MagnoliaTree is growing. We have brought a wonderful and above all talented woman into our team and would like to introduce her to you.
???? ????????? has a strong background and substantial experience in Accounting, Finance and Marketing. She holds a Master in Trade, is fluent in German, English, Spanish, French; lived in different countries and is managing 3 teenage children. This is just the right skillset to keep me organized and our Financials in order. She will lead our office management going forward.
Sabine Gromer was interviewed for the series Pardon The Introduction by Leonidas Marin.
Pardon the Introduction profiles humble leaders of businesses in their infancy, and details the motivations and aspirations behind their work. This series shines the light on the significance people make as they pursue their goals.
How the myth of multitasking robs us of time and energy every day
Shortened Version
In Michael Ende’s book, Momo, there exists the fantastical characters The Grey Gentlemen. They are tasked with stealing people’s time, slowly draining them of life. We’d like to steal that analogy for multitasking. Multitasking slowly robs us of our time, wasting away what might have been a productive day. In this article, we hope to finally put to rest the myth of multitasking. The truth is people are simply not capable of focusing on more than one task at a time.
Contrary to some expectations, the ability to multitask has very little to do with our gender. The human brain is simply not equipped for it. It has always been said that women are born with the ability to do countless things at the same time. Like a Hindu goddess with a hundred arms – they write emails, make phone calls, rock their children to sleep, and prepare lunch with a wooden spoon. However, this belief in the multitasking-woman harms us more than it helps us, because it puts women under pressure to perform the impossible. For people of all genders, multitasking does not lead to the desired goal. It doesn’t save time, nor is it effective. On the contrary, it costs us time every day, causing unnecessary stress and reducing our thinking power and mental health.
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Do you see yourself as living proof of successful multitasking?
Then try this: Memorize the following numbers – 27, 4, 13, and 1 – and simultaneously write an email to a business partner. You will most likely have one of two problems: either you don’t manage to write the email because your mind is stuck on memorizing the numbers or you forget the numbers but write an okay email. If you found yourself achieving one of these results, don’t worry, you’re in good company. Different multitasking tests conducted on a host of different individuals have all come to the same conclusion: multitasking doesn’t work.
Studies by psychologist David Strayer concluded that a total of 97.5 percent of people fail multitasking tests. Furthermore, they found that attempts to improve one’s multi-tasking ability have very little benefit. Further research by Stanford University even found that chronic multitaskers consistently achieve worse scores on aptitude tests than the occasional multitasker.
The reason for this: our short-term memory can only store between five and nine things at any given time. When we try to accomplish two different jobs at the same time, both of which require a certain level of concentration, we fail because our brain can’t concurrently store various different and complex sources of information into short-term memory without error. And if things are not stored in the short-term memory, they cannot be transferred to the long-term memory and are therefore not re-accessible at a later date.
The idea of multitasking often goes hand-in-hand with the mistaken belief that all tasks are equally important and therefore ought to be completed equally quickly. We try to pack more into the day than is possible instead of focusing on what is most important. Switching back and forth between tasks, our brain subconsciously chooses which information to process and which to ignore. If we are listening to something, our visual cortex will be less active. So if you’re on the phone and working on your computer at the same time, you’ll inevitably absorb less of what’s being said in the conversation.
So the fact is we suffer from a multitasking paradox: Instead of productivity, multitasking only creates an illusion of productivity.
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This graphic above is an impressive illustration of how much time we lose through interrupted and therefore unfocused work. Researchers estimate that we lose around one third of our working day by switching between different tasks in a semifocused manner. Calculated over the course of a workweek, that’s one and a half work days that we could have used productively if a focused methodology was applied.
6 steps to successful single-tasking
We won’t be able to reverse technological advances. But we can adopt certain strategies to help us avoid losing focus all the time. Here are six steps to improving your ability to single-task:
Step 1: Create calm before the storm
Take time for silence before each task. It doesn’t have to be long. One to three minutes is quite enough. And by silence, I mean complete stillness. Meditate on what you wish to engage with and reflect on potential distractions. That’s how we really focus in on the subject of our work. This is how we show appreciation for the task and the here-and-now. Thus, every one of my coaching sessions starts with a ritual of silence.
Step 2: Make a decision about what is really important
The most important skill for staying efficient and productive is prioritizing tasks. This goes hand in hand with saying goodbye to things that cost us too much time and energy while providing little benefit. Use the Pareto Rule, which I hold in high regard. According to this rule, 20% of your activities result in 80% of your success, just as 20% of your customers result in 80% of your revenue. So be selective in your choice of actions, but consistent in your implementation.
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Step 3: Do the most important thing first
You probably already know this, but we often like to put off things that are most important because they also cost us the most energy and time. Instead, we deal with tasks that are easy to do, that don’t require much effort (checking emails, responding to texts, reading the news). But we must break away from this cycle. Always do the most important thing first. Not what comes easiest. Create a focused time slot – for example in the morning from 10-12 o’clock – in which you always do the most important task of the day. This creates immense relief and the rest of the day will flow without the nagging of a guilty conscience.
