Meet Mr Podcast Professor
What talent management and leadership should know about that employee who always seems to be multi-tasking work
Corporate America offers some fascinating wildlife that you seldom see in the world of entrepreneurship and results-oriented work. In the Meet Mr Series, we meet some of these corporate creatures and their challenges for talent management. One costly creature in corporate America who adds costs over time is Mr Podcast Professor. Mr Podcast Professor lacks focus and embraces distraction under the guise that he's multi-tasking his work. He loves to emphasize that his multi-tasking makes his work fun and it makes him better at it. Over time we actually see a corporate creature who adds costs to the company because his multi-tasking is actually a lack of attention and focus. We don't get solutions that help our company achieve disproportionate results, but quick fixes that lead to later trouble. He loves to profess the latest news from his favorite podcast or distract everyone with irrelevant information when people should be working. While information can assist in some cases, time and place matters - when we should be solving a problem, we shouldn't be filling our ears with distractions. Mr Podcast Professor doesn't understand this.
But first, a fictional story. Because I'm creating a fictional stories as examples in this series, I'll call Mr Podcast Professor in my story Pete. As a reminder, our fictional company is ABCZ Corporation.
Story
David walked quickly through the long hall that held local images opposite each other on the walls. As he passed other colleagues, he smiled and said hi. When he finally reached the end of the hall, he entered Pete's cubicle. "Pete, we've noticed some unusual activity on our database server and we need your set of eyes to review everything." David's team had been working on a project that involved storing private healthcare information of their patients. While David had protested the technical architecture to leadership, they chose architecture that isolated patient private healthcare data. The isolated database server had all network traffic heavily monitored along with various encryption techniques being used. Leadership assured David that these techniques would be enough to secure patient data, as technical consultants had advised this design.
"One second, I'm finishing this podcast on fly fishing while I'm waiting for these updates to install on this server," Pete replied. He turned his head back toward his monitor while covering his ears with his headphones. David looked over at Sarah, who sat across from Pete, "How's the workload been this past month, Sarah."
"Not bad actually," Sarah replied. "Pete's a great boss. At my last company, I felt like they noticed when I didn't complete work." She spun her chair to face David. "At the end of each week, they'd review all the work we had done the previous week and ask us how we could improve. I was like 'chill guys', it's just work. I didn't really like the company that much."
"That sounds like a company that valued growth and results," David disagreed.
"Yeah but you got to have fun too," Sarah shot back. "Like with Pete, I have two tasks that I can finish this week or next. It's not a big deal." Sarah paused for a bit while grapping her pink Stanley tumbler of coffee, "Gosh, yesterday Pete told me he just listened to his favorite cultural podcast all day because he was behind." She drank some of her coffee, "He was like, 'Sarah, you got to live some otherwise work will get boring' and I think he's right. I'm so much more relaxed here than at my previous company."
"That's good - speaking of work, did you ever get that final analysis on the network connections running after the updates on our database server?" David asked.
"Oh no, I forgot about that," Sarah replied. "I've been so busy on other things, but don't worry, I'll get that to your team by next week."
"Okay, I'm done!" Pete interrupted Sarah. "Have you guys ever been fly fishing?"
"No" both said.
"Neither have I, but I just got through listening to this really good podcast on it and I absolutely love the idea," Pete said. "I've had a craving for outdoor podcasts and I've really enjoyed the whole series. This one was really good because the guy, Fred, had been a fly fisher for a decade and he was sharing some of his favorite experiences doing it."
Sarah's phone suddenly started ringing and she picked up her phone from her desk, "Oh I got to take this guy, I'll be back." She walked off as she answered the phone.
"I came by because I need you to look at some odd behavior on our database server," David started. "We carefully monitor how much data we're sending to this server from our data flows. The data received on the server line up with the amount of data that we've sent along with related data processes that the server receives and the connections, but the data sent is an entirely different picture." David paused while pulling up a chart showing various numbers being compared. "Yesterday, we had 13 requests for data and you can see the data total of those 13 requests, yet we noticed that there was more data sent from the server." He paused again while looking at Pete, "I had made a request for your team to provide us with the analysis on network connection on our database server after Sarah installed those updates. I'm concerned that we don't have full insight now into everything coming in and out."
"Yeah, Sarah's been busy," Pete replied. "But she'll get to it anyway. Plus those updates are from TechCompanyABCZ Corporation, so they have to be safe."
"Hackers have stolen certificates before and could easily piggy-back off an application update," David objected.
