This morning I was affected by an all too common menace of our times. While backing out of a parking spot, I was boxed in by a Suburban (was there ever a car more perfectly named?) that was moving directly into my path, causing me to actually have to pull forward into the spot in front of me to avoid an accident. At first I was struck by the fact that driving that dump truck should require a Class C license, but when the driver came into view I saw the root of the problem. Passing by without even a courtesy glare to show that I existed was a women juggling her cell phone, a hot Starbucks, and what appeared to be at least one kid in the back, on her way to get on the freeway where she could potentially wipe out several hundred other people.
If this happened to my dad, everyone in the car would be hearing about the breakdown in common decency for the next 30 minutes. But I live in Silicon Valley, and I just chalked it up to the scourge of the modern era: multi-tasking.
Salespeople are not only forced to multi-task every day, but they are victimized by it constantly. What better time to catch up on email than when a sales guy is on the line? “Do you mind if I multi-task” asks the CIO as he opens up another chat window during your presentation that was shortened to 15 minutes when his admin showed you in late. Hey, no- not at all! Mind if I whistle? Smoke a cigarette? Call my wife and catch daily heat for not having a new suggestion for dinner? I’m a busy sales guy and I got stuff to do!
Human beings are not wired to do more than one thing at a time. Multi-tasking just means half doing (at best) multiple activities at once. When it involves communicating to another person being it is the ultimate (although most common) form of disrespect. If you are talking with someone and your eyes and hands wander to your email, you have stopped having a conversation and are now in “ugh huh, yuht, duh, um, what did you just say?” land. And admit it; your stress level is rising because you can’t really process the emails, either. You’ll just have to work overtime because you accidentally attached the wrong file to your developers and now the whole project has to be redone. I’m no Dr. Phil, but I bet this speeds your journey to a sunny window down the hall with Depends and applesauce.
My CEO and co-founder will undoubtedly disagree with this post, as will many of you out there being the “top baller, shot caller” business folks that you are. But the next time you give in to that Crackberry urge while speaking with someone, think of the Suburban lady, a role now played by you.
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