Category Archives: Career Development

Career Development

Ask a Narcissist

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Confidence is correlated with career effectiveness and advancement.
However, people who exhibit too much of a good thing may be seen as “narcissistic.”

Jean Twenge

Jean Twenge

Narcissistic personality is characterized by:

-Inflated views of the self,
-Grandiosity,
-Self-focus,
-Vanity,
-Self-importance,

according to San Diego State University’s Jean M. Twenge, with Sara Konrath and Brad J. Bushman of University of Michigan, collaborating with University of South Alabama’s Joshua D. Foster, and Keith Campbell of University of Georgia,

Calvin S Hall

Calvin S Hall

One well-validated assessment instrument to identify narcissism is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, developed by University of California Berkeley’s Robert Raskin and Calvin S. Hall.

Sara Konrath

Sara Konrath

Raskin and UC Berkeley colleague, Howard Terry examined responses from more than 1000 volunteers and found seven constructs related to narcissism:

  • Authority,
  • Exhibitionism,
  • Superiority,
  • Vanity,
  • Exploitativeness,
  • Entitlement,
  • Self-Sufficiency.
Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary

They related ratings of “self” and “ideal self” to participants’ responses on the Leary Interpersonal Check List, developed by Harvard’s Timothy Leary before he investigated psychedelic drugs.

Brian P Meier

Brian P Meier

An alternative to Leary’s lengthy NPI was developed by University of Michigan’s Sara Konrath, Brian P. Meier of Gettysburg College, and Ohio State’s Brad J. Bushman of Indiana University.
The Single Item Narcissism Scale (SINS) measures grandiosity, entitlement, and low empathy characteristic of “narcissistic” behavior.

The team asked more than 2,200 participants to rate their answer to a single question on a scale of one to seven: To what extent do you agree with this statement? “I am a narcissist.”

Brad J Bushman

Brad J Bushman

Konrath’s team demonstrated that the Single Item Narcissism Scale is a valid, reliable alternative to longer narcissism scales because it is significantly correlated with scores on the NPI and is uncorrelated with social desirability.

Erika Carlson

Erika Carlson

People who score high on the NPI and SINS say that they are more arrogant, condescending, argumentative, critical, and prone to brag than people who score low on the NPI, according to University of Toronto’s Erika Carlson.

Narcissism was also related in Konrath’s validation studies to:

People who scored high for narcissism also showed behaviors that can be problematic at work:

However, people who scored high for narcissism displayed positive attributes including:

Interacting with a narcissist in the workplace can be challenging, and a previous blog post identifies recommended strategies.

-*How do you identify narcissists in the workplace and in personal life?
-*What are more effective ways to work with them?

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©Kathryn Welds

Gender Transitions Show Gender Differences in Pay, Workplace Experience

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People who change gender continue to use their education and experience at work. However, many of these people report that their compensation, degree of respect, and recognition at work changed following gender change.
This suggests that gender can directly affect compensation and workplace interactions.

Two Stanford professors’ personal experiences in gender transition were highlighted by University of Chicago’s Kristen Schilt.

Joan Roughgarden

Joan Roughgarden – Jonathan Roughgarden

Stanford’s Joan Roughgarden, was an evolutionary biologist for more than 25 years as Jonathan Roughgarden before she made her male-to-female (MTF) transition.
Known for her work integrating evolutionary theory with Christian beliefs (“theistic evolutionism”), she reported feeling less able to make bold conjectures and no longer had “the right to be wrong.”

Her experience contrasts with Stanford colleague, neurobiologist Ben Barres, who made scientific contributions as Barbara Barres until after he was 40.

Barbara Barres - Ben Barres

Barbara Barres – Ben Barres

After his female-to-male (FTM) transition, Ben delivered a lecture at Whitehead Institute, where an audience member commented, “Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but, then, his work is much better than his sister’s.”

Schilt surveyed FTM and MTF to compare earnings and employment experiences before and after gender transitions with questions similar to 2002 Current Population Survey (CPS) survey items:

  • Last job before gender transition,
  • First job after gender transition,
  • Most recent job.

