Disconnect, Power Off, and Unplug:
A Strategy for Creative Leadership
By
James Wood and Linda Saulsby
I
INTRODUCTION
Essayist, Frank Bruni, recently commented in The New York Times that we are in an ”age of fracture”.1
We are seldom connected with each other or allied with lessons from the past. “Everyone’s on a different
page,” he wrote.
He questions whether this is due to living in a wired world. And he rightly suggests that our wired,
over-stimulated culture is fracturing our professional and personal lives.
While digital technology has its place, its use is often excessive, almost an addiction that has created a
corporate and personal culture where creativity found in quiet is no longer valued and critical decisions
are often reactive and not reflective. Despite computer technology’s clear contributions as an office
productivity tool, the current always-on, always connected culture is starting to erode rather than enhance
leadership effectiveness, creating a reactive, counterproductive culture.
A half dozen years ago Nicholas Carr in his controversial article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, describes
the very real neurological effects of excessive use of personal technology: feelings of "spiciness,"
inattentiveness, edginess, impatience."2
This paper explores the scientifically recognized addictive power of personal technology the uses of
technology that too often compels leaders and emerging leaders in private and public sectors to be
unnecessarily wired every minute of every day with an inevitably detrimental impact on creative,
thoughtful, affirmative management and often a solution to finding creative leadership. It begins with a
1
2
Frank Bruni, The Water Cooler Runs Dry, The New York Times, April 7, 2014.
Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, The Atlantic,
July 1, 2008. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/
1
brief description of the characteristics of a creative leader. It continues with a chronology of the very short
evolution of personal technology as well as how our culture, as a consequence, downplays the necessity
of creativity in our lives. The negative neurological effects of the use of technology are described, as well
as the adverse consequences on a leader’s professional and personal roles with the resulting cascade of
negative effects on colleagues and family. Finally, the remedies found in solitude and meditation are
offered as a means to restore neurological, professional and personal well-being.
II
CREATIVE LEADERSHIP
A cottage industry fostering effective leadership abounds. A Google search of the phrase “effective
leadership skills” tags almost 19 million scholarly articles, books, pamphlets, seminars, websites,
programs, videos and every other imaginable media content. But we would be hard pressed to challenge
the thoughts of William Deresiewicz about what those skills are in an address to the plebe class at the
United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009. 3 Succinctly, Mr. Deresiewicz is persuaded
that “. . . true leadership means being able to think for yourself and act on your convictions.”
Whether the leader finds herself in the military, a corporation, a governmental agency, a nonprofit, a startup, or a family, these principles are the foundations of a creative and effective leader. Deresiewicz
continues that finding solitude, finding a quiet space every day, gives the leader the power of self:
“How can you know that unless you’ve taken counsel with yourself in solitude? [S]olitude and
leadership would seem to be contradictory things. But it seems to me that solitude is the very
essence of leadership. The position of the leader is ultimately an intensely solitary, even intensely
lonely one. However many people you may consult, you are the one who has to make the hard
decisions. And at such moments, all you really have is yourself.”
An effective leader is a creative leader. Yet, the ability of that leader to find time to be alone -- to be
creative -- is destroyed by the digital pathogens of the computer, smart phone, tablet, social media and a
myriad of apps. The uses and abuses of digital devices take as their toll our abilities to ponder, to engage
in substantive conversations, to form personal relationships, and to understand one’s sense of self. The
neurological effects of the toxic abuses of technology in the business arena ironically create an addiction
that results in extraordinary stress, mistakes, fatigue, and loss of the team. In this state, the leader finds
