Siren fatigue and the danger of being tuned out

Last weekend this headline, 'Did Global Warming Destroy My Hometown?' from the POPSCI blog caught my attention, and indeed it proved to be a really interesting and personal read about the effects of the devastating tornado that descended on Jopin, MO last spring.  In fact to me, the piece was interesting not for its ability to answer the question expressed in the title, (I suppose the answer is really 'Maybe' or 'We don't know'), but rather it's examination of what happened in Joplin before, during, and after the tornado tore through town.Joplin tornado path - Click for a larger image

The Joplin tornado of May 22, 2011 would eventually be categorized as a EF5 storm, the strongest and most dangerous classification, result in 161 fatalities, 1,150 injuries, and cause over $2B in damages. Of course none of this, the seriousness of such a massive and deadly storm, and the impact and devastation it would render, could have been known in advance by the people of Joplin that day. While the full nature of the fury could not be known in advance, there was at least some indication that something bad was about to happen in Joplin. By most accounts, the series of steps conducted by the various national and local authorities responsible for weather forecasting and public safety resulted in the sounding of the tornado warning siren in Joplin about 30 minutes prior to the tornado's arrival functioned as designed and expected. But despite the advance warning, and other precautionary measures taken by an area well accustomed to potentially dangerous weather, significant fatalities and injuries still occurred.

One reason, and probably the primary reason, was of course the sheer size and destructiveness of the May 22 tornado. As an EF5 storm, packing 200+ MPH winds, there is little that even the most soundly built structures and safty shelters could do to withstand that kind of assault. But in addition to the fury of the massive storm, some reports, including the above-referenced POPSCI piece call attention to the idea of something called siren fatigue, the tendency for people in high-risk tornado areas to downplay the significance of, and perhaps to fail to take appropriate safety precautions when the tornado siren is called due to the high volume of tornado false alarms that have been previously sounded.

From the POPSCI piece:

But the biggest concern was what the investigators called siren fatigue.

Like many other towns, Joplin’s policy is to sound a three-minute siren when a storm with winds stronger than 75 mph is approaching town, regardless of whether an NWS agency has issued a watch or warning. So at 5:11 on May 22, after local emergency managers were informed that a funnel cloud had been sighted over southeast Kansas, the city sounded a siren. But warning too early can be dangerous, particularly in a siren-jaded area. The NWS study describes one man’s confused, lackadaisical response: “(1) Heard first sirens at 5:11 p.m. CDT (estimated 30–35 minutes before tornado hit). (2) Went to the TV and heard NWS warning from TV override that indicated tornado near airport drive seven miles north (polygon #30) of his location. (3) Went on porch with family and had a cigar.”

Twenty-seven minutes later, the man heard another set of sirens. At this point, he “thought something wasn’t right,” so he went back inside and turned on the TV, where meteorologists were still warning that the threat was north of town. Then his wife yelled “Basement!” The report concludes this summary of events thusly: “Tornado hit as they reached the top of the basement stairs, destroying their home.”

Wow. Some gripping, riveting stuff. The kind of thing that should make most of us glad we don't have those types of life of death kinds of calls to make. Sounding the alarms and sirens when there is the just the chance of a dangerous storm, most of which either do not materialize or are relatively minor, has the tendency over time of dulling the siren's effectiveness, and introducing a kind of complacency in the minds of some residents.  While the problem is fairly easily identified, the right solution to combat siren fatigue is less clear. Different signal sounds for different local conditions is one option, better and more accurate forecasting is another, but eventually when faced with the decision of whether or not to sound the sirens, the need for erroring on the side of safety usually prevails.

It's just a couple of months until the start of the active tornado season in many parts of the US, and no doubt once the storms start forming in the Midwest and South the siren fatigue discussion will be continued. The larger point in all of this, and why I thought it relevant to write about on a site (mostly) about the workplace - if people can be conditioned to tune out messages meant to quite possibly save their lives, then it is about 100% certain that at least some of the important messages you are sending to your colleagues, your staff, your friends - whatever, have a good chance of being tuned out as well.

Even if the message you need to convey is an important one, like a tornado warning siren, if it keeps coming in the same manner, at the same time, delivered over and over again, eventually it becomes just another piece of noise in the stream. Fortunately for most of us, the consequence of our messages being tuned out probably isn't terribly significant in the big picture. Most people will carry on just fine by ignoring our message.

Fortunately, I suppose, the danger is probably more to our own careers.

Just Click 'Send' Already

You know you've been there - staring at a lengthy email message for far too long, poring over every sentence and even word to make sure it is just right. That your content, structure, tone, and message are exactly what you had intended whether or not your intention was to inform, convince, persuade, attack, defend - whatever.