Kristen Schilt

Kristen Schilt

Female-to-male transsexuals (FTMs) reported that as men, they had more authority, reward, and respect in the workplace than they received as women, even when they remained in the same jobs.

Height and skin color affected potential advantages enjoyed by FTM.

Tall, white FTMs experienced greater benefits than short FTMs and FTMs of color.
In contrast, MTF reported reduced authority and pay, and often harassment and termination.

University of Illinois’s Donald McCloskey, for example, was told by his department chair “in jest” that he could expect a salary reduction when he became Deirdre McCloskey.

Deirdre McCloskey

Deirdre McCloskey

However, salary reduction was no joke for MTFs in Schilt’s survey sample.
Participants reported significant losses of 12% in hourly earnings after becoming female.

Additionally, MTFs transitioned on average 10 years later than FTMs, delaying the loss of financial advantages attributable to male gender.

FTMs, however, experienced no change in earnings or small positive increases up to 7.5% in earnings after transitioning to becoming men.

Any gender transition was associated with risks of harassment and discrimination, reported more frequently in “blue-collar” jobs, particularly for those with “non-normative” appearance and not consistently “passing” as the other gender.

These “naturalistic experiments” confirm continuing gender-based pay discrepancies.

-*To what extent have you observed these gender-linked differences in compensation and workplace credibility?

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Employee Workplace Friendships: Global Comparisons

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Workplace friendships positively affect task performance, and Americans report fewer friendships at work than employees in other countries.
The result could be reduced productivity and competitive disadvantage for U.S. companies in world markets.

Karen Jehn

Karen Jehn

Teams composed of friends outperformed acquaintance groups in decision making and effort tasks, reported University of Melbourne’s Karen A. Jehn and Priti Pradhan Shah of University of Minnesota.

Likewise, workplace friendships were associated with more effective performance in a meta-analytic study of more than 160 groups with nearly 78,000 employees by David A. Harrison of University of Texas and colleagues.

Even employees’ perceptions of workplace friendship opportunities affected job involvement and job satisfaction.

Christine M. Riordan

Christine M. Riordan

These perceptions indirectly affected organizational commitment and turnover intent among more than 170 employees in a small electric utility, found Adelphi University’s Christine M. Riordan and Rodger W. Griffith of Ohio University.

Olenka Kacperczyk

Olenka Kacperczyk

Fewer than one-third of Americans reported having a close friend at work, one indicator of employee engagement according to The Gallup Organization.
Workplace friendships in the U.S. have significantly declined over the past three (3) decades, but continue to be strong social connections in Polish and Indian organizations, noted MIT’s Olenka Kacperczyk with Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, and Wayne E. Baker of University of Michigan in an unpublished working paper.

Jeffrey Sanchez-Burkes

Jeffrey Sanchez-Burkes

They conducted surveys across the U.S., Poland, and India and determined that fewer than one-third of Americans reported inviting their closest colleagues to their homes, compared with two-thirds of Polish participants and nearly three-quarters Indian employees.

The discrepancy in amount of off-work time spent with workplace friends in different national groups is significant:  Just under half of Indian survey volunteers reported going on holiday with closest co-workers, whereas one-quarter of Polish workers and only 6% of Americans said they shared a holiday with colleagues.

Richard Nisbett

Richard Nisbett

Americans were also significantly less concerned with social interactions during work tasks, compared with Mexican and Mexican-American participants, found University of Southern California’s Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks with Richard E. Nisbett and Oscar Ybarra of University of Michigan.

Oscar Ybarra

Oscar Ybarra

After volunteers from each cultural background watched a four-minute video of two people working together, Mexicans and Mexican Americans more accurately recalled social and emotional group content.

Mexicans and Mexican Americans also preferred workgroups with a strong interpersonal orientation, and said that group work performance could be improved by focusing on socio-emotional elements.

