Are you distracted at work? Don’t blame technology. | Nir Eyal | Big Think

Technology is not at the root of distraction at work.

Instead, distraction at work is a symptom of cultural disfunction.

When companies have a healthy workplace culture, they display three attributes:

• They give employees psychological safety. Workers can raise concerns without fear.
• They give employees a forum to discuss their concerns, and management will acknowledge that they have seen the problems.
• Management is fully present with their employees. They are not on their device during meetings.

In a dysfunctional workplace, employees can’t talk about the problem of distraction just as they can’t talk about other issues.

If we want people to do their best work, we need to give people time to focus and do reflective work, not just reacting to work such as reacting to emails and meetings.