You just have convinced yourself it has to be just perfect before you hit send. Do it already!!!

But we forget when we are writing these paeans to perfection what we actually do as we are reading our own email messages. We literally scan through them in seconds, micro-seconds maybe. Who is it from matters most, who else is on copy is next in line of importance, followed by the subject line, and then and only then the content.

And by the content, the first 40 words or so mostly. After that, we either begin to space out mostly, or a few new messages, IMs, Tweets, and such have begun competing for our attention. Forty words, about twenty seconds of reading, tops.

So if you've been been staring at that one silly email for about an hour or more, or it has remained a 'work-in-progress' hiding in and out of your 'Drafts' folder all day long, just do yourself a favor and click 'send' already.

Chances are you are working yourself into a lather over something your recipients are going to consider for all of 20 seconds, as yours is likely one of about 200 messages they will see that day.

And if it is that important, that every word in the message needs to be just right, well then maybe you should pick up the phone and just call the person instead. You remember the phone, right? It is attached to that little device you carry around to get on the internet and send pictures to Facebook with.

But before you do that, you'd better practice your speech first.  Do you have a mirror handy? Good.

Hello Billy Ray? This is Steve. I wanted to talk to you about...

Ugh. Maybe I'll just send that email after all...

It's great to be alive! Until you're run over by a train.

The always awesome 'How To Be a Retronaut' blog had another classically amusing piece recently called 'It's Great to Be Alive! Vintage Safety Manual.' The piece, (and you really should go and check it out), features a series of images from a 1940s era safety manual aimed at elementary school age kids. I've placed two of the images (hope that's ok), alongside this post.

What's interesting about the manual, and probably the reason 'Retronaut' ran a piece about it, is the remarkable and amusing and immediate shift in tone from the cover and title page extolling the wonders of being not just alive but Alive!, to a macabre series of images of destruction, carnage, and death.

Page after page of accidents, tragedy, and the horrific after-effects of distracted children (mostly on bicycles), having painful encounters with cars, trains, other kids on bicycles - essentially anything and everything a kid in the 40s or 50s could smash a bicyle into. Add in a nice 'creepy stranger in the movie theater' warning, and you've got a nice tight illustrated primer to the dangerous world awaiting any kid crazy enough to venture outside.

And of course after reading about the 50 ways you can get maimed or killed on your bicycle, the entire (surface at least), purpose and message of the guide, 'It's Great to be Alive!', is completely lost; replaced with the more lasting impression of 'Chances are if you leave the house you'll be horribly injured.' Sure, the authors wanted to try and impress upon kids reading the manual that they needed to be careful and aware, (especially near trains, cars, trucks, power lines, bicycles, other kids, and well, everything), but with the over-the-top and relentless focus on pain and tragedy the entire 'It's Great to be Alive! notion is pretty effectively forgotten. It might be great to be alive, but it's far worse to get run over by a bus and crack your skull.

Ok, so here's the hook back to the real world, and not the real world depicted in the chaos and mayhem of our little manual, but the one where we have to communicate with colleagues, peers, candidates, customers, anyone really. It could be our external candidate messaging about how fantastic it is to work in our organization followed up with an uneven, non-responsive, and unwelcoming application and communication process. Or perhaps it's a fantastic and high-touch recruitment experience that morphs into a cold, standard, and rote onboarding process that leaves the new joiner wondering if she made the right decision after all. Or it even could be the 'official' employee manual that spends most of its (probably unread) pages telling people what not to do, and the kinds of trouble that await them, (like getting maimed by a wayward delivery truck), if they transgress.

Truth is, we kind of get used to the negative spin on things. We see it in politics, in the rules and regulations posted all over the place, and it can be easy to see the risk and danger in situations instead of the opportunity and adventure.

But after a while, maybe even a short while, we start only to see the world in these kinds of negative terms, to see new employees, especially ones with a Twitter account as potential sources of embarrassment.  

After a while, too much focusing on what bad things might happen, and every bicycle ride starts to look like a flirtation with disaster.

Hold my calls

Recently a piece in the New York Times titled 'Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You', highlighted our increasing reticence and reluctance to talk on the phone. The article describes the downward trend in adults overall use of voice communications, with increasing time and energy spent on alternated methods of electronic communication - email, text, IM, and social network mediated methods.Can you just send me a text next time?