Robert D. Putnam

This focus on socio-emotional performance more greatly influenced group task success than the group’s ethnic composition.
This suggests that Americans’ trend toward social disengagement, described as ‘bowling alone’ by Harvard’s Robert D. Putnam, could undermine their productivity.

Adam Grant

Adam Grant

One explanation for national differences is that in the U.S., long-term employment is less secure than in countries with labor protection statues.
As a result, people often don’t expect to stay in one role, so they remain detached from colleagues to prepare for voluntary or involuntary job changes.
Wharton’s Adam Grant suggested that “We view co-workers as transitory ties, greeting them with arms-length civility while reserving real camaraderie for outside work.”

Some observers attribute interpersonal disengagement to newer models of working, such as telecommuting and working remotely.

Ravi S. Gajendran

Ravi S. Gajendran

However, evidence from more than 45 studies including about 12,000 employees showed that “telecommuting had no generally detrimental effects on the quality of workplace relationships,” particularly when people came to an office at least half the time, according to University of Illinois’s Ravi S. Gajendran and David A. Harrison of University of Texas.

Even if workplace relationships don’t become friendships, brief encounters can be high-quality connections characterized by respect, trust, and mutual engagement.

Jane Dutton

Jane Dutton

These interactions energize participants, suggested University of Michigan’s Jane E. Dutton, and may mitigate potential decreases in employee engagement and collaborative productivity.

-*To what extent do you have strong workplace friendships?

-*How have you seen workplace friendships affect work quality and productivity?

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©Kathryn Welds

Attractive Men May Appear Competent, But May Not Be Hired in Competitive Situations

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Sun Young Lee

Sun Young Lee

Previous blog posts documented bias favouring attractive people for hiring, venture funding, and positive impressions by others.

Capable but less attractive individuals may encounter “workplace attractiveness discrimination,” reported Sun Young Lee of University College London, University of Maryland’s Marko Pitesa, Madan Pillutla of London Business School, and INSEAD’s Stefan Thau.

Marko Pitesa

Marko Pitesa

Their studies found that people making employment decisions show systematic selection bias based on candidates’ perceived attractiveness and organizational context.

Selection bias can occur when observers associate unrelated characteristics (gender, ethnicity, national origin, attractiveness) with expectations for work performance (“status generalization”).

Murray Webster

Murray Webster

These assumptions may occur without conscious awareness and without evidence, and can result in group inequalities, according to University of South Carolina’s Murray Webster and Martha Foschi.

James Driskell

James Driskell

Unrelated characteristics, including attractiveness, significantly affected face-to-face interactions in group task experiments by Webster and University of South Carolina colleague James Driskell.

Martha Foschi

Martha Fosch

Decision makers associated attractiveness with competence in male candidates but not in female candidates in one of Lee’s studies.

Interpersonal interdependence occurs when perceived attractiveness affects people’s decisions and actions, according to UCLA’s Harold Kelley and John Thibaut of University of North Carolina.

John Thibault

John Thibault

Lee’s group studied this relationship by assigning male and female volunteers to simulated employment selection situations.
Participants “interviewed” and provided “hiring recommendations” for “job candidates.”
Interviewers were told they would be collaborating for shared team rewards BUT competing for recognition, promotions, commissions, and bonuses.

Madan Pillutla

Madan Pillutla

Volunteers evaluated two similar resumes accompanied by photos of an “attractive” applicant and an “unattractive” candidate.
Next, assessors answered questions about the person’s competence, likely impact on the rater’s success, and their likelihood of recommending the candidate for the position.

When the decision-maker expected to cooperate with the candidate, male candidates who were perceived as more attractive were:

-judged as more competent,
-seen as more likely to enable the evaluator’s career success,
-more frequently recommended for employment.

Stefan Thau

Stefan Thau

However, when decision makers expected to compete with the candidate, attractive male candidates were rated as less capable.
Evaluators less frequently recommended attractive male candidates for employment, suggesting a systematic bias to preserve the evaluator’s place in the workplace hierarchy.