"Oh that reminds me," Peter interrupted while laughing. "Get this, I was listening to this podcast where the host interviewed a guy who had over a hundred thousand dollars wired out of his account. Can you believe it!" Pete paused while seeming shocked, "Anyway, the guy sued the bank for allowing this wire to happen. The guy was like, 'how often do I wire money to Elbowland?' and the bank protested by saying it was his fault for not installing updates on his computer. It was such an odd story because it's not like people are having thousands of dollars stolen from them everyday during hacks, but it was a great podcast." David turned to his computer, "Oh where did I find that, you should listen to it, I think you'd like it." Pete started opening windows in his browser, "Anyway, the bank ended up winning the lawsuit because the judge ruled that it was the business owner's responsibility to install the latest updates on his computer. Ha! Can you believe that?"
"Let's stay focused on this," David said switching the conversation back. "I need to know why we're seeing more data being sent than what's actually being sent. If you look at the numbers, this has been a pattern since the updates were installed." David pointed back to his screen, "You'll notice that we can account for all the data being sent before the updates were installed. After the updates were installed, there's been some inconsistency - the data sent are never below what we'd expect, but sometimes are higher than what we sent." He highlighted the cell on his spreadsheet showing the data values, "This is concerning. This server has private patient information. We can't have data flowing out that we're unable to account for."
"Relax David," Pete disagreed. "It's probably an application reporting usage. I've seen this a long time ago after an update where I forgot to keep the report usage off. When Sarah has time, I'll have her review it." He shook his head, "You're too paranoid." Pete paused for a bit while laughing, "You actually remind me of this story I heard the other day from a news podcast on this one guy who built an aluminum cover for his house to keep all the 5G waves away because he believed that it interfered with his sleeping." Pete started laughing more as he continued, "That guy needs to realize that his sleep problem is actually his constant worry. No one would sleep if they're that paranoid. You're similar man. So a little more data returns, what's the big deal?"
"We can't account for it," David answered and paused for a bit while closing his laptop. He looked at Pete and deepened his voice as he continued, "We store private information on this database server. I want every data point that comes into that server and out of that server account for and your team installed updates on that server and we're not able to account for all the data exiting the server." David pointed directly at Pete, "This isn't some laughing matter. I disagreed with leadership about storing private information of patients, but they wanted to do it. Fine, but we have to secure these data and your attitude like it's no big deal is a problem."
Pete rolled his eyes, "Man, you need to relax. Gosh, you're so uptight. I see what Sarah meant when she said you live work. I'll have Sarah take a look, but it won't be right away. I'm not as uptight as you."
The conversation never led to results by Pete or his team. Pete allowed Sarah to audit the server later, but it took her several weeks before David's team got the result. Unfortunately for the ABCZ Corporation, a hacker had infiltrated the server and was extracting information by using a zero day exploit with an application on the server and using its reporting mechanism to transfer data out of the server. Even though the data were encrypted, the hacker used inferences and report architecture to filter information that he needed. He would re-encrypt data and attach it to small images that looked as if they were a part of the application while submitting it to his server. Once on his own server, he would unencrypt the data then store it on his machine.
To compromise the company's encryption, the hacker spear phished Pete's team by using LinkedIn and inferring an email addresses of the company. One of Pete's employees, Jared, had boasted on managing the encryption of the company on LinkedIn along with the tools that he used and his favorite algorithms. Jared also loved to talk about his favorite hobbies. The hacker crafted an email that Jared fell for, compromising his machine. The hacker easily took over his machine, found the encryption keys he needed, and was able to unencrypt all the stolen data. After the hacker had the keys, he ensured to permanently remove the email he had sent to Jared. He also cleared the history of searches with the encryption key of the application that Jared used and had boasted about using on LinkedIn. On the database server, he cleaned all his traces of what he had extracted from the server. He even set a scheduled update to revert the application he compromised through a zero day exploit to return to a previous version. Since he knew the cadence of the security team's updates, he made sure that it followed their schedule.
With the data compromised, the hacker found the patient ids that were key to his attack. He reached out to a nation-state who needed to know who the patients of various healthcare providers were. The nation state had been investigating a technique to cause heart attacks through information warfare. The key to giving someone a heart attack was knowing certain health markers - a person with low heart rate variability and sleep apnea was easier to attack and possibly eliminate. These patient id values were key, as ABCZ corporation didn't store health markers by the actual person, but by using an id. Now that the nation-state knew of the health ids, they could easily compromise the patient's health markers. Ultimately, as the hacker who was selling the information knew, they were after a few key people.
For ABCZ Corporation, it was too late. By the time they knew something had gone wrong, the hacker had already succeeded.
What the Research Shows
Distractions can be extremely dangerous. During the early part of he-who-cannot-be-named, numerous podcasts and media were claiming that he-who-cannot-be-named had a death rate of over 25%. This information came from sites like Worldometers and other measurements, which demonstrated little concept of basic statistics. We now know that he-who-cannot-be-named had a death rate of less than 1% worldwide. Even in the worst performing country in the world - the United States - the death rate was much lower than what was being reported early. Every person who listened to podcasts and media warning of the dangers of he-who-cannot-be-named were wrong; it wasn't until later that they learned that they were misinformed. People lost time, energy and attention on he-who-cannot-be-named and they will never get any of it back. This is part of why there is such hatred for mainstream media at the moment - people feel extreme anger because of what they lost during this time.
