to the brain only for other biochemical reasons too. Physical exercise induces the body to produce an assortment of chemicals that the brain loves, including endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, too as ii recently discovered compounds, brain-derived neurotrophic cistron (BDNF) and nerve growth factor (NGF). Both BDNF and NGF promote cell health and evolution in the encephalon, stave off the ravages of aging and stress, and keep the brain in tip-top condition. Nada stimulates the production of BDNF and NGF as robustly as concrete exercise, which explains why those who exercise regularly talk almost the letdown and sluggishness they experience if they miss their practice for a few days. You will more than compensate for the time y'all invest on the treadmill with improved productivity and efficiency. To fend off the symptoms of ADT while you're at work, get upwards from your desk and go up and down a flight of stairs a few times or walk briskly down a hallway. These quick, simple efforts will push your brain's reset button.

Organize for ADT.

It's important to develop tactics for getting organized, but not in the sense of empty New year's day's resolutions. Rather, your goal is to order your work in a mode that suits you lot, so that disorganization does not keep you from reaching your goals.

Kickoff, devise strategies to help your frontal lobes stay in control. These might include breaking down large tasks into smaller ones and keeping a section of your work space or desk clear at all times. (You do not need to have a neat office, only a neat section of your function.) Similarly, you might try keeping a portion of your solar day complimentary of appointments, e-mail, and other distractions so that you take time to think and plan. Considering e-mail service is a wonderful way to procrastinate and set yourself up for ADT at the same time, you might consider holding specific "electronic mail hours," since it isn't necessary to reply to every due east-postal service right away.

When you get-go your day, don't allow yourself to get sucked into vortices of email or vocalism mail or into attending to minor tasks that eat upward your fourth dimension but don't pack a punch. Attend to a critical task instead. Before you leave for the twenty-four hour period, make a list of no more than 5 priority items that will require your attention tomorrow. Short lists force yous to prioritize and complete your tasks. Additionally, proceed torrents of documents at bay. 1 of my patients, an executive with ADD, uses the OHIO rule: Only handle it once. If he touches a document, he acts on it, files it, or throws it away. "I don't put it in a pile," he says. "Piles are like weeds. If yous let them grow, they accept over everything."

Pay attention to the times of twenty-four hour period when you feel that you perform at your best; do your most important work and then and save the rote piece of work for other times. Set your office in a mode that helps mental functioning. If you focus improve with music, have music (if need exist, utilise earphones). If you retrieve all-time on your feet, work standing up or walk effectually frequently. If doodling or drumming your fingers helps, figure out a fashion to do and so without bothering anyone, or get a fidget toy to bring to meetings. These pocket-size strategies audio mundane, only they address the ADT devil that resides in distracting details.

Protect your frontal lobes.

To stay out of survival mode and keep your lower brain from usurping control, slow down. Take the fourth dimension you need to comprehend what is going on, to listen, to ask questions, and to digest what's been said then that you don't get confused and transport your brain into panic. Empower an banana to ride herd on you; insist that he or she tell you to terminate eastward-mailing, go off the telephone, or leave the office.

If you practise begin to feel overwhelmed, effort the following mind-clearing tricks. Do an piece of cake rote task, such every bit resetting the calendar on your watch or writing a memo on a neutral topic. If you lot feel anxious about beginning a projection, pull out a sheet of paper or fire up your word processor and write a paragraph about something unrelated to the project (a clarification of your house, your motorcar, your shoes—annihilation y'all know well). Y'all tin also tackle the easiest part of the chore; for example, write just the title of a memo about it. Open a dictionary and read a few definitions, or spend five minutes doing a crossword puzzle. Each of these niggling tasks quiets your lower brain by tricking it into shutting off alarmist messages and puts your frontal lobes back in full control.

Finally, exist ready for the side by side assault of ADT by posting the sidebar "Control Your ADT" near your desk where you tin can come across information technology. Knowing that you are prepared diminishes the likelihood of an set on, considering you're not susceptible to panic.

Command Your ADT

What Leaders Can Do

All as well often, companies induce and exacerbate ADT in their employees by demanding fast thinking rather than deep thinking. Firms also inquire employees to piece of work on multiple overlapping projects and initiatives, resulting in second-rate thinking. Worse, companies that ask their employees to do as well much at once tend to advantage those who say yes to overload while punishing those who choose to focus and say no.

Moreover, organizations make the mistake of forcing their employees to do more and more than with less and less by eliminating back up staff. Such companies end up losing money in the long run, for the more time a manager has to spend existence his ain administrative assistant and the less he is able to delegate, the less effective he will be in doing the important work of moving the arrangement forward. Additionally, firms that ignore the symptoms of ADT in their employees suffer its sick effects: Employees underachieve, create ataxia, cut corners, make careless mistakes, and squander their brainpower. As demands go on to increase, a toxic, high-pressure level surround leads to high rates of employee disease and turnover.

To counteract ADT and harness employee brainpower, firms should invest in amenities that contribute to a positive atmosphere. 1 company that has done an excellent job in this regard is SAS Plant, a major software company in Due north Carolina. The company famously offers its employees a long list of perks: a 36,000-square-foot, on-site gym; a seven-hour workday that ends at 5 PM; the largest on-site solar day care facility in North Carolina; a cafeteria that provides baby seats and high chairs and then parents can swallow lunch with their children; unlimited ill days; and much more than. The atmosphere at SAS is warm, connected, and relaxed. The issue on the bottom line is profoundly positive; turnover is never higher than five%. The company saves the millions other software companies spend on recruiting, training, and severance (estimated to be at least 1.5 times salary in the software manufacture). Employees return the favors with high productivity. The forces of ADT that shred other organizations never proceeds momentum at SAS.

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Leaders can also help foreclose ADT by matching employees' skills to tasks. When managers assign goals that stretch people too far or ask workers to focus on what they're not good at rather than what they do well, stress rises. By dissimilarity, managers who empathize the dangers of ADT can find ways of keeping themselves and their organizations on track. JetBlue's David Neeleman, for case, has shamelessly and publicly identified what he is not good at and found ways to deal with his shortcomings, either by delegating or by empowering his assistant to direct him. Neeleman also models this beliefs for everyone else in the organization. His openness about the challenges of his Add gives others permission to speak almost their own attention deficit difficulties and to garner the support they demand. He as well encourages his managers to match people with tasks that fit their cerebral and emotional styles, knowing that no one style is best. Neeleman believes that helping people work to their strengths is not simply a marking of sophisticated management; information technology'due south also an excellent style to boost worker productivity and morale.• • •

ADT is a very real threat to all of us. If we do non manage it, it manages us. Merely an understanding of ADT and its ravages allows the states to utilise practical methods to improve our work and our lives. In the finish, the almost critical pace an enlightened leader can have to address the problem of ADT is to name information technology. Bringing ADT out of the closet and describing its symptoms removes the stigma and eliminates the moral condemnation companies have for so long mistakenly leveled at overburdened employees. By giving people permission to ask for assistance and remaining vigilant for signs of stress, organizations volition go a long manner toward fostering more productive, well-balanced, and intelligent work environments.

A version of this commodity appeared in the January 2005 result of Harvard Business Review.