Attractive and unattractive female candidates were judged as equally competent, but attractive male candidates were rated as much more competent than unattractive male candidates.

Subsequent studies provided evaluators with candidates’ age, race, education and headshot to consider in selecting their competitor or collaborator in a tournament task.
Decision-makers preferred attractive male or female candidates unless their personal outcomes were affected by the selection decision.

These studies suggest that attractiveness discrimination is “calculated self-interested behavior” in which men sometimes discriminate in favor and sometimes against attractive males.

-*How do you align with “calculated self-interest behavior” to mitigate bias?

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©Kathryn Welds

Women Undermine Salary Negotiations with Excessive Gratitude

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Andreas Leibbrandt

Candid self-disclosure hurt women’s salary negotiation outcomes when they revealed that a salary exceeded their expectations, in a study by Monash University’s Andreas Leibbrandt and John A. List of the University of Chicago.

John List

John List

Some women applying for administrative assistant jobs were told that the wages were “negotiable,” and these women achieved higher pay offers than women who received no information. Volunteers in the no-information group frequently revealed that they were willing to work for a lower hourly rate, and they received lower average salary offers.

Edward E. Jones

Edward E. Jones

Though this approach likely leads to lower salary, it could be considered strategic ingratiation to enhance the future working relationship>
However, this approach could lead the negotiation partner to question the applicant’s judgment and confidence.
In addition, this maneuver may delay salary increases because the candidate expresses satisfaction with the original offer.

Strategic ingratiation is observed in several behaviours, according to Duke University’s Edward E. Jones:

-Self-presentation: Self-enhancement or “one-down” humility, providing favors or gifts,

-Flattery: “Other-enhancement” by sharing credible positive comments,

-Agreement: Opinion-conformity and matching non-verbal behaviour.

Steven H. Appelbaum

Steven H. Appelbaum

Positive outcomes from “strategic ingratiation” included promotion or pay increase, observed in a study by Concordia University’s Steven H. Appelbaum and Brent Hughes.

This contradictory finding  was explained by situational and individual factors including:

  • Machiavellianism,
  • Locus of control,
  • Work task uniqueness.
Jeffrey Flory

Jeffrey Flory

In another of Leibbrandt and List’s randomized field studies, collaborating with Concordia colleague Jeffrey Flory, men did not wait for permission to negotiate when no statement was made about salary discussions.

In fact, male participants said they prefer ambiguous salary negotiation norms or“competitive work settings”  in which salary negotiation was typically expected.

Women frequently do not negotiate unless given explicit permission.
but when they are invited to negotiate, they obtained higher salaries as frequently as men

Leibbrandt, List, and Flory concluded that women accept “competitive” workplaces when “the job task is female-oriented” and the local labor market offers few alternatives.

Women who seek higher salaries benefit from proposing their “aspirational salaries” rather than waiting for permission to negotiate.
Women negotiators can achieve better outcomes when they offer moderate expressions of gratitude and avoid revealing their “reserve” salary figure.

-*In what work situations have you benefited from applying ‘strategic ingratiation’?

-*To what extent have you seen expressions of gratitude in negotiation undermine bargaining outcomes?

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©Kathryn Welds

Intrinsic Motives Linked to Achieving Goals

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Amy Wrzesniewski

Amy Wrzesniewski

Effort toward a goal may be sustained when the person is intrinsically motivated by personal commitment to a larger purpose than the goal itself.
Goal-seeking activity can also be decreased by tangible external rewards. 

Xiangyu Cong

Xiangyu Cong

This interaction between internal and external motives was investigated among more than 10,000 people admitted to the United States Military Academy (“West Point”) by Yale’s Amy Wrzesniewski, Xiangyu Cong, Michael Kane, Audrey Omar, and Thomas Kolditz, with Barry Schwartz of Swarthmore.

Michael John Kane

Michael John Kane

Wrzesniewski’s team considered the long-term impact of holding both intrinsic motives (desire to serve and protect citizens) and extrinsic motives (have a respected career) on West Point cadets’:

-Promotion to commissioned officer rank,

-Extending officer service beyond the minimum required period of 5 years,

-Selection for early career promotions.

