Four Destructive Myths abut workers...

some food for morning thought... I'm fortunate in that I've never worked directly for managers who believed this but I've certainly been caught in the backlash of people who do.

• Myth #1: Multitasking is critical in a world of infinite demand. I'm seeing more and more commentary that says this is a terrible idea - when I was younger I preferred to be doing a task while having as many distractions around me as possible - radio, email, IM etc... now it depends on the task and sometimes I need to do only the one task to do it well.
• Myth #2: A little bit of anxiety helps us perform better. Definitely not; in my experience anxiety contributes to not asking, not telling and not doing - all of which are tragic outcomes
  
• Myth #3: Creativity is genetically inherited, and it's impossible to teach. Heh, in the context of the OTW I would say creativity and anxiety are connected, if you have the former it's hard to exercise the latter and it then has to be gently coaxed out
  
  • I would also argue, in the fannish context, that not allowing creativity to flourish leads to sudden bursts of rage and flouncing¹ - it's so important to know we will be heard, and that means inviting people to speak
• Myth #4: The best way to get more work done is to work longer hours. Sadly I've worked places where I came in early and left early and got teased for leaving as I left - and this was a place that actively talked about working 'smarter not harder. I think there's a couple of things going on there:
  • invisible work - if I don't see it being done I have no way of knowing if it's being done and if I have low trust I assume it's not being done - which explains everything you need to know about how staff perceive upper management
    
  • flow - the tendency to confuse the way people who are there all the time tend to know what's going on (a seemingly good outcome) with the way good communicators know what's going on anyway. (also an excellent way to do things). I get good results from being there ALL the time, but it's not sustainable and having people burn out isn't exactly a good long term strategy
    

¹I was recently introduced to the gaming phrase 'rage-quit' which makes so much sense it hurts,