What may be missed here by leadership is that during this same period, many companies built policies around he-who-cannot-be-named and many of those companies are now struggling. This is partially because leadership's reaction to the media and events distracted employees. That became the focus, not solving customer's problems. I remember employees listening to podcast after podcast during this time about the news and events. However, they wasted time they'll never get back: not only did this not help them or their life, it didn't help their company either. In other words, talent management lost time that will never be returned and saw employees stagnate in their skills because they were distracted. Daily media distracts our employees about one crisis or another when our employees attention should be devoted to the problems we're solving. None of us can solve a crisis happening in Elbowland (an intentionally non-existent country), so why do we devote our attention to a problem we can't solve?
Over the years, I've done research with the permission from companies on multi-taskers vs focusers by comparing two specific forms of distractions during work:
Informational multi-tasking: a worker consuming information unrelated to work while they work (often a podcast, but can also be media).
Mobile multi-tasking: a worker who interrupts their work to interact with people on their mobile (texts, calls, etc).
I had managers report how much work was completed by these two groups compared to employees who did not allow distractions. While the latter group is rarer with white collar work, you will always find a a few employees who fit this category - they typically keep their phones off and they don't listen to or watch media while working. In every test of this, the employees who had no distractions got 40% more work completed at minimum. In the highest result of the test (data scientists and AI engineers - which require more focus), the company saw a 120% increase in work completed. Distractions cost.
Unfortunately, as I am prone to say when presenting findings, these do not calculate the costs of poor quality solutions (ie: quick fixes). This only calculates the amount of work completed. It becomes more challenging to measure quality solutions versus quick fixes and how focused employees build better solutions. We must always remember that information can linger in our mind for a period of time and this information may distract us from a solution we're building - this highlights why a lack of focus can be costly.
On a related note, I have done extensive research over the years on media and people's attitude about the future. I have consistently found that people who consume any media - social media, podcasts, mainstream media, etc - feel worse about their future than people who consume none or very little. People who feel more positive about their future are more likely to invest in their life and be better employees overall. What talent management and leadership can take away from this is that keeping employees focused on their work actually makes them happier in the long run. Negative media becomes an addiction that people struggle with and in my view, it is as dangerous as alcohol and the worst drugs.
Costs
If we imagine that we're a patient who ABCZ Corporations helps, we don't feel as if the security team led by Pete takes our private information seriously. Talent management in this company has allowed their security team to get work done when they want. They've allowed their team to consume information that's not related to their job and distracts them from actual work. In addition the distractions aren't making the team better at what they're doing. If an employee wants to listen to podcasts or consume media, he can do so on his own time. What we see with Pete is that he does work when he wants while he prioritizes consumption of information. Sarah who's led by Pete also adopts this view.
The Mr Podcast Professors of the world loved to profess all popular hysteria or information of the day. They love podcasts like they love all media because they can justify their distraction as information, when in reality most of their information is neither relevant to their life nor useful. The bigger cost of Mr Podcast Professor to talent management is that he's training his mind to be distracted. When you read a book without distraction, you are actually training your mind to focus. Reading is one of the best ways to train your focus, if you struggle with focus. Likewise, if you compare reading information to listening to a podcast, you'll note that reading is much faster than listening or watching information. Reading is one of the fastest ways to learn and adds the benefit of training your mind to focus - this is a huge win to regular readers (and why they tend to get disproportionate results faster).
Our first cost to Mr Podcast Professor is this lack of focus. Because of it, he'll get less work done than an employee who focuses his attention on his work until completion.
Our second cost to Mr Podcast Professor is that his solution will be inferior and may come with longer term costs because he's distracted. He's training his mind daily to multi-task rather than focus and solve. Our mind defaults to multi-tasking because focus involves work and our minds are minimalist work machines - our minds hate focused attention. Ironically, focused attention is how we can get disproportionate results. But we have to train our minds to focus, it is not natural as anyone in talent management with children will tell you!
Our third cost to Mr Podcast Professor is that he distracts others. If we lie down with dogs, we'll wake up with fleas. He is distracted with information and passes his distraction to others, who then have that information linger in their mind when they should be working.
The Meet Mr Series
For more in the Meet Mr Series of posts, check out Executive Decisions’ regular Series page. Some highlighted posts from this series:
All images are either sourced from Pixabay or generated. All written content is copyright, all rights reserved. None of the content may be shared with any artificial intelligence.