#109: Cognitive Overload at Work: What’s Really Going On?

Speaker A: Welcome to Stepsero. Modern work is a lot. Let's take it one conversation at a time. My guest today is Debbie Permain, an executive coach and leadership consultant with over 25 years of experience in leadership development, workplace culture, and employee engagement. In this episode, we talk about the unprecedented levels of cognitive demand in the modern workplace, why resilience training alone won't fix the problem, and what leaders and individuals can actually do about it. Let's get into it. Debbie, welcome to the Stepsetter podcast. Thank you so much for making the time.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Speaker A: Debbie, when we spoke for the first time, I think something clicked. You addressed topics that are among the, uh, very reasons why I started this podcast. And we were so aligned on what is happening with the modern workplace that I thought, okay, we can talk about this forever. So I'm really happy we're having this discussion now. And I will kick off with a very general question which is at the height of your experience, you've done this for 25 plus years. You've spoken to executives. You have access to conversations that many of us don't have access to. What is it that you see happening in the modern workplace these days that you think requires urgent attention?

Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. I have been writing on this a lot, and I think that we are experiencing what I'm going to say is, like, unprecedented levels of cognitive demand in the workplace. And I am in leadership training, you know, classes weekly with executives with leaders, organizations right all across North America. And I'm constantly hearing about change, information overload, the complexity of things, you know, the digital interruptions, these resource constraints, you know, AI, continuous adaptation and higher performance expectations. And I am seeing firsthand and hearing the impact that this is not just having on leadership teams, but on employees. And as you know, I'm also an HR consultant, and so I do assessments and surveys on things like performance and team effectiveness and, um, employee engagement. And I am hearing constantly in those surveys the feedback that, uh, people are exhausted. So I think it's organizational overload. And I don't think it's, you know, busy, busy, urgent, urgent all the time. I think people are cognitively overloaded. I think their brains are overloaded. And we're seeing all the signs of that.

Speaker A: You are right on the money. And, um, like I said in the intro, this is exactly one of the very reasons why, you know, for me, starting this podcast and having these conversations is so urgent. I believe that you're touching on something many professionals, I dare to say most Professionals feel, but they don't exactly know how to name it, how to address it. So let's drill down a little bit more in the idea of cognitive load or cognitive overload. What is it, why is it important and um, how do you notice it in the first place?

Speaker B: Yeah, great, great question. So what am I hearing when I'm in these leadership training sessions is people are struggling to prioritize. What am I hearing? People are struggling to make decisions. What am I hearing? People are struggling to know what to focus on. And then I will also say, I think I mentioned to you I have a bit of a unique lens cause I, I'm a, ah, HR consultant. So I come in up here at this macro level. Then I'm in these leadership development training sessions and I'm hearing from leaders and then I'm doing assessments and I'm a leadership coach and a performance coach. So I'm speaking to people daily in a coaching, you know, relationship and people are coming to me saying they're having a hard time concentrating, focusing, making decisions. Maybe they're seeing an increase in some of the, their own errors. They're more reactive, they're emotionally feeling less patient, less tolerant, they're tired. Right. Lots of people are coming to me and we're spending time in our coaching conversations talking about things like sleep quality and ah, nutrition and drinking water and taking adaptogens because people's stress tolerance has really been impacted. Mental fatigue. Right. Just not really able to thrive in life outside of work. Going home exhausted, binging out on Netflix because you can't really do much else because you're so tired. You know, people are coming to me to, to perform better, be more resilient. And when I hear, you know, describe to me how you're feeling and what's going on for you. M. Right away I send them a burnout assessment and I can see very quickly where they are on that burnout continuum. And I am more and more seeing people coming to me for leadership coaching and they are showing those signs that I just mentioned to you, which is somewhere between level 2 and level 3 on the burnout continuum. And what I do is help them connect the dots between where they are on the burnout continuum and how it's impacting their performance. So this is what I'm seeing and this is what I'm hearing. Right. What are those symptoms of overload? Exactly what I just mentioned.