Audrey Omar

Audrey Omar

Cadets who were intrinsically motivated were more likely to accomplish these goals.
However, those who also reported extrinsic motivation were less likely to achieve these career distinctions.

Richard Koestner

Richard Koestner

A meta-analytic review of nearly 130 experiments by University of Rochester’s Edward Deci and Richard Ryan with Richard Koestner of McGill confirmed the undermining effects of extrinsic rewards from childhood through adulthood.

Mark Lepper

Mark Lepper

People may report less intrinsic motivation when extrinsic rewards are available, a trend called the “over-justification hypothesis”  by Stanford’s Mark Lepper, David Greene, and Richard Nisbett of University of Michigan.

Clark McCauley

Clark McCauley

People typically view their work as being intrinsically or extrinsically motivated depending on whether they see work as a:

–Job, mostly extrinsically motivated, 

-Career, some intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, 

-Calling, intrinsically motivated by fulfillment from the work itself.

Volunteers reported greater satisfaction and better performance when they saw their work as a “calling,” according to Wrzesniewski’s work with Schwartz, collaborating with Bryn Mawr’s Clark McCauley and Paul Rozin of Penn.

Paul Rozin

Paul Rozin

These results suggest the value of finding meaning in work rather than focusing on positive consequences of goal achievement.

Thomas Kolditz

Thomas Kolditz

The U.S. Military has employed extrinsic motive appeals in marketing messages to recruit cadets, suggesting that military services provides “money for college,” “career training,” and enables members to “see the world.”

However, extrinsic motives tend to be associated with less career recognition and tenure than those who find meaning in the organization’s mission.

-*How do you increase intrinsic motivation when extrinsic motivation may seem more appealing?

-*What elements make your work “a calling”?

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©Kathryn Welds

Organizational Trust vs “Only the Paranoid Survive”

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Organizational life can be punctuated by uncertainty, leading to mistrust.

Andy Grove

Andy Grove

Intel’s former Chairman, Andy Grove, explained his success in guiding the company through a critical product flaw, which threatened Intel’s brand value, noting “Only the Paranoid Survive.”

Christel Lane

Christel Lane

However, organizational paranoia’s counterpoint, trust, is associated with productivity, creative problem-solving, employee commitment and retention, found University of Cambridge’s Christel Lane and Reinhardt Bachman of University of Surrey.

Reinhard Bachmann

Reinhard Bachmann

Likewise, Alan Fox catalogued negative consequences of suspicion in work settings.
Roderick Kramer of Stanford also confirmed that people in organizations often misconstrue and overvalue suspicions, leading to low collaboration and isolation at work.

Roderick Kramer

Roderick Kramer

He observed that people with fewer resources or less power engage in self-protective behaviors, accompanied by increased hypervigilance, consistent with findings by Princeton’s Susan Fiske.

Susan Fiske

Susan Fiske

These strategies increase the possibility of “paranoid social cognition,” and may lead people to engage in:

-Idiosyncratic interpretations of interactions,

-Sinister attribution error,

-Perception of conspiracy, highlighted by Rutgers’ Ted Goertzel.

Ted Goertzel

Ted Goertzel

To balance “prudent paranoia” with organizational trust, Kramer recommended considering alternate interpretations from people likely to hold different views.

-*How do you balance organizational trust and “prudent paranoia”?

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Leader Self-Efficacy Beliefs Determine Impact of Challenging Work Assignments

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Stephen Courtright

Stephen Courtright

“High potential” employees often receive “stretch assignments” to expand their organizational knowledge, skills, and contacts.

Amy Colbert

Amy Colbert

Personal leadership self-efficacy (LSE) expectations about ability to deliver successful outcomes determine the actual results, reported Texas A&M’s Stephen H. Courtright, Amy E. Colbert of University of Iowa, and Daejeong Choi of University of Melbourne in their study of more than 150 managers and 600 directors at a Fortune 500 financial services company.

