In my long career working with the brightest I have seen some very smart or creative people under perform and many wonder why that's the case. Some blame it on personality issues and some blame the organization and most people just blame their bosses or clients. Blaming the bosses or the organiztion are the easiest thing to do. The reality of smart and/or creative (not the same) people stuggle in a high performance workplace is usually due to one big reason. Read ahead.
Sometimes smart people cannot control their emotions and its not really a habit of being more organized or more adminsitrative support. It is not about having a cleaner desk and an executive assistant that follows one around. It is about creating (not necessarily only the job of the management and this include the individual) and promoting and self-reinforcing positive emtions in the workplace. It is the positive energy that create a fear-free emotional atmospher, this is the on/off switch for executive funtioning and efficiency. Seeing the upside and thinking about the possibilites helps them even when they are dealing with an overwhelming situation. Neuroscientist can explain to you how the deeper centers of the brain send instant messages through the pleasure center that assigns resources to the frontal lobes. If you are under extreme stress, sense of human connection and positive vibres can have strong influences. The more people work in a team environment, the lesser the stress. For some people who likes to think in isolation, they usually take on more stress. Some can handle that.
When smart people are in a survival mode, unfortunately he or she is robbed of their flexibility to adapt, their sense of humor, ability to deal with ambiguity and any unknowns. By allowing them to solve problems as a group, each one will perform better. Fostering these inter-connections can reduce fear and push up the brain power. That's the reason why smart people become dysfunctional when they are under stress. Neurologically speaking, when the mind see faces it helps reduce fears and stress. That's also the reason why designers like to use pictures of people for ads and in-store because faces are the most effective "humanization" elements. The same reason real estate agent put their photos in their business cards. When you go to work, seeing the faces of people you like, the chances are those will most likely be very productive days. The "human moments" are extrememly powerful tool to apply not only to the workplace but to marketing and customer experience design.
Quick advice to you. If you often become dsyfunctional under intense pressure, you need to try to stay out of the survival mode and keep your lower brain from usurping control, slow down. Take the time you need to do whatever you're doing ( yes, you will not move as fast as you wish), digest and draw out the logic (don't let your brain pushes you into a panic mode) and keep that piece of paper with you all the time. That way it won't let your brain confuse you. Don't let your bain make assumptions on your behalf which are often misguiding. Instead write the questions out to yourself and then write down the answers yourself. Not everyone can multitask (I am a multitasker myself) but I cannot expect everone to be able to do it (I use three laptops and two blackberries). Being able to do it is a big plus for senior executives as work demands it. If not, expect that your reward be discounted because of your inability to multi-task. Rather than forcing yourself to multitask which end up procuding second-rate output, focus on key tasks but make sure you know how much you expect yourself to spend in it. Smart people are not necessarily productive. Creatitve people are not necessarily productive. Smart creative types are not necessarily productive. It would be nice if you are smart, creative and productive.
Here's a takeaway. Think about by shifting from certainty to curiosity can resolve many difficult situations. And instead of asking yourself, “How can the person think that?!” ask yourself, “I wonder what information they have that I don’t?” or “I wonder what prompts that thinking?” Instead of asking, “How can they be so irrational?” ask, “How can I see the world so that their view makes sense?”
Looking for certainty locks us out of world's biggest opportunities; curiosity lets us in. It is your ticket to a higher level of intelligence. Are you curious?
Here I am referring to smart people that have productivity issues, not-so-smart people also have productivity issues. Typically, in a startup, the wheat quickly separates from the chaff. With 50 people in a company, it becomes immediately, painfully obvious who the producers are. When I was running a 125 people company, I had managers who were constantly busy. Insanely busy! Super super busy! And yet he didn’t produce. (Or, rather, I should say that because he was so busy he never produced). They were effective in sending out emails regularly to explain why they were busy. Busy-ness never was productivity. As Peter Drucker advised super star ceo Jack Welch some 20 years ago, he said to him "Never confused motion with progress". Have a super productive weekend.
