Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
The Hidden Currents Beneath Our Digital Exhaustion
Digital overwhelm is a modern leadership challenge requiring new approaches to maintain human connection and workplace wellbeing. Communication professor Dr. Craig Mattson explains how the intersection of rapid technological development and our emotional responses creates a state of digital overwhelm that affects productivity and engagement.
• Digital overwhelm combines surface currents of rapid technological change with upwelling emotional responses
• Multitasking is a myth—our attention diffuses quickly when attempting multiple tasks
• Communication flexibility is essential in digital spaces, allowing adaptability across different platforms
• "Mode switching" helps us move between different communication approaches based on needs
• Creating intentional device-free spaces can significantly improve human connection and engagement
• Only 31% of workers currently feel engaged in their work, suggesting a broader crisis
• Three strategies for managing digital overwhelm: name it openly, treat communication as a gift, and embrace single-use technologies
• Technological development often happens without democratic input, creating worker equity issues
Find Dr. Craig Mattson's book, "Digital Overwhelm," at any bookstore, and connect with him at themodeswitch.com, where you can also subscribe to his free newsletter on work culture.
Connect with Ron
Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
Learn more about Global Core Strategies
.
.
.
.
.
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this ...
Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host leadership consultant, ron Harvey of GlobalCore Strategies and Consulting. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, ron Harvey.
Speaker 2:Good morning. This is Ron Harvey, the Vice President, chief Operating Officer for Global Core Strategies and Consulting, based out of Columbia, south Carolina. In that company, what we do is really one thing, and one thing only, that we say we're good at We'll wait for the verdict to come in, but we spend all of our time really helping leaders be more connected to the people that they're responsible for and responsible to. How do they effectively lead and take care of the people that are getting the work done for them, whether that's through trust or communication or empowering you name it delegating. How do you get better at that? I wish there was a handbook that we could hand out. It changes so fast that our strategies change constantly, but we do know that it does make a difference to have a really effective leader, and that's who we talk to.
Speaker 2:So, happy to pause, though, the podcast is about unpacked, not even about our company. It's about how do we bring guests on the show that unpack something that you can take away and implement today to make you more effective at what you're trying to get done. That's the whole premises. We're going to talk openly and honestly and candidly about how do we add value to you for listening. So thank you for listening. So I'm super excited for our guest. Craig is here with us. Always hand the microphone to our guests and allow them to do what I'll probably mess up. They get to introduce themselves without me messing up anything about who they are. So, craig, I'm going to hand the microphone to you and here's your opportunity. What do you want us to know about you?
Speaker 3:Well, hi, ronald, it's really great to be in your show and I so appreciate. As someone who is an organizational follower more than an organizational leader, I feel the need for good leadership today, and so I'm glad your podcast cultivates those kinds of conversations. I'm an organizational researcher and a professor of communication at Kelvin University, which is in Grand Rapids, michigan, and I study what makes for work community well-being, and certainly a big part of that is what you're talking about all the time on this show. So my wife and I live in Grand Rapids, we have four kids who are sort of scattered around the Midwest, and we have a little introverted shih tzu who is afraid of two things every thing. So we enjoy his company as a sort of couch companion and, yeah, so again, I'm really grateful to be here. I'm hoping to talk about a peculiar aspect of leadership today, and that is digital overwhelm. So that's what I'm hoping we can chat about today.
Speaker 2:Well, craig, thank you for sharing who you are, and I'm always going to unpack, so we won't even hesitate, we won't waste any time. We'll dive into that, because it is a digital world. I mean, it is a part of leadership. So, yeah, let's go ahead and give what you came to the table to do, and thank you for being here. Where do we start at? I mean, it's coming from every day, every hour of every day. Something's changing in this digital space. Where do you want to start? What's happening? How do we prepare for this? What do we?
Speaker 3:do with it. I am somebody who tries to make sense of puzzling conditions, and so I'll start with a really quick story. I just got a text from an organizational leader and she writes in meetings it seems acceptable to multitask, to look at a screen or phone or a computer, and I find it frustrating to be talking to a team when a member or two are typing away, and I get that frustration. We're going to be discussing something of that in the mode switch podcast, which is a work culture podcast I produce each week, so that's a question we're going to have to answer. But many questions like that today for leaders center on how do we cultivate the kind of working communities that we really hanker for in a digital era and, frankly, in an era that is massively distracted. So my book Digital Overwhelm, attempts to help people basically do a kind of you might call it a metacognitive move, like we pull back and think about how we're thinking and speaking to one another in these digital spaces. What's that provoke for you?
