Opinions expressed by entrepreneurs’ colleagues are their very own.
I’ll start by saying that I’m not anti-tech. I really like it. I take advantage of it every day, for all the pieces, from audio and video production, to video conferences and streaming, to time management tools. I might risk saying and I’m sure that almost all will agree that technology is essential today. Technology drives performance, scalability and speed. It is a spine of logistics, data management, internal communication, marketing automation and many others. It could be difficult to find a company that was not based on technology to gain a competitive advantage.
But here is the other side of this coin: technology also kills productivity, mutilating communication and slowly erods the human side of business. Not because the technology itself is bad, but because the way we use it is bad. We are not under control. This is.
We are so “connected” that we were crushed. We are so efficient that we have forgotten how to think critically. We rely so much on technology that ours Cognitive skills are falling.
We are so focused on the tools that we stopped building culture. And these are the leaders of dilemmas in all industries that must get up.
Efficiency illusion
Ask most leaders if the technology makes their people more productive and you’ll get quick “absolutely”. This is a promise, right? Automatize more. Communicate faster. Make more. But kick a little deeper and it’s not that straightforward.
AND test Bain & Company stated that the average leader currently processes over 30,000 communication per 12 months. It has been from 1000 in the early Nineties e -mail, chat, loose, zoom, asana, bands, the list is long. All this has been designed to “improve work”.
However, most professionals have only about seven hours of real time in a 47-hour work week. Seven hours. This is one good day of deep, uninterrupted work buried during a week filled with buzzing phones, notifications about messages, senseless meetings and limitless scrolling. This is the cost of the so -called “context switching”.
Every time we jump from a spreadsheet to an invitation to a meeting, from writing a proposal to a response to the text, we lose the momentum. Our brain burns energy every time they modify gears and takes time to flow. Multiply it for ten, twenty or fifty breaks a day, and you have performance in the view.
This is not only bad time management. This is a bad technological discipline.
Using technology with the intention
Each organization has its own operational pace, but in different industries – production, healthcare, banking, retail, construction, etc. History is the same: busy people, a lot of activity, insufficient performance. The real query is: “How can we do more?” Is “how can we be smarter with our time and technology?”
If you block time with high impact work, protect it. Close your e -mail. Silence your phone. Disable team notifications. Tell your team in the focus mode. And encourage them to do the same. This is not about rejecting communication. It’s about having it. Creating a structure. Setting boundaries. And making technology serve you, not the other way around.
This is not a revolutionary advice. But this is something that rarely practices. And it costs the company of hundreds of thousands of wasted efforts, delayed decisions and half -baked results.
Spiral of dispersion
We all know this one. You are working on something vital. You are exhausted. You hit the PAKA. Your brain wants a break. What are you doing? You grab your phone.
“I’m just checking the weather.”
“Only one scrolling after Instagram.”
“Just a quick look at the stock exchange.”
Only that it is never only one scroll. Fifteen grows five minutes. And when you finally get back to your task, you are foggy. The flow has disappeared. This break didn’t make it easier to; It hurt you.
If you actually need to clean your head and reset, go outside. Go. Extend. Talk to someone. Give the brain oxygen and space, not greater stimulation. Telephones are great tools, but a terrible dispersion of attention. Discover the difference.
Communication is not only volume
This is very vital to remember. More communication is not equal to higher communication. In fact, the quality of communication decreases quickly. We hide behind the e -mail and SMS. Avoiding real conversations. Cutting out nuances. And then wondering why the teams are badly aligned, the messages are poorly interpreted, the tensions are up, and cooperation seems to be a duty.
Technology -based communication has its place. But if the conversation is vital, complex or emotional, do not write. Do not send it with e -Mail. Talk. Receive the phone. Walk to someone’s desk. Take a quick video conversation. In real time, a real, true presence.
And leaders? Do not hide your system messages or notes throughout the company. Talk to your people. Listen to your people. Culture does not live in a technological arsenal, lives in your connections and interactions.
Remote work is not a wrongdoer. The disconnection is.
To make it clear, distant work does not kill performance. In fact, there is growth for many firms. People are concentrated, efficient and are becoming more and more dispersing a traditional office. But there is a team. While performance has increased, cooperation and innovation have been hit. This is because what gives distant work on performance often takes it in a human relationship.
You cannot build a strong culture via a webcam. You cannot stimulate great ideas when each conversation have to be planned. And cooperation does not happen only during enlarged connections, but it happens between them. In the corridors. On a coffee machine. In this five -minute conversation before the start of the meeting. These spontaneous moments in which trust is built and ideas take shape.
The answer does not require a return to the office. It is more intentional in connection with the connection. Unplanned controls. Moments of building culture that are not related to deadlines. From time to time, personal meetings that serve a real goal. And leaders who are visible and available, even if it is practically. Because what drives a great company are just systems and tools. It’s trust. It’s energy. They are individuals who feel seen, heard and celene. You don’t understand this by accident. You get it according to the design.
So what are you able to do?
Here is a list of fast hits:
If you are in a team:
- Protect your deep working time as if it was gold because it is so.
- Instead of responding to every ping.
- When you’re feeling dispersed, take a real break, not digital.
- Know when the conversation have to be live and not entered.
If you run:
- Behavior model. Do not say “focusing” while flooding the team with noise.
- Explain what the tools are for and what they are not for.
- Use technology to improve relationships and not replace them.
- Maintain personal communication, especially at critical moments.
We can automate the tasks. We can digitize processes. But we cannot digitize relationships and we cannot digitize trust. And we shouldn’t try.
Technology should improve your culture, not compete with it. This should speed up your results, not dilute concentration. And it should support your people, not on the side. The smartest firms in the world are not the ones that have the largest software. They know how to use it and when to use it.
If you would like to build a brand that lasts, the team that performs, and culture people are fighting for it, do not invest only in higher technology. Invest in higher habits. Because at the end of the day it is not your technology that distinguishes you, it’s your people.