no time to think for him/herself and to act on a well-formed conviction. In this state, the leader may
ultimately become desensitized to the goals of her business and the business itself.
3
William Deresiewicz, Solitude and Leadership: If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts,
The American Scholar, Essays, Spring 2010 http://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/#.U0YJtfldV8E;
2
III
TECHNOLOGY TODAY: THE AGE OF FRACTURE
The United States is recognized for its risk takers: those confident in themselves and in the ideas they
have created. They continue to sustain our nation, a culture, and an economy. The industrial revolution
saw the emergence of the risk taker and was notable for a movement away from the community toward
an age of the individual where ambition and creativity drove the growth of society. 4
One might say that the technology boom of the last several decades is indeed the latest manifestation of
the industrial revolution. The equivalent of the efficiency of a 19th century factory can be seen in the
single portal of the office or home computer, which serves as a word processor, calculator, engineering
modeler, digital mailbox, telephone, radio, television, and gateway to the world. Yet while correctly hailed
as a boon to efficiency5, personal technology has become a toxin as devices have proliferated. This
toxicity is manifest in today’s multi-tasking.
Technology in the corner suite and throughout the office has provided the ability to multitask fueled by the
belief that one is more efficient the more that one can do at once. The personal computer enables us to
bounce back and forth between e-mail, drafts, conference calls, music and social media. Multiple smart
devices at our fingertips keep us tethered to what’s going on down the hall, in the field and at home.
Simultaneously, social media has emerged as a forceful dynamic shaping the business and personal
conversation. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus+, Tumblr, and Instagram, among
others, entertain and inform us -- but have also contributed significantly to the “age of fracture”. News
programs are larded with graphic news crawls simultaneously with the staccato delivery of news stories.
Print and digital news sources have abbreviated their stories to make them palatable to the reader’s
desire for quick and easy takeaways.6
With all of this our brains are overwhelmed, abused by constant disorientation and distraction with the
result that the capacity to be creative -- and to be a creative leader -- is lost.
We have become “decoders of information” rather than seekers of knowledge.” 7 As decoders, we have
lost the ability to analyze and assimilate as we have lost the time to reflect and contemplate. And in the
4
Susan Greenfield, Modern technology is changing the way our brains work, says neuroscientist,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-565207/Modern-technology-changing-way-brains-work-saysneuroscientist.html
5
Oliner, Stephen, and Daniel Sichel. The resurgence of growth in the late 1990s: is information technology the
story?,2000-20 (2000).
6
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
7
Nicholas Carr, supra. fn. 2
3
process we have literally rewired our brains in a way that lessens our ability as leaders, in the words of
Deresiewicz, “to be able to think for [ourselves] and act on [our] convictions.”8
Not only has there been a dramatic change in media consumption and how we learn, but also the abuse
of digital devices has had a negative impact on our brains and how they function:
“It often feels as if all this frantic activity creates a constant state of twitchy anxiety, as any
addiction usually does. Moreover, having read a freshly published and hotly controversial book
about the effect of digital media on the human mind, I may have very good reason to feel scared.
Its thesis is simple enough: not only that the modern world's relentless informational overload is
killing our capacity for reflection, contemplation, and patience – but that our online habits are also
altering the very structure of our brains.” 9
Consequences of multitasking erode efficiency and include a lack of focus, memory impairment,
increased stress levels, and the unanticipated costs associated with just-in-time decisions.
IV
THE ADVERSE EFFECTS OF DIGITAL ADDICTION
Without question, the use of technology in our business and personal lives has brought with it a greater
access to information and efficient entree to social and scientific resources never before imagined. The
