[yial]

I wouldn’t relate this directly to cognitive performance.

But my anecdotal experience working with younger employees / interns has been an uptick in situations where they become “paralyzed” by a fear of making a mistake, coupled with the inability to ask questions / seek out help.

They’ll google, or use ai, but if that doesn’t deliver an answer instead of asking a co worker, they will sit on an issue until someone follows up with them.

There also seems to be a huge fear of submitting “something” that’s not good enough where the preference seems to be “nothing” if they’re worried it’s not good enough.

I notice this in organizations I’ve been in leadership roles, but also have had this expressed to me by a half dozen peers in other organizations.

[yial]

Submitting nothing and missing a deadline is probably worse than submitting something. It’s great in the way of good to an extreme.

I would say this trend started in 2019/2020 however.