Multitasking Creates Mediocrity and Mistakes April 26, 2009

Bob Behn’s Performance Leadership Report An occasional (and maybe even insightful) examination of the issues, dilemmas, challenges, and opportunities for improving performance and producing real results in public agencies. Vol. 9, No. 8, April 2011 On why all public executives need to be aware of how Copyright © 2011 by Robert D. Behn Multitasking Creates Mediocrity and Mistakes April 26, 2009. Fenway Park. Bos- Indeed, during 2011, Ellsbury and multiple, simultaneous tasks that ton Red Sox vs. New York Yankees. Crawford are going to be exhibit A & involve thinking and deciding. These Bottom of the fifth inning. Bases B (or B & A) for the problem of multi- tasks require the brain to reset be- loaded. Andy Pettitte pitching for the tasking. And just wait until Ellsbury tween each thought—between each Yankees. Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston’s is on third and Crawford is on first. choice. This creates a lag. And if the fastest player, on third base. But We humans believe, of course, brain is trying to go back and forth Pettitte isn’t paying attention. that we are excellent at multitasking. between two different tasks, these Ellsbury steals home. Just ask us. In fact, however, people lags begin to accumulate (though to Andy Pettitte may not think so, but who report that they are excellent these lags, we humans are completely to Judy and me, cheering from the multitaskers are easily distracted. oblivious). bleachers, this is baseball at its best. “High multitaskers are suckers for Some types of multitasking are In four seasons with the Red Sox, irrelevancy,” concluded Clifford Nass easy. We can make the bed and talk Ellsbury has stolen 136 bases. Last of Stanford University. “Everything at the same time. Making the bed is a year, Ellsbury was hurt, playing only distracts them.” routine task that we have done hun- 18 games. But in 2009, he stole 70 Nass and his colleagues gave a dreds of times; it requires no think- bases—almost one every other game. battery of tests to both high and low ing. But if two tasks are both com- In the last five seasons, only seven multitaskers. Guess what: The low plex, the brain has to work harder. major-league baseball players have multitaskers did better. “Multi- Have you heard of “the invisible stolen home. And, amazingly, this taskers were just lousy at every- gorilla”? Daniel Simons of the Univer- was the second time that the pitcher thing,” observed Nass. “We thought sity of Illinois and Christopher Chab- who wasn’t paying attention was New multitaskers were very much in con- ris of Union College created a simple York’s Pettitte. trol of information,” noted Eyal video. Three people wearing white t- Another one of the seven was Carl Ophir, also of Stanford. “It turns out, shirts pass a basketball among them- Crawford. During his nine years with they were just getting all confused.” selves, while also weaving among the Tampa Bay Rays, Crawford stole three other people in black t-shirts 409 bases. In 2009, he stole 60. In doing the same thing. Simons and one game in 2006, Crawford stole We humans think we are excel- Chabris asked people to count the second, third, and home — against lent multitaskers. In fact, how- number of times the people wearing the Red Sox. ever, we are simply delusional. the white t-shirts passed the ball. This year, however, Carl Crawford Indeed, the research reveals that This counting is not simple. It plays for the Red Sox. For baseball requires your undivided attention. So those of us who do the most pitchers, the combination of Ellsbury when a gorilla walks across the multitasking are actually the and Crawford is going to provoke screen, you never see it. Or, if you do headaches. For when either of them worst at it. pick it up, you lose count. gets on base, he becomes an obvious When faced with two concurrent threat to steal. and complex tasks, we humans have Thus, the pitcher is forced to pay Floyd Bloom, the neuroscientist two alternatives. Option 1: We can try attention both to the runner and to from Scripps Institute calls our brain to do both tasks at the same time, in the batter. This is the multitasker’s “the most complex structure that which case we will do neither of them nightmare. exists in the universe.” It can per- well. Option 2: We can focus on just Unfortunately, we humans are form many complex tasks amazingly one task—which we will be able to do lousy multitaskers. If the pitcher well. This is because the brain’s well—while ignoring the other, which concentrates too much on the batter neurons can fire dazzlingly fast. won’t get done at all. and not enough on the runner, the Between two complex tasks, how- No wonder Andy Pettitte decided it runner will have a much easier time ever, the brain has to reset itself. We was time to retire from baseball. d stealing the next base. If the pitcher don’t have two brains, let alone concentrates on the runner and not twenty-two. We have only one. Yes: Robert D. Behn is a lecturer at Har- enough on the batter, the batter will the parts of our brain that keep the vard University's John F. Kennedy have a much easier time with the heart pumping and the lungs breath- School of Government where he pitch—either ignoring the ball be- ing work automatically and inde- chairs the executive-education pro- cause it isn’t close to the strike zone pendently of the parts that do the gram “Driving Government Perfor- or hitting it because it is delivered complex thinking. mance: Leadership Strategies that poorly. Ellsbury and Crawford are At some tasks, however, our brain Produce Results.” His publications going to drive pitchers crazy. doesn’t always do so well. These are include: Performance Leadership: 11 Better Practices That Can Ratchet Up To subscribe go to http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/TheBehnReport. It’s free! Performance..

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