Step 4: Say NO and write a Don’t Do list
One of my favorite beliefs is: every no to the world is a yes to myself. This simple motto is a powerful prioritization tool. Only when we manage to say no to things that are less important to us can we fully focus on what really matters. Write a daily Don’t Do List with all the things you commit to not invest time into. In the evening, check off what you were able to avoid doing and congratulate yourself on creating boundaries with your time.
Step 5: Schedule daily alone time
Block out some time for yourself each day to set your priorities, to meditate on your goals, and plan out how to make them happen. In this way, you can reset your focus and allocate your skills accordingly. We are often surrounded by people all day long resulting in a never-ending stream of conversations and stimuli that distracts us from our real work. If we never have time to ourselves, it can be difficult to filter out irrelevant information and focus on what is really important. Such distractions in turn lead us to unnecessary multitasking and wasted time. This applies to both our personal and professional lives. Which is why it’s important to schedule time for ourselves on a regular basis.
Step 6: Tighten up your time, increase urgency, enjoy your impatience
We should take advantage of our inherent impatience when working, says author and leadership expert Peter Bregman. “Create unrealistically short deadlines,” Bregman writes for Harvard Business Review. “Cut all your meetings in half. Give yourself one-third of the time you think you need to accomplish something.” Because, the more time we have, the more opportunity we have to put things off. We all know that when we’re pressed for time, we can activate almost unbelievable potential. Use this power. We also know by now that our attention drops after an average of 18 minutes. Accordingly, it also makes sense to move on to a new task after your attention begins to wane and to give the next task our full concentration.
So let’s finally bury the myth about multitasking and start to become wonderfully efficient single-taskers. Because in the desperate attempt to do a thousand things, with a hundred arms, we will only trip over our excessive limbs and fail to properly exploit our full potential. The secret of our success lies in prioritizing and focusing. Everything else only robs us of our time.
Sabine Gromer of MagnoliaTree writes for the Austrian women’s business magazine Sheconomy.
In her first article, she focuses on the topic of STEREOTYPE THREAT. She writes about the three phases that characterize the path of women with career ambitions and why many women give up just before breaking through the glass ceiling and how women nevertheless make it to the top in male-dominated leadership worlds.
As part of the publication, a Clubhouse event was held on 07.04.2021 on the topic “Stereotype Threat – Pigeonhole Traps and Necessities. Where we need pigeonhole thinking and how best to deal with it.” took place.
Read the article from the current issue of Sheconomy now.
Have you seen the new Netflix documentary Coded Bias yet? If not, be sure to catch up. In this documentary film maker Shalini Kantayya follows M.I.T Media Lab computer scientist Joy Buolamwini, along with data scientists, mathematicians, and watchdog groups around the world, as they fight to expose the discrimination within facial recognition algorithms now prevalent across all spheres of daily life.
Modern society sits at the intersection of two crucial questions: What does it mean when artificial intelligence increasingly governs our liberties? And what are the consequences for the people A.I. is biased against? When MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini discovers that many facial recognition technologies do not accurately detect darker-skinned faces or classify the faces of women, she delves into an investigation of widespread bias in algorithms. As it turns out, artificial intelligence is not neutral, and women are leading the charge to ensure our civil rights are protected.
Harvard Business Review says: “One of the biggest sources of anxiety about A.I. is not that it will turn against us, but that we simply cannot understand how it works. The solution to rogue systems that discriminate against women in credit applications or that make racist recommendations in criminal sentencing, or that reduce the number of black patients identified as needing extra medical care, might seem to be “explainable A.I.” But sometimes, what’s just as important as knowing “why” an algorithm made a decision, is being able to ask “what” it was being optimized for in the first place?”
In many large companies, fundamentally important decisions such as personnel decisions are made by artificial intelligence. Who is invited to job interviews, who is terminated? Coded Bias shows that the knowledge of artificial intelligence is fed by past experience and thus a positive further development towards a future free of prejudice is inhibited.
“When you think of A.I., it’s forward-looking, but A.I. is based on data, and data is a reflection of our history.”
Joy Buolamwini
The large use of A.I. will be a challenge for leaders. They will have to reveal the human decisions behind the design of their A.I. systems, what ethical and social concerns they took into account, the origins and methods by which they procured their training data, and how well they monitored the results of those systems for traces of bias or discriminations. Businesses need models that they can trust. Achieving transparency with AI systems is critical as our adoption grows. But the Artificial Intelligence black box problem is based on the inability to fully understand why the algorithms behind the AI work the way they do.
On 5th of April 2021 Sabine Gromer talked amongst others at the Panel discussion at the University of Colorado. What are the advantages of consulting in a virtual environment?