Speaker A: Debbie, correct me if I'm wrong. We're usually quick to say that this is uh, an individual issue and we are quick to Say that we need to build higher resilience. Do you see this being, do you see overload being an issue radicated in individual resilience or rather an issue radicated in organizational failure?

Speaker B: Again, I don't think it's an either or so. You know, this conversation really started with a lot of my clients during COVID I think Covid just was the thing that kind of pushed the needle to this place of this is becoming harder to mask. Right. We started to see signs and I'm going to say I had a lot of my clients. I've been working in this space a long time. As you know, I started getting lots of requests for mental health in the workplace, training for resilience, training for helping, creating wellness programs for stress management workshops. And what I said to every one of my clients is while these things can help you, they're not actually going to address the root cause of what's happening here. So if we continue to put employees in a system or an environment that's overloaded by competing priorities, endless meetings, unclear expectations, constant interruptions, unrealistic workloads, these training programs aren't going to solve the problem. Right. So I think we've got to have a combined approach. And so while, yes, the resilience training and wellness programs and you know, workshops I've been doing on sleep and nutrition and stress, stress and healthy habits are helpful, I'm also really encouraging organizations to examine the number of priorities they have. Their meeting culture, their communication expectations. You know, we now in Canada have something called the right to disconnect, which is mind blowing to me that, you know, the government had to introduce legislation because our boundaries had become so unhealthy with people. Right. In terms of their constant on 24,7 in the back of their mind, worrying, wondering, I'm on vacation, it's the weekend, I'm going to get emails, I'm going to have to think about work. What about even like decision making processes. I could keep going, change saturation, work, design and, and then leadership behaviors. I spend a lot of time coaching leaders and teaching leaders how to create healthy teams, how to have healthy communication norms and expectations so that their people don't burn out. So I hope what you're hearing is two things. Number one, yes, we need to help our people become more resilient, but also we need to start asking ourselves, why are we creating and allowing so much of this overload in the first place? So I think it's a system issue. You'll see a lot of my writing on LinkedIn. You and I have been chatting about this and I also think, um, we need to be helping equip our people with new behaviors, habits and tools because we're experiencing something that we've never really experienced as a species before. And a lot of folks are struggling to adapt and keep up.

Speaker A: You know that be what I find strange, right? We are so obsessed these days with optimization, productivity tools, efficiency frameworks, we talk about performance management and yet we end up being overwhelmed. So I'm curious, how do people react when you present them with the findings and when you present them with what should be, if not the solution, the direction they need to follow? Are people surprised? Do they understand what the root cause is? Are they pushing back? What is it that you see in your day to day profession?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I also do a lot of speaking to business owners through different CEO forums and peer groups and advisory groups in North America. And when I talk to them, you know, I have a training session, I do. How do we help leaders eliminate noise so they can really focus on what matters? Everyone in the room loves it. I've created this thing called the focus architecture model. Um, people are on board, they think it's great, and then they leave and they go back to these systems that are completely overloaded. And so again, it's, you know, training people with certain behaviors and habits to help themselves, but then sending them back into an unhealthy environment or system. You're not going to get much traction on that. So what I'm trying to do is help leaders and owners understand some of the consequences and some of the roi. Right? And just even the basic understanding that information overload is actually making people less effective and the information is only valuable and helpful if people can process it and act on it. Right. So excessive information through, you know, neuroscience and behavior science research leads to things like analysis paralysis, decision fatigue, reduced focus, slower execution, lower self confidence, missed priorities. And these are the symptoms that people are experiencing in the work they do every day. So what I'm trying to do is help them connect the dots. If this is how you're feeling, if this is what you're experiencing on your team, if this is what you're seeing in your organization, here is the root cause of why. And then let's now create some strategies between leaders and employees to help make some positive changes. And there's responsibilities on both sides.