Speaker 2:Yes, Wow, I mean, as I'm listening to it, it is frustrating because we're trying to multitask and I don't believe that anybody can do that effectively. No, I think you're either present or you're not present.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, there's a whole spectrum of presence. But yeah, after you, after you sort of slip into doing more than one thing at a time, your attention diffuses really quickly. You're not as effective as you think you are when you're doing multiple things. And I do it all the time, like I try to do it all the time and it's so foolhardy, but it's very, very hard to resist today, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's driven by the fact that we feel like we have to as leaders or as people that, like companies, want us to do multiple things, or you're expected to be able to juggle three or four things and expect to be good at all of it, which is not reality, but it's almost like this unwritten expectation.
Speaker 3:I'm really glad you mentioned that, because it isn't always the fault of the multitasker. She might be provoked to multitasking by an over busy schedule or by organizational responsibilities that are, you know, that exceed like reasonable expectations. And, like you said, I think that's really astute. What you just said, that we're all being asked to do very niche things today. We're all you know, for instance, to give one digital example, because that's where I live we're all being asked to be our own social media coordinators.
Speaker 3:Today. We've got to be posting all the time and creating this snazzy content that will somehow, you know, sort of leap out from the rest of the threads and the streams that we're always making our way through. And so I think a really important point for leaders today is to practice this is really hard but to practice a kind of grace towards the people on our teams, because they are unfairly being yanked upon by massive technological corporations that are really well-moneyed and are very skilled at harvesting our attention. And so I think there are forces out there that really make it hard to be a sort of one task, single focus worker today. So I think we got to give each other grace.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm glad that you're unpacking this, craig, I mean, and that you lean right and say, hey, I want to talk about this digital space because it's everywhere, every day, all day, you know, throughout the year. What advice do you give If I'm in a leadership role and I'm being yanked at, which means I'm going to yank at my team? They're deliverables and we're watching the scoreboard. We want them to be digital, but we also want them to be good. Where do I start If I'm a new leader and that's happening to me like what have you seen? That are some best practices to settle us down, to get above the noise and do the thing that that really matters at this moment.
Speaker 3:They say that a person who's holding a hammer, to that person, everything looks like a nail. And for an academic like me, when I see a problem, I every you know I'm holding a book I'm like you should read this book. That will solve all your problems? Probably not, but I keep hoping. So I wrote this book Digital Overwhelm in 2022, 2023.
Speaker 3:And it rose out of dozens of conversations with Gen Z and millennial professionals who I thought it was important to talk to because they are sometimes in the most sort of precarious places in our organizations, which I think gives them an unusual level of clarity about what's happening, what's going on. And so I did all these interviews and what came out of it was that there are basically six kind of coping mechanisms that workers use in organizations today, and I call these coping mechanisms modes of communication. So a very quick example, ronald. So if I'm feeling overwhelmed in a, you know, a multi-person project, we got the team, we're all collaborating, we're working on this and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed.
Speaker 3:One way that I try to deal with that, or cope with that, is I write a big fat email that I hope will get everybody on the same page, and the problem is that is my preferred coping mechanism, but it doesn't work for everybody else. You can see where this is going. So, yeah, in my book I explore the strengths and weaknesses of all of our favorite modes of communication to fix things, and I, you know, I try to give each mode its due. Like there's something good about writing a long, detailed, well-crafted email. I mean that's a real, that's a real gift in a certain way. But yeah, I mean there are other modes of communication that we need to practice as well.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you've written a book, digital Overwhelm and you're addressing this theme because it's real. We are overwhelmed. What do you hope the readers first? Where do they get the book? And then, what do you hope they get out of it? What's the value of it?
Speaker 3:Yes, you can buy digital overwhelm. You know, on anywhere books are sold Like. You can start with Amazon, or you could go to bookstorecom or or wherever you prefer to get your books. But when you get it, what you're going to find is that there are six sort of core chapters to the book, so it's not a terribly long book, and each of those chapters analyzes a different mode of communication, like I said. And then each chapter is followed up by what I call like a half chapter or a workshop, and that workshop walks you through how to do something that I call mode switching, which is really hard for some of us to do, especially.
Speaker 3:I mean, I feel this myself. I get stuck in a mode. This is what is going to do the job. I think like the man with a hammer and I forget that I need communicational flexibility in digital spaces. It's incredibly important in digital spaces. So my book tries to help people to get good at mode switching, moving from one mode to another. So yeah, that's sort of the skinny on what I hope people will find when they open my book.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to unpack a word that you use. I haven't heard it put that way, but communication flexibility in this digital space. Can you unpack that? I mean it's important, but I've never heard it put in those terms, and so I would love to share with the audience. Help us understand. What does that?
