Harvard Business Review
06/04/2016

Modern office life and an increasingly common condition called “attention deficit trait” are turning steady executives into frenzied underachievers.
Overloaded Circuits
Why Smart People Underperform
The Idea in Brief:
Frenzied executives who fidget through meetings, miss appointments, and jab at the elevator’s “door close” button aren’t crazy—just crazed. They’re suffering from a newly recognized neurological phenome-non called attention deficit trait (ADT). Marked by distractibility, inner frenzy, and impatience, ADT prevents managers from clarifying priorities, making smart deci-sions, and managing their time. This insidi-ous condition turns otherwise talented per-formers into harried underachievers.
