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Deborah Kohl
February 24, 2022
Newsletter ArticleBandwidth continues to be a hot topic across our country, particularly in rural areas. Access to services is crucial for our producers and individuals sitting at all nodes across supply chains—especially in an increasingly digitized market.
If you supervise employees, however, you have likely been dealing with a different bandwidth crisis over the last two years. Regardless of where you sit in industry, education, government, or production, you have likely noticed a shift in the culture of your organization and the environment in which you lead.
As the pandemic unfolded, our work culture shifted online, leaving many leaders and employees in unsettling environments that have directly influenced the energy and mental capacity required to deal with life in general, let alone the world of work.
To better understand mental bandwidth depletion, we can call on the original bandwidth mentioned here for a description. Think about what it is like to surf the web. Most of us can go from site to site relatively quickly. However, if you have multiple tabs and webpages open at one time your speed may become sluggish. In my neighborhood, anytime the wind blows our connection speed drops and it is not unusual to lose connectivity all together. Mental bandwidth operates the same way. The more scarcity mentality and stress affect us, the more we are preoccupied we become and the less capacity we have to use.
If you serve in a part of the economy with stretched resources pre-pandemic or in an organization that was already lean prior to the great resignation, you may now be leading in a culture where scarcity mentality guides thoughts and actions, and a growth-mindset is hard to establish and maintain. It is understood that “living in a dusty cloud of fear, worry, isolation, and frustration” robs each of us of available cognitive resources that are crucial to success (Verschelden, 2017).
Scarcity means having less than you feel you need (Shafir & Mullainathan, 2013), but behavioral scientists agree that the scarcity mindset is a “contextual outcome” meaning that managers can alleviate some environmental conditions and remedy scarcity mindset to improve bandwidth.
Fortunately, as a manager you have tools at your disposal to help restore bandwidth. We recently featured Dr. Cia Verschelden, Retired, City Colleges of Chicago-Malcolm X College, and Dr. Bill Turnley, Management Professor and Department Head, Kansas State University, in a webinar to highlight the challenges and opportunities managers need to understand. Here are some things to remember:
1. Uncertainty depletes bandwidth. As a manager, work to create certainty as much as possible. This means communicating as often and honestly as you are able. Build in time for questions. If you don’t have answers, acknowledge that and find them. This will help your team limit ruminating, which also costs bandwidth.
2. Bandwidth theft is not equally distributed. For some individuals the lockdown at the onset of the pandemic provided certainty and security--they were no longer riding crowded public transportation to work but could accomplish their jobs from the safety of their homes. For others, the lockdown created uncertainty and insecurity--they were cooped up in suddenly too-small apartments with limited access to technology and may have lost their employment. The key here is to know your team and the impact that policy and operational decisions will have on them. Mitigate the theft where at all possible.
Managing a team can be challenging, especially if you sit in a culture less open to making changes that enable bandwidth recovery. Brushing up our management and leadership skill sets is crucial to making sure that our employees and colleagues are able to make the most of every opportunity. The Master of Agribusiness program at K-State is committed to building agribusiness one leader at a time. We hope you’ll take a moment to visit our YouTube channel and catch the full webinar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl8DUicNmNU) or consider enrolling in Managing Organizational Behavior (https://mab.k-state.edu/ourprogram/courseoptions.html) this summer to refresh yourself and grow your skill set. For more information about MAB program and how it can help advance your career, visit https://mab.k-state.edu/mabinfo.html.
References and Resources:
Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. Macmillan.
Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function. Science, 341(6149), 976-980.
Verschelden, C. (2017). Bandwidth recovery: Helping students reclaim cognitive resources lost to poverty, racism, and social marginalization. Stylus Publishing, LLC. https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/building-bandwidth-the-conversation-continues/
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