Speaker 3:mean yeah, yeah, I'm really glad that you put your finger on that term, because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately and it really comes out of trying to write this book. Yeah, so one of the most dominant pieces of advice that you hear today is that in digitally overwhelming spaces, we need something called digital minimalism, and you find a lot of gurus recommending this, and I like this advice. To be frank, digital minimalism says you know, maybe less is more when it comes to technology, maybe we should use fewer devices, fewer platforms, and when we do choose a device or a platform, let's make sure that it aligns with our goals, what we're trying to to do. I mean, that's just basic good sense. So I appreciate digital minimalism, but my book really recommends another value, and that is digital flexibility, and that is it's not exactly the opposite truth, but it is another truth and that is that not only is it the case that we need to, you know, sometimes pare away the tools that we're using because we have too many, too many passwords, too many usernames, too many, too many platforms to keep track of.
Speaker 3:How did I connect with that coworker? Was it on text or DM or Slack or email, or did I send a carrier pigeon, like what was the deal, how did I connect? Or email? Or did I send a carrier pigeon, like what was the deal, how did I connect? So, alongside that, I think that sometimes you don't have a choice about how many digital platforms you're asked to be on. Sometimes the company or the organization sort of determines that for you, and so practicing digital flexibility may be an important craft I think that's a term I try to use a lot in the book a kind of skill that will enable us to seek workplace flourishing not just effectiveness, but well-being in the workplace. So that's what I'm trying to get at with this idea of flexibility in the workplace. So that's what I'm trying to get at with this idea of flexibility.
Speaker 2:Don't get stuck. In other words, don't get stuck. How do you, craig, how do you create community of well-being when everybody's attached to a digital device? We lose this human connection because we're so connected digitally that we're not connected personally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't want to connect with someone from china and won't be connected to the people that I'm sitting in the room with. Like as soon as we get a break, everybody goes to their device and they don't even have the relationships in the room. They're checking emails, responding to emails, checking phone calls, and I watch. I do a lot of conferences and I watch people come to a conference to connect with other people in the room. As soon as they get a break, the last person they connect with is the people they came to connect with.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I feel, that I feel that it's like a smoke break, like we got to go like check our phones or something like we used to take a cigarette break. I am really wrestling with this question. I do not have an easy answer for you. I just have some strategies that I'm trying, One approach that I've seen that is what you might call like a rules-based approach, and that is, you know, just agree upon some rules in the meeting, Like here's what we care about in this meeting, and, because we care about these things, here's what we're going to do and we're all going to sort of hold each other accountable to that. I have a colleague who uses do you know those, those bags that you can kind of hang on the back of your door and you can put your shoes in them yes, On the back of your bedroom door. Well, she uses something like that for for devices, and so when you come into this meeting, you you put your device in the, in the shoe bag, so to speak, and then you get it when the meeting's over. So I think a rules approach is one way we could do that.
Speaker 3:The problem is that very often we have legitimate things we need to do on our devices and so kind of sequestering them doesn't always create again that kind of flexibility we need. So what I've been trying and I wonder what you think of this what I've been trying lately is a sort of collective mindfulness or collective awareness for our relationship to our tools. So I mean just kind of doing check-ins every once in a while in the meeting and just say like how's it going? Like how focused are we, how distracted are we, how much is our attention being begged for by algorithmic platforms? How are we doing? And I think sometimes just like frankly saying oh, I'm doing terrible today, I am so distracted by this. You know, this thing that's on my, on my feed. I think that can actually be in the long run a better way to cultivate sort of health and well being in a working community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say yes, Greg. I mean I love that you're saying, hey, here's some strategies I'm trying out. And that's the good thing about this show is it's real time, like, here's what I'm trying. Don't have all the results of the survey and what that experiment is going to like, but I'll tell you. In South Carolina we just had to pass a law, which, which I get it.
Speaker 2:I thought it should have been handled way before it became a law that our schools had to bar cell phones during school hours because they were so distracting that in classes, teachers were having a difficult time doing what they were there to do, because because the students were were on devices and and students were responding to text messages and other things that were a distraction and not even relevant to what they should be doing in the classroom. So the struggle was I want them to use devices, but I want them to use them for what we're in this course for and not all the other things that are going to ping them while they're trying to get this done. They created what you just said from from from bell to bell. They call it focus time. No devices, no headphones. No phones. No devices, no earpods. All devices from bell to bell like nobody can we want, and what they're finding out is that the students are starting to talk more to each other. The students are starting to be more engaged and ask more questions because they're not there's nothing competing for their time. So it's working.
