Millions of people are struggling at work. Some are in the wrong jobs. Others feel no connection to their colleagues or engagement with their tasks. The result is rampant dissatisfaction and underachievement. Hallowell, a child psychiatrist specializing in learning differences, describes the Cycle of Excellence, a plan for helping people achieve peak performance. It consists of five steps: Select a job that reflects what you like to do and what you do best and that adds value to the organization. Research has shown that good job fit reduces stress and increases satisfaction and performance. Connect with the people around you. Robust relationships in the workplace galvanize people and build their engagement with their jobs. Small talk may seem trivial, but it pays big dividends. Play on the job. It sounds like an oxymoron, but people do their best-and are most satisfied-when they're imaginatively involved with their work. And when you're hard at play, you're building your brain. Grapple and Grow-that is, work hard to achieve a difficult task. The stress you may feel as you engage with a tough assignment and connect with others to complete it is not the toxic kind. Shine in the acknowledgment of your achievements. Praise releases chemicals that make us feel good, and it fills our uniquely human need to be of value, to matter. If you aren't getting it, ask for it. The need for recognition is fundamental to optimal human performance.

Frenzied executives who fidget through meetings, lose track of their appointments, and jab at the "door close" button on the elevator aren't crazy--just crazed. They suffer from a newly recognized neurological phenomenon that the author, a psychiatrist, calls attention deficit trait, or ADT. It isn't an illness; it's purely a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live. But it has become epidemic in today's organizations. When a manager is desperately trying to deal with more input than he possibly can, the brain and body get locked into a reverberating circuit while the brain's frontal lobes lose their sophistication, as if vinegar were added to wine. The result is black-and-white thinking; perspective and shades of gray disappear. People with ADT have difficulty staying organized, setting priorities, and managing time, and they feel a constant low level of panic and guilt. It is possible to control ADT by engineering one's environment and one's emotional and physical health. Make time every few hours for a "human moment"--a face-to-face exchange with a person you like. Get enough sleep, switch to a good diet, and get adequate exercise. Break down large tasks into smaller ones, and keep a section of your work space clear. Try keeping a portion of your day free of appointments and e-mail. The author recommends that companies invest in amenities that contribute to a positive atmosphere.

Norman Spencer, who grew up poor, worked for two decades to make his investment firm successful and his family wealthy. The company he founded, Arrowhead, is now known on Wall Street as a top-notch boutique firm with $25 billion in assets under management. His family has a mansion in San Francisco and a "cottage" in Nantucket. His 17-year-old daughter drives a BMW, his 13-year-old son takes flying lessons in his own plane, and his wife has a personal feng shui adviser. But at the pinnacle of his career, Norman feels as though he's drowning. Norman's success only makes him feel numb, and his home life is a disaster; his wife is so resentful of his lack of family involvement that she no longer speaks to him. His daughter refused to wish him happy Father's Day. "You're not a father," she said. Alternately harsh and remote at work, this fictional entrepreneur has been asked by one senior executive at Arrowhead to stay away from the analysts. So he spends a lot of time surfing the Internet, looking at real estate in far-flung places, and haunting web sites about missing persons, wondering what became of his younger sister, who ran away from home at age 14. What is wrong with Norman, and how can he fix it? In R00211 and R00213, commentators Edward M. Hallowell, Scott Neely, Jean Hollands and F.R. Manfred Kets de Vries offer advice on this fictional case study.

Norman Spencer, who grew up poor, worked for two decades to make his investment firm successful and his family wealthy. The company he founded, Arrowhead, is now known on Wall Street as a top-notch boutique firm with $25 billion in assets under management. His family has a mansion in San Francisco and a "cottage" in Nantucket. His 17-year-old daughter drives a BMW, his 13-year-old son takes flying lessons in his own plane, and his wife has a personal feng shui adviser. But at the pinnacle of his career, Norman feels as though he's drowning. Norman's success only makes him feel numb, and his home life is a disaster; his wife is so resentful of his lack of family involvement that she no longer speaks to him. His daughter refused to wish him happy Father's Day. "You're not a father," she said. Alternately harsh and remote at work, this fictional entrepreneur has been asked by one senior executive at Arrowhead to stay away from the analysts. So he spends a lot of time surfing the Internet, looking at real estate in far-flung places, and haunting web sites about missing persons, wondering what became of his younger sister, who ran away from home at age 14. What is wrong with Norman, and how can he fix it? In R00211 and R00213, commentators Edward M. Hallowell, Scott Neely, Jean Hollands and Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries offer advice on this fictional case study.

In the last decade or so, technological changes--mainly voice mail and e-mail--have made a lot of face-to-face interaction unnecessary. Face-to-face contact has also fallen victim to "virtuality"--many people work at home or are otherwise off-site. Indeed, most people today can't imagine life without such technology and the freedom it grants. But Edward Hallowell, a noted psychiatrist who has been treating patients with anxiety disorders--many of them business executives--for more than 20 years, warns that we are in danger of losing what he calls the human moment: an authentic psychological encounter that can happen only when two people share the same physical space. And, he believes, we may be about to discover the destructive power of its absence. The author relates stories of business people who have dealt firsthand with the misunderstandings caused by an overreliance on technology. An e-mail message is misconstrued. Someone forwards a voice-mail message to the wrong people. A person takes offense because he was not included on a certain circulation list. Was it an accident? Often the consequences of such misunderstandings, taken individually, are minor. Over time, however, they take a larger toll--both on individuals and on the organizations they work for. The problem, however, is not insoluble. The author cites examples of people who have worked successfully to restore face-to-face contact in their organizations. The bottom line is that the strategic use of the human moment adds color to our lives and helps us build confidence and trust at work. We ignore it at our peril.