It's funny. On my development team we have four younger guys (mid-late twenties) and three older guys (35+). By far the most distracted people on the team are

It's funny. On my development team we have four younger guys (mid-late twenties) and three older guys (35+). By far the most distracted people on the team are the older ones. In meetings they tend to lose focus, look at their computers, misremembered what's said, or just seem to tune it out. I've made a habit of specifically managing how they are perceiving what I'm saying -- looking at their eyes, seeing if they're distracted, asking lots of confirming questions. And outside of meetings, they don't pay attention to our online communication channels enough. If anything, my experience has been that it's the older generation that sucks at paying attention to the right things in the new super connected world.