Speaker 2:And it was a struggle initially. Parents were complaining. Why would you complain that your student pays more attention If something happens? I say there are a lot of ways to get in touch with you without your kid having a phone.
Speaker 3:Where do we get?
Speaker 2:the art of they're going to find a way for an emergency to reach out to you. We don't need 3,000 kids with a cell phone to let us know there was an emergency to reach out to you. We don't need 3,000 kids with a cell phone to let us know there was an emergency.
Speaker 2:So I struggle with that because I know some people listen to this like, well, we got freedom of speech and all these other rules and regulations, and what are they taking away? Are they invading our ability to make decisions? I just think that we're in digital. I love that you got to think of digital overwhelm. I think it's real.
Speaker 3:Yep, it is. It sure is. I've had very few people question the reality of it. Like most people, when I bring it up, they say oh yeah, they don't even ask me to define it. Like I'm an academic so I'm excited to define things, but they're like, no, don't define it, I just know it.
Speaker 2:Like I've totally in that I want to ask you though, because I do want to. You know, academic wise, you know, for all of our listeners and for me how do you define it? Because I love the terminology. I think it's great for leaders to really understand it. We'd love to know more about it for you. So I'm going to order your books because I want to be able to build it into my conversations with leaders. I do a lot of work with leaders, but I don't have a good definition for it. What is it? I don't have a good definition for what is?
Speaker 3:Well, let me give you thank you for that question. By the way, I'm I'm honored, so let me give you a picture of how I think about digital overwhelm. That sort of leads to my definition. So If you've ever been to a shore, whether an ocean shore or a lake shore, you know the risk of riptides or surface currents that that can move swiftly and sort of carry you along, yes, into a place you don't want to go necessarily, and so I'm. I live in Michigan and Lake Michigan is notorious for having these riptides, so they always have flags up to like indicate whether or not what the danger is for riptides.
Speaker 3:But for me, rapid technological development is the riptide that so many of us deal with today. Sometimes this is in funny or frustrating or irksome ways, just like a new update on your phone or a new software update or some set of notifications for a new platform that your company wants to try out, and you just feel sort of irritated. But sometimes the technological development, like as in the case with artificial intelligence, is truly overwhelming. You actually hit what Ethan Mollick has called three sleepless nights where you're like I don't know what I'm doing, I don't understand my job anymore, the conditions have changed way too much, and so that's the sort of riptide that we get in and we're like do I, how do I deal with that?
Speaker 3:But there's another kind of current that I think is also important, and this is an upwelling current, so not one that moves along the surface, but one that rises from the deeps. And for many of us, these are our emotional responses to technological development, um, and some of these can be quite diverse, like they might be very excited, they might be enthusiastic, they might be deflated, they might be exhausted or, just frankly, bored. So when you have those two kinds of currents the riptides that move across the surface of our work lives, and then the upwelling currents of our emotional responses to work and especially digital work, today, you get digital overwhelm, um, and so digital overwhelm is the intersection of tech, rapid technological development and a very sort of human emotional response to that yeah, thank you for explanation, because know we talk about it.
Speaker 2:But I'll say as I was explaining it as I say, there's just too much thrown at us at one time. Yeah, and as fascinating as the brain is, everybody operates different and for some people it's just like it can't keep up anymore. They feel like, hey, it's outpacing them and you hear that well, we're going to be replaced by some kind of technology at some point. We're just, we're not fast enough, we can't think as quick and we can't keep up with so much thrown at us. And so people begin to feel like, you know, there's no place for them, because they just can't keep up with the changes. And they do happen rapidly. I I mean, they really do from minute to minute.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, you're right, you're right, and I think that this quickly touches on matters of worker justice, you might say, or worker equity. I mean people's lives are made more precarious by rapid technological development. There's a writer I often refer to, a Gen Z economist, named Kyla Scanlon, and she writes a wonderful Substack newsletter and she has pointed out that a lot of technological development today is not very democratic. It's done by, basically by people in Silicon Valley, and they're not consulting with us about whether we want a piece of technology or not. They're just sort of thrusting it out into the world and let's see what happens. Many times we enjoy it or benefit from it, but, yeah, sometimes it would be really great to be a part of the process of its development and design.
Speaker 2:Wow, as you said, I was thinking. The question that came to mind, craig, is being that they're making those decisions without consulting with the actual consumers, and most of those those products or services are you know they. I'm sure they say, hey, we want to make it better, but there also is a huge profit margin associated with it as well. What's the price that we, you think we will pay over time if we don't get our arms wrapped around and get this under control? What's going to happen to our kids being able to really process and keep up and be able to still be human beings versus little robots? What are we going to pay for this, humans, if we don't?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Somehow more effectively.