Daejeong Choi

Daejeong Choi

Individuals develop self efficacy, according to Stanford’s Albert Bandura, in response to:

  • Personal accomplishments and mastery,
  • Observing others’ behaviors, experiences, and outcomes,
  • Corrective feedback from others via coaching and mentoring,
  • Mood and physiological factors.

Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura

Bandura proposed that people’s expectations about their personal efficacy determines whether they:

  • Use coping behavior when encountering difficulties,
  • Apply exceptional effort in meeting challenges,
  • Persist for long periods when encountering obstacles.

These behaviors lead to the “virtuous cycle” of increased self-efficacy beliefs.

Laura Paglis Dwyer

Laura Paglis Dwyer

A measure of leadership self-efficacy (LSE), developed by University of Evansville’s Laura L. Paglis Dwyer and Stephen G. Green of Purdue University, evaluates a leader’s skill in:

  • Direction-setting,
  • Gaining followers’ commitment,
  • Overcoming obstacles to change.

Sean Hanna

Sean Hanna

Two additional Leader Self Efficacy characteristics were proposed by United States Military Academy’s Sean T. Hannah with Bruce Avolio, Fred Luthans, and Peter D. Harms of University of Nebraska:

  • “Agency,” characterized by intentionally initiating action and exerting positive influence,
  • Confidence.

Jesus Tanguma

Jesus Tanguma

Women demonstrated significantly lower leadership self-efficacy beliefs than men in research by University of Houston’s Michael J. McCormick, Jesús Tanguma
, and Anita Sohn López-Forment.

However, these lower leadership self-efficacy beliefs can be modified with training, coaching, mentoring, and cognitive restructuring practice.

Courtright’s team reinforced that beliefs result from previous experiences can determine future outcomes, suggesting the importance of monitoring and managing these self-efficacy beliefs.

-*How do you maintain robust Leadership Self-Efficacy expectations even after disappointments and setbacks?

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©Kathryn Welds

“Evolved” Leaders in an Era of Self-Interested Leadership

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Jim Collins

Jim Collins

Organizations that are “built to last” are guided by “Level 5 Executives,” argued Jim Collins in Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t.

This style of leadership requires both personal humility and personal will, a combination not favored in the current US national leadership.

Collins proposed a developmental leadership hierarchy including:

  • Level 1:  Highly Capable Individual, who applies knowledge, skills, abilities, and commitment to achieve team goal,
  • Level 2:  Contributing Team Member, who contributes to team goal achievement through effective collaboration,
  • Level 3:  Capable Manager, who sets plans and organizes others to achieve goals,
  • Level 4:  Effective Executive, who inspires others to act toward the shared vision,
  • Level 5:  Level 5 Executive combines personal will to achieve the organizational improvement goal, tempered with personal humility.

Modesto Maidique

Modesto Maidique

Drawing on developmental psychology theories by Jean Piaget as well as Harvard’s Lawrence Kohlberg, and Robert Kegan, Florida International University’s former President, Modesto A. Maidique proposed a six-level Purpose-Driven Model of Leadership, 

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget

Leadership is service to others, organizations, and ideals, and follows a related developmental path:

  • Level One: Sociopath, who serves no one, exhibits low empathy, and destroys value and undermines others.
    Well-known examples are Muammar Gaddafi, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein.

Lawrence Kohlberg

Lawrence Kohlberg

  • Level Two: Opportunist, who serves himself or herself, often at others’ expense by focusing on “What’s in it for me?”
    Examples include Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Skilling.
  • Level Three: Chameleon, who “flip-flop” and cater to as many people as possible.
    Examples include Senator John Kerry, former Florida governor Charlie Crist, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

Robert Kegan

Robert Kegan

    • Level Four: Achiever, who often achieves business goals through energetic focus.

      Peter Drucker

      Peter Drucker

      Peter Drucker characterized this leader as “monomaniac with a mission,” driving toward a goal without fully considering the broader mission.
      Examples include former H-P CEO Mark Hurd.

