Attention Deficit Trait - Normal Response to a Hyperkinetic Environment

     Forward-thinking leaders, like Dean Boran of the Faculty of Dentistry, Dalhousie University, consistently encourage each stakeholder to pull together as members of healthy families do. Caring deeply about one's work is not only more gratifying for everyone, and more efficient, it's essential for each worker's health! 

     Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell brings attention to "a very real but unrecognized neurological phenomenon" he calls "attention deficit trait, or ADT. Caused by brain overload, ADT is now epidemic in organizations. The core symptoms are distractibility, inner frenzy, and impatience. People with ADT have difficulty staying organized, setting priorities, and managing time. These symptoms can undermine the work of an otherwise gifted executive. 
      ADT is purely a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live. Indeed, modern culture all but requires many of us to develop ADT. Never in history has the human brain been asked to track so many data points. ... As the human brain struggles to keep up, it falters and then falls into the world of ADT.
     ... studies have shown that as the human brain is asked to process dizzying amounts of data, its ability to solve problems flexibly and creatively declines and the number of mistakes increases. 

     ADT can be controlled only by creatively engineering one's environment and one's emotional and physical health. The most important step in controlling ADT is ... building a positive, fear-free emotional atmosphere, because emotion is the on/off switch for executive functioning."

       Hallowell EM. Overloaded circuits - Why smart people underperform. Harvard Business Review 2005; January: 55-62.

Joel Lardner   Harvard Business Review