Past HR Happy Hour Show guest Sherry Turkle devotes an entire chapter of her book 'Alone Together' to this phenomenon. Various people that Turkle interviewed for the book offer explanations ranging from a teenager stating, 'You wouldn't want to call, because then you would have to have a conversation'; to an overworked Gen X professional sharing, '(phone calls) promise more than I am willing to deliver.' Throughout the chapter, we see again and again a general unwillingness to share that most precious commodity in our overscheduled, hyper-connected lives, something known as 'private cell phone time.'

And so whether it is hard date from sources like Nielsen; phone call activity logs kept by recruiters or salespeople; or even personal or anecdotal evidence - once we have accepted this lack of interest or desire of many friends, colleagues, or customers to take our calls what matter know is what we choose to do with this information.

It is common in many sales and recruiting roles for organizations to place quotas on the number and repetitive frequency of calls made to customers, prospects, or potential candidates. These requirements often stem from historical trends - 'X' number of calls will yield 'Y' number of prospects, which will result in 'Z' sales. It is simple, or simple enough math. If you aren't having much luck moving the 'Z' number, then simply fire up the coffee pot and keep dialing, eventually history says the numbers will move in your favor.

But taking that kind of an approach can only work for so long - if indeed there is (and most indications seem to be bearing this out), a more widespread trend favoring other methods of communication, or perhaps more accurately avoiding the phone, then the design of strategies, rewards, performance metrics, and job descriptions that attempt to proscribe particular methods of communication and contact might need to be reconsidered.

A better approach that attempts to account for the ever-changing preferences and profiles of the target market might be something more like, 'We need you to make 'Z' sales. In the past, it would take about 'X' calls to make that happen, but since no one answers the phone any more, we really don't know how many calls you will need to make. In face, making more calls might not be the answer at all. Maybe you have to figure out a new strategy, that factors in blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter, and SMS. Fact is, we don't know. You figure it out.'

The broader issue is, I think, when we try to prescribe to colleagues and employees 'exactly' how to accomplish something, then that becomes the way they will attempt to meet their goals. Once the presciption starts breaking down, we might not have given them the freedom, or equipped them with the capacity to adapt quickly enough to address the changing conditions. 

When the only thing we know how to do is dial the phone, a world where no one answers any more is quite scary indeed.

Emotional Spell Check (we are all really dumb)

In the world of office productivity software like the Microsoft Office suite of programs, (Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, etc.), the 'spell check' feature is so fundamental, so ingrained into our experience of using these tools that we probably can't imagine a word processing or other text-centric application lacking the capability.

At this point could anyone craft a 400 word email or 5 page quarterly report without running spell check at least two or three times?  In fact, spell check is so core to the process of content creation that we take it for granted, and some might contend when the capability is introduced to children in grade school via the use of common office productivity solutions that their ability to actually spell becomes diminished, as they come to rely on the spell check device too heavily.  This likely occurs in adults as well, but we often cleverly convince ourselves we don't really have a spelling problem, we have a typing problem, and that most of the corrections made by spell check are to words we really do know how to spell.

So if we can justify the heavy reliance on spell check as a mere productivity enhancer and not really a crutch, what possibly could we say about the newest 'check' solution launched recently, a product called ToneCheck, which is described as 'the emotional spell check'.  In the words of its creators:

ToneCheck™ is an e-mail plug-in that flags sentences with words or phrases that may convey unintended emotion or tone, then helps you re-write them. Just like Spell Check… but for Tone.

Does your first draft of that email message to your prospect read something like 'Come on already, quit wasting my time and jerking me around. Are you signing the contract or not?

Here is a screen shot of the ToneCheck plug-in activated on a possibly 'emotional' message:

A quick run of the ToneCheck plug-in can flag that passage as 'potentially angry' and suggest that you make some alterations to hit a more 'contented' tone. I suppose you probably knew the 'quit jerking me around' line did have the potential to seem angry.

This functionality has similarities to common features in HR Technology solutions for performance management, namely the 'legal scan' that catches managers from noting things like, 'Sally is really too old to grasp the technical complexity of this project'; and 'managerial helper' kinds of tools that suggest descriptive sentences and paragraphs to accompany objective or competency based ratings.

Having these kinds of helpers and filters and in the case of ToneCheck, a bit of a stop sign put up before you press 'Send' may be beneficial, but I can't help but wonder if these tools are really confirming something many folks often think. That is we really don't know what we are doing, we will quite likely get ourselves and our firms in big trouble if we are not monitored, and at the end of the day we really can't be trusted to spell, keep our emotions in check, and are in fact, really dumb.

Notes:

1.This post is about 500 words, I made 37 spelling mistakes that hopefully were all fixed by spell check.

2. I do not have 'ToneCheck' turned on in the comments, so please feel free to tell me what you really think.