Three broad topic areas where discussed
1. What are the advantages of consulting in a virtual environment?
There is something liberating in a virtual environment
The screen allows us a form of interaction that in-person doesn’t allow
Advantages
What you notice that is obvious on a screen that may be less obvious in person
Have found that virtual work is more effective
Clients can be more vulnerable with me 1:1 into a camera in their home with no one around
After the pandemic is over, not sure I’m going to change it up much – laser skills around coaching
The virtual environment can be a magnifier – for better or for worse (background)
2. What are the challengesof consulting in a virtual environment?
How did we have to change to make this work. (Example of manager workshop delivered live vs. virtual – changed the way I saw it)
Collaborating in a group is harder
People get confused about their role in a virtual group
People may script themselves more
I draw energy from the room and may not be able to do that in a virtual setting
3. What types of changes have you seen since you first started doing this today?
I have to contract for and prepare differently for a virtual meeting
I find I have to spend a lot of time thinking through the details of activities for my class
Can’t be as spontaneous as I might be in a classroom
Sabine Gromer talked on the 5 principles by Edgar H. Schein
1. Always try to be helpful. And do so in inner freedom!
2. Always stay in touch with the current reality. Name what is!
3. Access your ignorance. And find the power in it – as the right questions at the right time.
4. Everything you do is an intervention.
5. It is the client who owns the problem and the solution. – Energy check.
Every day is World Women’s Day as long as structural inequalities exist. These inequalities must be solved together – by women and men, business, politics and society. Bayer, together with its CEO Lieven Hentschel and the three guest speakers Britta Bürger, Sabine Gromer and Heidrun Kopp, highlighted the topic of equal opportunities on International Women’s Day.
Bayer has set itself clear inclusion and diversity targets and aims to raise the average gender ratio across all combined management levels in the Group, including lower and middle management, to 50/50 by 2025. At Bayer Austria, the proportion of women in management is already balanced at 69 percent.
In three parallel virtual rooms, the speakers gave impulses. Heidrun Kopp, founder of the Institute for Sustainable Finance, addressed the topic of Women & Finance, Sabine Gromer, founder of the management consultancy MagnoliaTree, spoke about Stereotypes, Role Models & Beliefs, and Britta Bürger, Medical Advisor and Medical Information Officer at Bayer Austria and formerly a gynecologist, addressed Women’s Cycles in the Workplace.
We need pigeonholing
Because it saves us an incredible amount of energy. Studies show that we are on autopilot for 80 percent of our day. However, we must be aware that our behavior is always a combination of our personality AND the environment in which we live. The more bias there is in the environment, the more our behavior is influenced by it. And this not only clouds our view of others, but our own performance can suffer as well. This Stereotype Threat is made up of unconscious and systemic biases. And it can have devastating consequences. Sabine Gromer explains the Stereotype Threat using the example of women in the world of work: Young women try to assimilate themselves into the world of work in phase 1 “Defense” by imitating male behavior. In phase 2 “discouragement”, women become aware that they are constantly exposed to prejudice. As a result, they often make their self-worth independent of professional success, orient themselves outside the company in the form of family or hobbies, but also internalize their frustration and anger. In phase 3 of “resilience,” it is particularly important for women to focus on their femininity. Often, a break with the company occurs here; women start their own business, for example. What can be done to counteract Stereotype Threat? Point 1: Examine your own beliefs and track down possible unconscious and/or systemic biases. Click here for Harvard and Bayer’s self-tests. Also helpful and entertaining: the Pixar Purl video on You Tube. Point 2: Create an environment where female leadership is accepted. How to do that? Explain the dynamics of stereotype threat to young employees and explicitly state that tasks can be done equally well by all.
pwc Austria event for the International Women’s Day
March 8 was International Women’s Day. The Women Network of PwC Austria took this as an opportunity to organize a virtual event on the topic of “The Happiness Advantage”. The happier we are, the better every aspect of our lives is, and the special thing is that we can influence happiness ourselves.
Sabine Gromer of MagnoliaTree did her part and talked about the Happiness Advantage.
It was an incredible pleasure for her to create and design this event together with three such inspiring and competent change leaders. The lively and interactive exchange with so many participants despite the virtual circumstances gave us a sense of community. And community and the strength of our social ties is the basis of a content life. What really anyone can do to bring themselves to a more positive state:
For the next 21 days:
Write down every day 3 things you are grateful for.
Random acts of kindness (praise, recognition, donations…).
Invest in your social network (send a message, build connections).
Increasing the quality of being through dignity in change
Sabine Gromer in the PODCAST „Raus aus der Couch“ (engl. “Get off the Couch”) of Doris Schulz
In twenty-minute conversations with women who are making their way in a new era, Doris Schulz talks to them about personal development, professional competence, mindfulness, their mindset, new opportunities and their ideas for the future. Every episode a different interview partner and professional tips – new every second Friday! Click here to listen to her Podcast (This Podcast is available in German only.)
In the 20th episode of the podcast series, Doris Schulz spoke with the founder of MagnoliaTree, Sabine Gromer, about increasing the quality of being through dignity in change.
GERMAN ONLY!
“In Conversation with Change Architect Sabine Gromer” from Quality Enhancement of Being through Dignity in Change by Media Woman Doris Schulz. Published: 2020. 20 track. Genre: Business.
In this video, Sabine Gromer addresses the question whether good leadership is innate or learned. Nature or nurture?
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