Speaker A: You're, you're leading me exactly into that question because you said something which is really true. We train employees, professionals in a certain direction, but then they go back to the office, the workplace, or what have you, and they are again, sucked into a system that doesn't allow them to thrive in a way. So my question obviously would have been, well, but then how do we identify who's responsible for it? Which I assume has no straightforward answer.

Speaker B: Yes and no. I think through the engagement surveys I do, I can spot the patterns of what's happening in a team or an organization. So we drill down with the feedback to the team level. And absolutely we can see, is this an organizational problem or is this a specific department problem, or is this a specific manager challenge? So the, the reporting that I do for my clients helps us to, to kind of figure out where, right, what, where's the source of the feedback that we're seeing and what I do want to just encourage people who are listening here today. You know, as an individual in this situation, you do have some agency and this is empowering. So I'm going to say, you know, get some training or coaching for yourself on how to help focus, manage your attention, manage distractions, manage interruptions, manage priorities. I also think it's really helpful for people to get help in managing boundaries, having assertive conversations, having difficult conversations, managing your energy is a big source of the coaching and training I'm doing now through, you know, biohacking and nutrition and sleep optimization, stress management habits and practices. And I want to also then say the other part of the system is the leader's responsibility. And a leader of any team or organization has enormous influence over this cognitive load issue. And there's lots of things that leaders help shape in the environment. So priorities right in the focus architecture model, I'm saying we should not have more than three to five priorities. And I was speaking to a client a few weeks ago who told me their health authority had 15 priorities. Like, just pause on that for a minute. Can you imagine working in an environment where there are 15 strategic priorities? And it's no surprise to me that every leader I've coached in that organization is quite far down the burnout continuum. And there's lots of turnover and there's lots of disengagement, and there's lots of absenteeism. Um, and at some point someone made the decision that, uh, that was okay. So priorities are a big piece of it. I teach managing multiple priorities for employees. Half the time they can't do the exercises in the workshops that I present to them because they don't have the information from the people they report to. So there's lots of things right, that we can Be teaching leaders around priorities, around priority management, around workload expectations. I think of things like the psychological safety factors. We have 13 factors in Canada. Again, new information that's come out for organizations and a lot of companies aren't even measuring the 13 factors for psychological health and wellbeing that organizations should have. And one of those key factors is workload. So is the workload that people have manageable for them? Is it realistic? And a lot of people will say no, there are still people in jobs that don't have clear up to date accurate job descriptions. Right. That, that's mind blowing to me as uh, someone who's been in HR for 25 years. Another big piece that leaders can impact is the meeting culture of an organization. I, I, I think again it's a bit mind blowing to me that I'm having to go back into companies these days to teach people how to have effective meetings because so many people are being invited to meetings with no agenda, are showing up to meetings they don't even know why they need to be there are sitting in meetings that really don't impact or affect them and this is draining their time. Right. And it's also, you know, we say sitting is the new smoking. I mean it's also having people just be sitting for hours at a time, right. And, and feeling stressed out and, and pressure, like a pressure cooker. Because while you're sitting in all these meetings, you're very aware that you've got this huge to do list in the back of your mind that you can't seem to have any time to be able to action and get, get your work done. So looking at the meeting culture is huge. I also mentioned communication norms, right. Decision making processes. I encourage leaders to think where are they the bottleneck to decision making? Because I'm hearing this over and over again that they are holding people up, they are slowing people down, which is creating a tremendous amount of frustration in the system. And um, yeah, I think there's system things that leaders have impact, influence responsibility for that they need to be doing a better job of managing. And that uh, that becomes a lot of the topics that I teach in my training but also in my coaching conversations with leaders.

