“What is management for?” asked the front page of L’Express on November 10, 1969, when “the word and the thing that arrived from America after the war” were in their infancy in French companies. Fifty-five years later, management, its teaching and practice are everywhere. In open spaces, sport, administration, business schools, bookstores and sometimes even in places where you don’t expect it, like these training courses which offer “working on foot with a horse to strengthen cohesion teamwork and rapid decision-making. Coaching galorepopular HR gadget tools, personal development books… Never have executives been so inundated with speeches and pseudo-techniques supposed to make their jobs easier.
Like all human and social sciences, management does not necessarily lend itself to hard sciences. But the numerous research studies published over the past half-century – and too often ignored by companies – shed light on which methods have proven themselves and which have not. L’Express reviews some of them. Starting with professional messaging.
Slack, Teams, emails, and even WhatsApp or even Telegram… Messaging is increasingly used by companies, to the point that executives have no other choice but to use it to communicate. It is also not uncommon for several systems to be used together, on computer and smartphone. But are these messages beneficial for employees? Although scientific studies are not always capable of categorically resolving questions related to the professional world, on this specific point, they provide clear answers.
Higher risk of error
A large part of the work thus points to the multitasking (multitasking) which consists of frequently juggling different actions such as working, reading emails, checking text messages, etc. “Studies have been showing for a long time that multitasking is associated with learning difficulties in young people, and with poorer regulation of attention in general”, indicates Séverine Erhel, lecturer in cognitive psychology at Rennes II University. The ability of notifications to capture our attention particularly alerts, our brain needs time to adapt to the context in which it operates. Notifications are also an obstacle to “flow”, a state of great concentration that is particularly effective when we find ourselves entirely absorbed in a task. When you are in this state, your level of arousal – which allows you to avoid irrelevant stimuli – is maximum and you are able to optimally process information, or having interruptions or task changes can alter your optimal level of arousal, which can increase the risk of error,” continues the researcher.
Professional messaging would be even more harmful on smartphones. A survey of 2,000 people by digital marketing agency Tecmark showed that they completed 221 tasks per day on their phones, compared to just 140 on a desktop or laptop. If in certain cases messaging proves essential, limiting their use seems essential for anyone wishing to optimize their productivity, or even their well-being. The solutions to put in place are simple: turn off notifications when there is no emergency, systematically return your phone screen to your desk, or even activate airplane mode. These techniques could also trigger virtuous circles. A meta-analysis published in 2021 in the journal PLOS One thus indicates that people who manage to delimit distinct times to accomplish different tasks – a time to exchange, to play, to work – are less likely to subsequently engage in multitasking frantically.
Finally, organizations would benefit from taking measures to rationalize uses, for example by limiting themselves to a single communication channel. “We need to imagine new ways of collaborating that don’t rely on constantly messaging each other. As long as the hyperactive hive mind is the central driver of collaboration in businesses, it will be difficult, if “It’s impossible not to constantly consult your various messaging systems”, concludes Cal Newport, associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University (United States).
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