New i4cp Report: How to Avoid Collaborative Overload

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August 8, 2018
August 8, 2018
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In the January / February 2016 issue of Harvard Business Review, co-authors Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, and Adam Grant noted that in recent decades the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more. In fact, their research found most knowledge workers spend 85% or more of their time in a given week on email, in meetings, and on the phone, placing an enormous (and invisible) cost on organizations and people.

While it is clear from Cross’ pioneering research that collaborative overload is a growing problem, it’s one that is overlooked in most organizations.

In fact, ensuring that people/roles do not become so overloaded with collaborative demands that they are unable to make positive contributions was revealed in our research as a critical next practice. Though cited by 2.5x more high-performance organizations than low-performance organizations, only 16% overall indicated they are highly effective at this practice.

The final brief in i4cp’s four-part series on purposeful collaboration practices, conducted in partnership with Cross, has been released: download How to Avoid Collaborative Overload, available for a limited time.

This brief contains:

  • Effective ways to identify and avoid collaborative overload
  • Four research-based workplace practices that enable collaboration
  • Several next practices high-performance organizations are implementing
  • A link to Cross’ Collaborative Overload assessment

Each of the practices explored in the brief can be effective in helping to expose and/or remediate an aspect of collaboration that poses significant (and often hidden) risk to any organization: overload.

Download How to Avoid Collaborative Overload now.

Thomas Stone
Tom Stone is a Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). He has led major research studies on workforce readiness, hybrid and remote work, HR technology, leadership behaviors, succession management, automation and AI, and other topics. Tom is the regular co-host of i4cp's Next Practices Weekly event series, leads i4cp's HR benchmarking efforts, and is heavily involved with i4cp’s Chief Learning and Talent Officer Board and i4cp’s Workforce Planning Exchange. Tom has 25+ years of experience in the Learning and Development and broader Human Capital industry. Prior to joining i4cp, Tom was Director, Technology Based Learning at Dale Carnegie Training, where he led the product development for their live online and other digital offerings. Earlier in his career Tom also served as a Senior Research Analyst at Taleo and held various positions, including Product Design Architect and Content Development Manager at Element K. Tom is a popular speaker and has spoken at over 150 regional, national, and international conferences on a wide range of topics. He is also co-author of the book "Interact and Engage! 75+ Activities for Virtual Training, Meetings, and Webinars" (ATD Press, Second Edition, 2022). In addition to his research and writing in the Human Capital industry, Tom is also an avid baseball fan and wrote the book "Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises" (ACTA Sports, 2019).