Speaker A: I want to hear your opinion on this. And it's a question that is probably larger than life which is how did we get here and where is this going? Because this is quite concerning. Right. Like you mentioned Covid, and I know that there is no straightforward answer to this, but the situation to me is quite worrisome because I do see exactly what you're talking about on my end of things, I know about people who are constantly exhausted and tired, and they seem to not be able to get out of it. So how did we get to this stage and where do you think is this going? Are you positive about the future of work?

Speaker B: So that's. That's a hard question. I'm not feeling super positive right now. That's my honest answer. And it's because of the conversations that I'm in, right? So I'm in conversations with CEOs, I'm, um, in conversations with leadership teams. And then I'm in coaching conversations with people who are really struggling and burnt out. And what I'm doing is trying to piece it all together. Right. Also through the things I'm seeing on engagement surveys. And I'm trying to create solutions for my clients to help fix this. But these solutions are not going to be easy. And that's the part that's hard to sell. You know, you asked me, how are, you know, leaders and business owners responding to, to what you're presenting them with? It's hard to sell because it's going to require some massive, you know, mindset shifts and behavior shifts. So that, that's the answer to the second part of your question. The first part of your question. How did we end up here? I'd like to say it feels a bit like the perfect storm. I would say digital technology has really created this constant feeling, pressure of constant connectivity. Lots of people are struggling with addiction to technology. Taking their phones to the bathroom, being on their phone while they're eating. How many times have I driven in my car recently and almost run over a pedestrian because they're walking across the street and not looking at where they're walking, they're on their phone. So this addiction to technology is huge. So we are actually fighting an addiction. And I think we got to name it, fight what it is. So just think about that. We've gotta change people's mindsets and behavior around an addiction. And there are lots of people who will argue that there actually isn't any harm or anything wrong with this addiction. And yet, uh, the neurophysiologist and the research that's coming out drastically says that that's incorrect. It's changing people's brains, it's changing their nervous systems, it's changing their sleep, it's changing their eating, it's changing their engagement socially with people. Like the mental health crisis and epidemic going on in our world right now is real. And there are many experts that you can Interview who are going to blame a large part of this on digital technology. That is one piece of the puzzle. Right. You mentioned Covid. Um, hybrid and remote work massively has blurred boundaries. So I don't teach workshops anymore on work life balance because it's not a realistic state anymore. What I teach people is work life integration. And that could be a whole nother, you know, podcast topic for you and I to discuss. How do we integrate this work and life where now we have completely blurred boundaries. Right. Psychologists would say this is enmeshment, this is highly unhealthy. Right. For us as people. So that's, that's kind of the second thing. And I'm hesitant to go on because I think it just, it kind of overwhelms the listeners. Right. We've got change happening at a rate and pace that our biology and physiology has never experienced before. So people are struggling to adapt. And actually what's the antidote to that, Matteo? It's we need to slow down, we need to allow people time to rest, we need to allow people time to recover, we need to allow people time to bounce back. And people are saying it's just the rate and pace of change. Right. Survival of the fittest, like only kind of the top 10% performers are the ones keeping up. And our short term disability rates and our burnout rates are the highest they've ever been. And it's the leading cause of disability claims in the world right now. Can I also mention AI, right? This is really increasing this rate and pace of change. Workplaces are also changing the way they reward and promote people. And that has, has created a lot of unhealthiness. So you're hearing now more of people stepping on top of over people like this survival of the fittest mentality because so many people are struggling to keep up and get ahead. It's creating more conflict in teams, less trust. Right. And we are rewarding responsiveness over effectiveness. I think we've also really confused the concepts of activity with productivity. So this, there's a lot of unintended consequences of these, uh, things. Again, I'm going to say we have people working inside systems that are generating more cognitive strain than we've ever had before. And those are just some of the reasons of how we got here. Here.

Speaker A: Well, Debbie, I'm very grateful we've had this conversation because you're touching on so many things and all of them are so relevant in no specific order. So we'll have more conversations. Until then, thank you so much, Debbie, and see you soon.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. Have a great day. Bye for now.