    • Level Five: Builder, who seeks to build an institution, not just to achieve a goal.
      Examples include IBM’s Tom Watson Jr., GM’s Alfred P. Sloan, and Harpo’s Oprah Winfrey.
      They have a clear vision, energize others, manage for the long term, and not swayed by short-term profit or stock market valuations.
  • Level Six: Transcendent, who focus on broader social benefit beyond their personal affiliations.
    Purpose-Driven Model of Leadership
    Examples include Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Dalai Lama.

These frameworks provide a structure to evaluate the words and actions of current political and business leaders, and suggest potential leadership vulnerabilities.

-*What level of leader do you observe in the highest levels of your work organization?
-*What practices are you implementing to develop your next level of leadership skill

©Kathryn Welds

Managing Workplace Interruptions

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Edward Sykes

Edward Sykes

Most office workers spend an average of two hours a day doing unplanned tasks, according to Sheridan Institute’s Edward Sykes.
These work interruptions are associated with:

Quintus Jett

Unplanned tasks decrease productivity and are characterized by:

  • Intrusions – Unplanned interactions initiated by others: Synchronous communication including instant message, phone call, or a coworkers visiting to talk,
  • Distractions – Unplanned focus change from a task to environmental conditions like other conversations,
  • Breaks – Unscheduled task stoppage to rest, visit the restroom, have a meal,
  • Discrepancy Detection – Unplanned task stoppage to correct errors or redirect work effort toward a revised objective.

Jennifer George

Unplanned workplace interruptions are increasingly prevalent due to rising incidence of:

  • Open and collaborative workspaces,
  • Technological interruptions,
  • Meetings.

Sheldon Cohen

Sheldon Cohen

Open space floor plans increase unplanned interruptions, perceived stress, and “cognitive fatigue,” due to greater noise levels and reduced privacy for employees.
These factors also reduce employees’ job satisfaction, found Carnegie Mellon’s Sheldon Cohen and E. M. De Croon and team of University of Amsterdam.

Julie Renneker

Julie Renneker

Synchronous communications are more disruptive than asynchronous communications, which allow response at a convenient time and mitigate the negative impact of task-shifting on cognitive load and stress level, noted University of Texas’s Julie Rennecker and Lindsey Godwin, now of Champlain College.

Greg Oldham

Greg Oldham

Strategies to mitigate the impact of work disruptions include time management and boundary setting, according to Tulane’s Greg Oldham, Carol Kulik of University of South Australia and Florida State University’s Lee Stepina.
 They suggested that employees:

Carol Kulik

Carol Kulik

-“Batch” communication to check email and returning phone calls at specified intervals,

-Block technology pop-ups, alerts, sounds to avoid startling interruptions,

James Tyler

James Tyler

-Organize tasks around energy peaks, with tasks requiring the most effort and concentration earlier in the workday and after a break, also advocated by Purdue’s James Tyler and Kathleen Burns of University of Wisconsin,

Kathleen Burns

Kathleen Burns

-Take active breaks, such as walking outside to breathe outdoor air,

John Aiello

John Aiello

-Schedule interruption-free intervals, to increase perceived control over interruptions and reduce stress, also cited by Duke’s Andrew Carton and John Aiello of Rutgers,

-Create “work-arounds” for open space floor plans by:
.Installing higher cubicle dividers,
.Providing noise-cancelling headphones,
.Offering white noise machines to reduce ambient notice,
.Designating reservable private work rooms for audio privacy,

-Reduce meeting frequency to focus on issues that require group discussion, consensus, commitment.

A counterpoint argument is that task interruptions provide benefits, proposed by  Jett and George.
The argued that unplanned and planned interruptions :

  • Prevent widespread rework when employees alert colleagues to a work discrepancy or error,
  • Increase productivity during repetitive or well-learned tasks that may lead to boredom, errors, or lost task focus.

-*How do you reduce the negative impact of workplace interruptions?

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