Named the Best Management Book of 2021 by strategy+business Named one of this month's top
titles in the Financial Times in September 2021 Named to the longlist for the 2021 Outstanding
Works of Literature (OWL) Award in the Management & Culture category A plan for conquering
collaborative overload to drive performance and innovation reduce burnout and enhance
well-being. Most organizations have created always-on work contexts that are burning people out
and hurting performance rather than delivering productivity innovation and engagement.
Collaborative work consumes 85% of employees' time and is drifting earlier into the morning
later into the night and deeper into the weekend. The dilemma is that we all need to
collaborate more to create effective organizations and vibrant careers for ourselves. But
conventional wisdom on teamwork and collaboration has created too much of the wrong kind of
collaboration which hurts our performance health and overall well-being. In Beyond
Collaboration Overload Babson professor Rob Cross solves this paradox by showing how top
performers who thrive at work collaborate in a more purposeful way that makes them 18-24% more
efficient than their peers. Good collaborators are distinguished by the efficiency and
intentionality of their collaboration-not the size of their network or the length of their
workday. Through landmark research with more than 300 organizations in-depth stories and
tools Beyond Collaboration Overload will coach you to reclaim close to a day a week when you:
Identify and challenge beliefs that lead you to collaborate too quickly Impose structure in
your work to prevent unproductive collaboration Alter behaviors to create more efficient
collaboration It then outlines how successful people invest this reclaimed time to: Cultivate a
broad network-not a big one-for innovation and scale Energize others-a strong predictor of high
performance Connect with others to reduce micro-stressors and enhance physical and mental
well-being Cross' framework provides relief from the definitive problem of our
age-dysfunctional collaboration at the expense of our performance health and overall
well-being.
