Multitasking for Effective Management

“Management is about coping with complexity” (Kotter, 1995, p. 115)

Human Multitasking is defined as “the ability to perform more than one task or activity at a time.” Some people believe that talking on the phone and texting is multitasking. Others believe that driving while eating fast food is multitasking. I guess the definition requires some caveats:

Simultaneously performing more than one important task or activity successfully.

Army Soldiers are taught from the very beginning of training the critical necessities of the ability to Shoot, Move, and Communicate. This may sound like a cliché and mutually exclusive tasks, and they may be, except in combat. Think about this for a moment: The ability to drive or ride in a HMMWV (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle) while providing instructions over the radio, reading a map, and listening to the battle rage around you.

Ah yes, all of this is occurring while being shot at. Many managers may feel like they are in combat because they don’t have the privilege of concentrating on only one task at a time. Managers must effectively complete the tasks associated with their own job while supervising others, interacting with company leadership, and accomplishing the mission. With such negative press around multitasking, it’s no wonder it has a bad reputation; however, coping with complexity requires more than single solutions and demands simultaneous steps.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Some Basic Elements of Successfully Multitasking

Everything begins with a foundation. These two elements – repetition and end-states- are things I have heard throughout my life. “Do routine tasks, routinely” and “Begin with the end in mind” are things we discussed in high school and college, and I heard them as a junior officer. So, they seem rudimentary but must be finessed for proper use in multitasking.

1. Skilled repetition in performing tasks in a multitasking manner. The military uses the technique of ‘training the way it fights’. That is what makes our military the greatest fighting force on the planet, with the ability to execute successfully in VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) environments. Another word for multitasking without using skilled repetition is chaos. Do you multitask the same combination of tasks or activities repetitively? Are you skilled at the tasks you are performing, or are they a combination of unrelated, overly complicated functions?

2. The ability to think through the end-states of each task. As you provide instructions for ‘research this’, ‘type up that’, ‘Send these emails’, and ‘while answering the phone’, you must have the ability to envision the outcomes. Managers must also complete a bevy of tasks each day to keep the organization running smoothly. What three tasks are you currently performing, and what outcomes do you expect? Do these tasks contribute to the end-state or distract from it? What is the expected end-state?

Those two skills served me well as a junior officer and regional manager. What happens, however, as you move up the corporate ladder and things and people become more complicated? Your thinking must change to meet the challenge.  

Critical Thinking in Effective Multitasking

When I became a junior executive, my span of influence tripled in personnel and grew exponentially in the area of operations. This forced me to pair critical thinking with my creative talents to multitask effectively. When distance creates complexity, operations require focused thinking and a steady hand.

3. The ability to stay focused. Some people have the innate ability to stay focused on the tasks at hand, while most of us must train to achieve that skill. Because many leaders and managers, in and out of the military, must complete simultaneous tasks, the ability to stay focused on a combination of three or four skilled tasks is essential. Are you focused on your multiple tasks, or adding on everyone else’s?

4. A necessity to perform in a multitasking manner. Combat doesn’t allow you to complete one task at a time in a nice, neat, orderly way, and management rarely does either. That is why multitasking is required. An example is receiving a briefing. You must listen, understand, ask questions as needed, and make decisions. This is multitasking in your mind, and it’s necessary. Do you have a choice about whether to multitask or focus on one task at a time?

Some Final Thoughts

Make no mistake, multitasking is not easy, but in many instances it may be necessary. Multitasking should be a necessity, not a convenience, because the process is anything but convenient. Ask any doctor, nurse, police officer, firefighter, manager, leader, combat veteran, or several other professions if multitasking is a necessary and critical skill, and the answer would likely be yes. Ask them if they enjoy it, and you may receive a different answer. Whether you like it or not, multitasking is essential for effective management.

Is multitasking a necessity to achieve your goals, or a luxury for the bored?

Reference:

Kotter, J. P. (1995). What leaders really do. In J. Thomas Wren (Ed.), Leader’s Companion: Insights on Leadership through the Ages (pp. 114-123). New York: Free Press.

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