TED Video: Jason Fried, Work Dynamics

Here is the link: http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work.html

Here is my analysis: Jason Fried points out several important points about the distractions in today’s working environment. He points out that most company managers are misconceived about how their employees are distracted during work because they think websites like Facebook, Twitter and personal emails are the problem. However, Jason Fried illustrates how managers, themselves, are the distraction to their employees. “Managers don’t actually do the work; they just go around making sure everyone else is…” explains Fried. I can understand this point because he provides the example of sleeping. Work and sleep are both phase-based activities. When you are interrupted during sleep, it takes time to go through the natural cycles again (the events of alpha, theta, brain waves, K-complexes, REM, etc). Likewise with work, when you are interrupted while you’re concentrating on something, it takes time to return to your previous mode of focus.

Managers might constantly come by to check up on you, ask you questions or summon meetings. Meetings are an interesting case alone. I remember in high school, while I was in the junior reserve officer training corps, the staff members and officers were required to attend weekly meetings. One of the largest projects we worked on was organizing a week-long camp (Basic Leadership Camp) for the underclassmen. The meetings were the most torturous of events because they were excruciatingly long and we never got anything done. The same four hours it took to take turns talking about every department’s particular situation could be done simply by having leader speak to two to three people, independently, for a few minutes then allow them to continue working rather than keeping them in the conference room to listen to another department’s problem that had no relevance to their own tasks. However, one aspect about Jason Fried position on the topic of distraction, I feel, is that his point may be true for the more elite team of employees.

I think managers should take in the circumstantial factors of their work place and what type of employees they lead. For example, it seems that less focused and motivated businesses have a reason to restrict Facebook or Twitter because their employees may be lazy individuals who need a supervisor to keep them in line and constant meetings to reorganize. On the other hand, companies like Google or Facebook possess the most brilliant of teams and high-caliber workers. These are the people who have the self-discipline to choose, as Fried says, when is the right time to be distracted. They have the initiative to continue working and not voluntarily lose focus. Recently, I watched an interview from Mark Zuckerberg where the interviewer asked him about board meetings and Zuckerberg replied, “I mean, here at Facebook, we’re about focus and not so much about bureaucracy…” This response was like a breath of fresh air.