“open science” of online collaboration brings together experts throughout the world as though the
research was conducted in a single room.10 Classrooms from the world’s great colleges and universities
are available to students internationally. 11 Access to online information results in many positives: we
have the opportunity to process and integrate information better, focus our attention more sharply,
analyze information more cogently, and make instant decisions when necessary. But, as with most
technology efficiencies, there is a trade-off. The result of instant, extensive online information is a neverending tsunami of material and data that is rapidly overwhelming our ability to synthesize and effectively
utilize it.
8
William Deresiewicz, supra fn. 3
John Harris, How the Internet is Altering Your Mind, The Guardian, 2010,
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/aug/20/internet-altering-your-mind
10
Open Projects - Wikipedia Project Medicine
11
Online Education (MOOCs) - New York Times Topics
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/e/elearning/index.html
9
4
Dr. Gary Small, a Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of
Medicine at UCLA, has for years been investigating the impacts of the new technologies on our behavior
and on our brains. His findings are alarming.
First some fundamental background on the organ that is our brain:
“The brain is. . .the seat of intelligence, interpreter of the senses, initiator of body movement, and
controller of behavior. Lying in its bony shell and washed by protective fluid, the brain is the
source of all the qualities that define our humanity.”
12
The brain functions by responding to stimuli. Everything we think, move, remember and feel is a result of
the brain’s neurons responding to stimuli.13 The left part of the brain, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex,
responds to these stimuli and processes the information we take in through the stimulus of technology.
This is where the brain processes data in the short term and where complex information is evaluated and
where decisions are made.14
Dr. Small has concluded that our connectivity every minute of every day has rewired our brains to accept
this bombardment and has put us in a state of “continuous partial attention”. 15 The result is that our
brains are in a constant state of stress without time or the ability to reflect, to step back, to explore
alternatives, to engage in deep thought.
Dr. Small continues that the state of “continuous partial attention” creates a stress that becomes
addictive. When we are in stress mode we have a biological reaction, which causes an increase in
dopamine, which in turn causes a burst of energy. We enjoy this reaction and as a result we purposefully
search out the stress for the biological high. But, with every high, there is the inevitable crash, and our
brains are overwhelmed.16
And, because of the addictive nature of digital devices and the constant search for the quick “fix” of a
message or piece of incoming information, our ability to critically focus on a project at hand is negatively
affected.17
12
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/know_your_brain.htm
Id.
14
Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan, Meet Your iBrain, How the technologies that have become part of our daily lives are
changing the way we think, Scientific American Mind,
http://www.nature.com/scientificamericanmind/journal/v19/n5/full/scientificamericanmind1008-42.html
15
Id
16
id
17
Alyssa Deitchman, Wait, what? On Social Network Use and Attention, NYU Steinhardt, Department of Applied
Psychology, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mZo3O9oCgrRMmmPYw4L77n2Ary74oQiQYo3SRVIlY0Q/edit#
13
5
Such addiction is thought to be as much a disorder as any other mental or emotional illness. The
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association
provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders. The
Association is considering a new classification of disorder: the Internet use disorder.18
Small and others confirm that there are a multitude of negative effects due to the rewiring of the brain.
Those include living with stress, making mistakes more frequently, becoming fatigued, acting irritably, and
delaying responses to daily activities.
Other research confirms additional effects: the inability to identify relevant versus irrelevant tasks and the
inability to effectively switch tasks.19
Apart from the negative impact on work performance, there are other pathologies that come from the
abuse of digital devices:

