The latest from Work Matters
- In the name of productivity and consistency, employers should permit employee Internet access at work
- Brevity is the soul of a good speech
| In the name of productivity and consistency, employers should permit employee Internet access at work | Top |
| Employers should allow employees access to the Internet at work. It is pointless to try and control it. And now, there is evidence that doing so makes them better workers. So reports James Surowiecki in this week's edition of The New Yorker , "In Praise of Distraction." Researchers at a Danish university asked participants in a study to watch a video of people passing a ball and to count the number of passes. Group No. 1 watched a funny, 10-minute video before their screens asked them to start this task. Group No. 2's screens told them they could watch a funny video if they clicked a button, but they were told not to do so. Group No. 2 could hear their Group No. 1 colleagues laughing away. Once the funny video was over, both groups started to count the number of passes. Those who hadn't watched the comedy video made more counting mistakes than those who had. Surowiecki writes, "You might have thought that those who had spent the previous ten minutes laughing would become distracted and careless. Instead, it was the act of following company policy and not clicking that button that eroded people's ability to focus and concentrate." The bottom line: "[A]sking people to regulate their behavior without interruption (by, say, never going online at work) may very well make them less focussed and less effective." So what should employers do? Here is my take: Dump the multipage policies on internet usage and replace it with a good judgment policy: "We hired you for a variety of reasons, including our belief and trust that you will exercise good judgment in performing your job responsibilities. In short, we trust your judgment and character. So, with respect to internet usage, personal use at work is permitted. Use common sense. By way of example, no visits to inappropriate web sites, such as those that are sexually oriented." This is really all employers need. It amazes me that employers bestow all sorts of titles on employees that imply trust (partner, associate, team member) and then treat them like children by promulgating hundreds of rules in hundred-page handbooks. My mom told me, "If you say something is important, than treat it as important." | |
| Brevity is the soul of a good speech | Top |
| Short talks are the best talks. They are more focused and thus make a greater impact. In turn, listeners remember them. Christopher Witt, in collaboration with Dale Fetherling, makes this point in "Real Leaders Don't Do PowerPoint: How To Sell Yourself and Your Ideas." They provide an interesting list of speeches and how long they lasted: Patrick Henry and his"Give me liberty or give me death" speech was six minutes. The Gettysburg Address was all of two minutes. Franklin D. Roosevelt's address to the nation after Pearl Harbor was over in seven minutes. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech was only 16 minutes. And after the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, Ronald Reagan spoke to the nation for less than five minutes. So why do lawyers think a longer speech is better? I think it's because we are trained to cover all bases and develop all lines of argument; we fear criticism for leaving something out. It's better not to take a risk, the reasoning goes. But that's wrong. The art of persuasion and inspiration is the art of what to leave out. The authors make a telling point: "Also, in this age of PDAs, instant messaging, and other electronic distractions, audiences don't have the attention spans they may have once had. What's more, you want to leave your audience wanting more of you, not less." It's just like dating: Keep a date short, and if you need to break up, get to the point. | |
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