Speaker 3:My mood kind of shifts day by day about this. I think it's. I'm not a very good prognosticator, so I don't know how to anticipate where this is going to take us. Yes, I think I feel some of the cost right now in this sort of low-grade sense of uncertainty and sometimes even something like dread, and so I think that there is a cost that we're feeling today.
Speaker 3:I don't know Correlation is not causation, but there is a real problem with worker disengagement today, very high levels of worker disengagement. I just saw a Gallup poll that cited that something like maybe 31 percent of workers feel engaged in their work. Workers feel engaged in their work. That's a huge percentage of people who are just like feeling profound uncertainty and ennui and just the uninterestedness in their work. So I don't know about the costs to come. I think the kids are bright and I think they're smart and adaptable and so I have some hope. But I do know a bit about the cost right now and and they're pretty severe. So I'm glad shows like yours are are exploring Like how do we, how do we stay human in leadership today? Yes, love it.
Speaker 2:Well, as we look at time, I want to be able to to close out for us a couple of things. What advice do you give us or do you share with the audience that's listening and people, especially people in the leadership role of you? You're speaking up, you're leading that course. What advice do you or steps would you tell us? Hey, this digital world is real. Here are three things you can do to start being able to do it more effectively. What would you leave with the audience?
Speaker 3:OK, I'll try, I'll give this a shot. I'll try, I'll give this a shot. So, first of all, I think naming the digital overwhelm and being frank about it, like you're being is, is a really good first practice. It can be a little hard to admit that it's too much, but naming it, identifying it and sharing that with other people is in a non-complainy sort of way, but in you know, almost like in a diagnostic sort of way, this is what's going on, this is what we're experiencing. It's not that we're lazy or dumb, it is really too much.
Speaker 3:The second thing is, as much as is possible, I think, try to preserve the sense that communication from another human is a gift as much as possible. It's not always possible, sometimes it's, you know, you're just too frantic for that. But I think, as often as you can, take a sort of Sabbath moment and say, hey, this is a real privilege that I have these co-workers and that this person has tried to communicate something to help me in some way. I think that can also be pretty life-giving. And lastly, I'll conclude with a tactic, and that is that maybe we should spend more time cultivating single-use technologies.
Speaker 3:So I'm thinking about my MacBook, which I'm using right now for this podcast. It is a multi-use technology. In fact, almost everything I do for my job I do on this MacBook, but I also try to have single-use technologies. So a notebook and a pen, those are basically single-use technologies. A book is another single-use technology and, you know, having more of those in our lives there can be digital versions as well like a Kindle is very close to being a single-use technology. Having more of those, I think, can help us to keep our head above the waters of digital overwhelm.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that you approached it from a place of. Let me be positive about this. I don't want to come across as complaining, let's just acknowledge it in observation. I'm noticing this, yes, yeah, and so I think that's huge for us. Is, you know, not not be blindsided by it, but just notice what, what shifts are happening and stay positive about it. It doesn't sound like you're lazy or complaining or you're not capable to have the capacity. I love that. Can you tell us where do we find your book again and then how do we reach you again?
Speaker 3:So I think I can answer that question with a single link, a URL, and that is people can connect with me and my book at themodeswitchcom so that's all one word, themodeswitchcom and there they'll find books that I've written. They'll also find a free newsletter that addresses questions like these on a week-by-week basis. It's a work culture newsletter called the Mode Switch, and so you're seeing a theme here, ronald, right, and so that's probably the best way to connect with me and with the book. I would be so grateful if people would check out digital overwhelm, and then I would love to hear from them as well. I'd love to hear from you when you check it out. Let me know your thoughts, send me a note.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you've been. You've been a great, great, great guest and you brought something to the table that we have not discussed. I mean, it is happening around. So you're the first guest and thank you for giving us something new to share and showcase with our audience. You know Digital Overwind was real. Please follow, you know, craig and go out to his website and get the free newsletter and definitely invest in the book. It's happening around us. So maybe some answers and he'd love to hear from you. Thank you all for joining Unpacked with Ron Harvey, allowing us to spend a couple of minutes with you and helping to add value and make you more effective at whatever that journey is that you're on or calling that you're supposed to be doing to take better care of your people around you that you're responsible to. Until next time, craig and I will sign off and we wish you a phenomenal day and thank you for joining Unpacked with Ron Harvey. Once again, have a great day everyone.
Speaker 1:Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpacked Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron unpacks sound advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are, for the people you serve, because people always matter.
