Improve Team Collaboration By Hacking Its Attention Span
Did you know? According to research, the average attention span has decreased by about a third in the 15 years between 2000 and 2015. The current human attention span is 8.25%. The fact is, that is less than the attention span of a goldfish. So what does this mean for improved collaboration?
For one thing, as the facilitator, you should anticipate that not everyone will be listening all the time and, as a result, bits of information will be missed. So, instructions on how to do an activity should be given not only clearly but also frequently enough that the participants will hear and understand them. How often is frequent enough? The magic number is three.
The first time you give important information half of the participants will hear or understand you. The second time, you’ll catch an extra 25% of the attendee’s attention totaling a third of the room hearing or getting your directions. Finally, on the third attempt 95% of everyone will have heard and gotten it.
Now, don’t feel that you have to repeat the same sentence three times. Your iterations should be varied while conveying the same thought. Here’s how you might go about it:
Verbally explain what the group is to do.
Tell them, “This is how I would do…” while modelling the task for them.
Reiterate one last time expressing the same idea differently.
Keeping in mind that your team or participants have less capacity to pay attention than a goldfish will help you to give instructions to activities in a way that they can grasp. The better they understand the better they do the exercises. The better they do the exercises the better the collaboration. So, in the meantime, keep up the good work and happy collaboration!