Complex problems are a different story because of their possible consequences. We noted earlier how the prefrontal cortex becomes very inefficient when bombarded by too much information. As a result, you may overanalyze the information and select a choice that you may soon regret (see first example in fig. 1.4, page 22). However, if you use information management strategies to limit the incoming items and avoid rushing to a decision, then your rational brain has the time to explore your pool of experiences and link new information to similar emotion-laden decisions of the past. Now your unconscious thought process can examine options based on your past experiences (assuming you have had a sufficient number of them in your work domain) and render a better decision (see second example in fig. 1.4). This process honors intuition in that the final decision “feels right.” Emotional messages play a strong role here, and we will discuss much more about the power of emotions in chapter 3.
Figure 1.4: In the upper diagram, too much information overloads the prefrontal cortex, resulting in a quick and poor decision followed by regret. In the lower diagram, information management strategies slow down the process and produce a better decision.
A Final Word About Information and the Brain
This chapter has been devoted to deflating the corporate tenet that the more information people have, the better decisions they will make. The reality is that the brain’s prefrontal cortex has a limited capacity for information, and when overloaded, it is likely to make a decision that seems important but really isn’t. In short, less is more!
Another pervasive corporate tenet is that modern technology allows employees to multitask, thereby improving their efficiency. Really? Can the brain actually multitask? If so, how does that work? And can employees get better at it? If not, why not? You will find the answers to these questions in the next chapter—and they may surprise you.
CHAPTER TWO
The Myth of Multitasking
There is time enough for everything in the
course of the day, if you do but one thing
at once; but there is not time enough in the
year, if you will do two things at a time.
LORD CHESTERFIELD
IT WAS AROUND NOON, AND THE AIRPORT CLUB LOUNGE WAS PACKED. Bad weather had delayed numerous flights, including mine. People were frantically trying to get in touch with their home offices as well as the clients they were scheduled to meet at their next destination. I could not help but notice the young man sitting across from me; he was talking very loudly into his headset and complaining about the flight delay. But what really caught my attention was how much he was interacting with the items around him. In addition to his headset conversation, he was scrolling through his personal digital assistant and checking his laptop screen, periodically typing a few keystrokes. He also was trying to read a story on the front page of the USA Today that was resting on a table next to him. As time went on, he appeared to cycle his attention easily among all the items. Surely, to the casual observer, this man was multitasking. I bet even the man himself believed he was multitasking—but he wasn’t. Why? Because the brain cannot multitask.
What Does Multitasking Mean?
Before we go any further, we need to define what the term multitasking means in this context. The original definition of multitasking came from the computer industry and referred to a microprocessor’s ability to carry out more than one task at a time. Obviously, humans can multitask in that they can simultaneously walk and talk, or ride a bicycle while pondering the beauty of nature, or knit while watching television. We are able to do these tasks concurrently because different parts of the brain are in command of each. Walking, riding a bicycle, and knitting are learned motor skills that are controlled primarily by a structure at the rear base of the brain called the cerebellum (see fig. 2.1). Talking, pondering, and watching television are cognitive operations, which we know are the main responsibility of the prefrontal cortex. As long as we perform tasks that call on two brain regions with separate responsibilities, we are able to carry them out successfully. But when we call on the same part of the brain to carry out two or more functions simultaneously, problems arise.
Figure 2.1: The prefrontal cortex deals with cognitive processing. The cerebellum controls motor movements, balance, and equilibrium.
Let’s demonstrate this notion with a simple but amusing motor skills activity. Sit in a chair, lift your right leg, and move it in clockwise circles for several seconds. Stop. Place your right foot back on the floor. Now extend your right arm and your right index finger. Use this finger to draw the number 8 continuously for several seconds. Stop. Now lift your right leg and move it in clockwise circles while at the same time drawing the number 8 with your right hand. How did you do? Did you lose control of either your leg or your hand movements?
What happened here? You were able to perform each of the movements separately. However, as soon as you tried to do them together, you were calling on the cerebellum to control two unrelated motor tasks simultaneously—a feat it cannot do. The neural signals got scrambled, and you lost control. Similar results will occur when the prefrontal cortex encounters the same predicament. Ever try to talk on the phone and write an email at the same time? Those cognitive activities are almost impossible to do together. For the purposes of this discussion, multitasking refers to calling on the same brain region to carry out more than one task simultaneously.
Survival Requires Focus
Remember, the brain’s main task is to keep its owner alive. Survival requires the ability to focus intently on incoming signals that could pose a threat to the individual. Those ancestors of ours who were unable to do so most likely ended up as some predator’s lunch; their genes never entered the gene pool. On the other hand, the individuals who were able to concentrate on a threat and find ways to avoid or defeat it were more apt to live long enough to find a mate and transmit that focusing ability to their offspring—and a few hundred millennia later, to us.
Torkel Klingberg, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, has conducted experiments with brain scans that indicate that a certain region of the brain (known as the globus pallidus) is highly active when individuals are fending off distractions.1 Think of this area as a nightclub bouncer, preventing irrelevant items from getting into the club called working memory. This makes sense. Focus equals survival. When a car is speeding toward you in the wrong lane and a head-on collision is imminent, you do not want your brain’s attention systems shifting suddenly to admiring the colorful flowers on the roadside trees or wondering whether the car needs a new set of tires.
In 2009, when Captain Chesley Sullenberger was piloting his disabled jet over the Hudson River with 155 passengers and crew on board, he knew that focus was his only hope. He didn’t even pray. “I imagine somebody in back was taking care of that for me,” he told Katie Couric of CBS News. “My focus was so intensely on landing, I thought of nothing else.” In the three minutes he had from the time the plane started its unrelenting descent until it hit water, Sullenberger screened out all external input and relied on his forty years of flying experience to