One loses a sense of self and becomes dependent on the thoughts and impressions of others

There is a loss in the ability to fully engage in human contact 20

Thoughtful writing is lost with texting and e-mail

For every hour spent on the computer, face-to-face communication and interaction drops by
30 minutes21

Habitual reliance on high-speed decisions is counter to a reflective, thoughtful decision

The ability to engage in prolonged reading is lost

Instant gratification replaces a sense of delight in what we do
If these qualities are to be regained, if leaders are to once again become creative, steps to minimize
these adverse effects of digital suffocation need to be adopted.
V
18
APA Corrects New York Times Article on Changes to DSM-5′s Substance Use Disorders, http://dsmfacts.org/issueaccuracy/apa-corrects-new-york-times-article-on-changes-to-dsm-5s-substance-use-disorders/
19
Alyssa Deitchman, supra fn. 17
John Harris, supra fn. 9
21
What the Web is Teaching our Brains, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/whatthe-web-is-teaching-our-brains-1826419.html
20
6
RESTORATIVE REMEDIES FOR LEADERS
To be effective, to be creative, leaders and emerging leaders must take the next and necessary step and
ask: “what would be involved in transforming [our] hierarchical bureaucracies into agile organizations in
which excellence is celebrated and where the people at the top are the most creative and the most
imaginative?”22
Creativity, imagination, vision and introspection are the characteristics of great leadership. And it is these
qualities that are the victims of the digital overload assumed by leaders in all facets of society. Thought
leaders generally agree that the rewired brain can be restored through being alone, finding solitude. “if
you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts”. 23 In the oft-overlooked book Solitude: A
Return to the Self, Anthony Storr explores the scientific and psychological literature about being alone.
He concludes: “The capacity to be alone . . . becomes linked with self-discovery and self-realization; with
becoming aware of one’s deepest needs, feelings, and impulses.”24
In solitude one slows, concentrates and focus. One gains a perspective by stepping back out of the
craziness of the moment where one is bombarded with the exhortations of others through all forms of
media where a sense of the real and objective is lost. But once free of outward impulses one can turn
inward and imagine. In the imagination one can speculate “what if” and new ideas are created.
Consider that every great scientific or medical invention, every evocative piece of music, every
achievement in art we consider to be great in our rich human history more often than not has been
conceived, developed and brought to reality in solitude, in a quiet moment.
“In his international bestseller The Art of Thinking, Ernest Dimnet wrote that the art of thinking ‘is the art of
being one’s self, and this can only be learned if one is by one’s self.’ Deep, strong, independent thinkers,
he wrote, love being alone - they crave and create moments of solitude.” 25
Tragically, it is the abuse of digital devices, which deprives us of being alone, being in solitude, everyday.
In response, a number of effective strategies have been devised all with the goal of helping us to become
introspective, to learn from ourselves, and to return to solitude.26
22
Steve Demming, The Key Missing Ingredient in Leadership Today, Forbes, July 27, 2012,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/07/27/the-key-missing-ingredient-in-leadership-today/
23
William Deresiewicz, supra fn. 3
24
at 21
25
Hara Estroff-Marano, What is Solitude?, Psychology Today, July 1, 2003.
7
One short-term remedy is to do a periodic tech cleanse. This can take a variety of forms and includes: an
Internet Sabbath27 during which one turns off the internet from sundown Friday to Monday morning; doing
a longer “cleanse” by eliminating all forms of digital contact for a defined period 28; create an orderly sense
of balance throughout the day that includes regular breaks from the screen 29; set a scheduled time for online work; and taking a nap.30
However, one of the more overlooked restorative measures is the art of meditation.
Meditation dates from before recorded history and has been practiced by a number of religions and
cultures. The practice has evoked these reflections over the centuries31:
Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward
and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom. - Buddha
Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit. - Jeremy Taylor
It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. – Mahatma Gandhi
We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for
meditation and true friendship. – C.S. Lewis
If a person’s basic state of mind is serene and calm, then it is possible for this inner peace to
overwhelm a painful physical experience. – The Dalai Lama
The antidote to the toxins of technology is to slow down, to breath, to “think for yourself and to act on your
convictions.”32 In quiet, there is calm. In calm, there is introspection. In introspection, there is our self.
In our self, there is creativity. Meditation is one form of solitude. Other forms can be a long walk in
nature, writing (handwriting) a story or a letter to someone you wish you had said something a long time
ago, working in a garden, holding the hand of a loved one. In whatever form we choose there are these
benefits of solitude:
26
Ansuya Harjani, Launching Apps All Day? You Might be a ‘Mobile Addict,”
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/mobile/launching-apps-all-day-you-might-be-mobile-addict-n89001
27
Brad Macdonald, Find Solitude in This Crazy World, April 2014,
http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/11408.3.163.0/society/find-solitude-in-this-crazy-world
28
Jackie Ashton, Digital Cleanse: Shut Off the Smartphone and Walk Away, Spirituality and Health,
http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/digital-cleanse-shut-smartphone-and-walk-away
29
Anastasia Stephens, supra
30
Gary Small, supra.
31
Meditation Quotes, http://www.the-guided-meditation-site.com/meditation-quotations.html
32
Deresiewicz, supra fn.
8

Time for thought

In being alone, rediscovering one’s self

Learning to face inner demons and deal with them

Finding space to create

Finding space to unwind and find peace

Finding time to reflect on accomplishment and failure -- and to learn from it

Using isolation from the influences of other to find one’s own voice

Appreciating the smaller things that get lost in the roar 33
In solitude, in meditation, the leader or emerging leader can end the age of fracture within her public or
private enterprise as well as in her private life. In solitude one can appreciate the toxicity of the abuses of
technology and in the process begin to rewire the brain so that one can become a creative leader, one
who is “able to think for yourself and act on your convictions.” In this one finds creativity to resolve all
challenges that may negatively impact the enterprise and those who work with it. And, in solitude, one
becomes the model in the leader and emerging leader for others who inevitably will follow the creative
spirit.
33
Leo Babauta, the lost art of solitude, Zenhabits: Breathe, http://zenhabits.net/solitude/
9