Beyond Collaboration Overload: How to Work Smarter, Get Ahead, and Restore Your Well-Being

(Hardback)

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Description

Organisations are addicted to collaboration as the default mode of work and they assume it's good. It's not. Collaboration overload plagues us in ways that prevent us from being our best selves at work and in our lives. But there is an answer: Precision collaboration. The top 10% of workers who now how to work with others intentionally and effectively gain back 18-24% of their time a full workday each week and are happier people living more fulfilling lives. Here's your guide to becoming a precision collaborator.

• Myth-busting and eye-opening treatise on a topic that doesn't get enough critical scrutiny.
• Rigorous research supports ideas.
• Utterly practical approach to applying principles makes content useful above all.
• Well-organised two-part structure that's easy to follow and apply.
• Compelling stories from research.

Audience: Managers, collaborative workers, HR and HR program leaders (who would distribute ala F90D), Learning professionals.

Reviews

Named one of the Best Business Books of 2021 by the Globe & Mail

Named one of the Best Work and Management Books of the Past Year by Charter

Shortlisted for the Outstanding Works of Literature (OWL) Award in the Management & Culture Category

"Beyond Collaboration Overload convincingly argues that well-meaning attempts at transparency, communication, and collaboration can go awry when they consume too much of our energy. Cross offers useful tips for how to reclaim your time and a compelling vision of what healthy networking and collaboration look like...Cross offers a timely caution against overdoing the connection and communication that are hallmarks of modern workplaces, including tactics like cutting time allotted for meetings in half and discouraging replies to emails." Charter

"Beyond Collaboration Overload earns its spot among this year's best business books for several reasons. It disabuses us of the notion that collaboration per se is a good thing. It defines dysfunctional collaboration and identifies its many causes. It provides a host of research-derived tools and techniques for managing collaboration in ways that benefit people and the organizations they work within. And, of course, there's the welcome prospect of getting one day per week of your life back." strategy+business

"In his new book, professor Rob Cross shows how to rethink beliefs, structures and behaviours to help us adopt new patterns of interacting more efficiently. There is also a plan for dealing with collaboration overload to improve performance and innovation." Financial Times

"At a time when so many of us have allowed our focus and relationships to become unidimensional, in orbit around our work, Rob Cross offers a framework that focuses us back on our fuller lives. And that may be exactly what we need to be happier and more productive at work." Porchlight Books, Staff Pick

"Thoroughly 'reader friendly' in style, organization and presentation, Beyond Collaboration Overload: How to Work Smarter, Get Ahead, and Restore Your Well-Being must be considered essential reading for any corporate executive charged with the responsibility of maintaining an effective work force at all levels of their business." Midwest Book Review

"A perceptive guide to working smarter and staying on top in our 'always-on', highly-collaborative world." Developing Leaders magazine

Advance Praise for Beyond Collaboration Overload:

"Rob Cross has produced a genuine marvel. He shows why collaboration is often overused and underwhelmingand how we can enlist its power more humanely and strategically. This is an essential book on an essential topic by an essential mind." Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author, When, Drive, and To Sell Is Human

"Beyond Collaboration Overload is a powerful leadership tool for us all as we move into a postpandemic, hyperconnected world of work." Jacqueline Williams-Roll, Chief Human Resources Officer, General Mills

"OK, you're really busy. Why should you take the time to read this book Only because it will save your work life and your home life. Only because if you follow its prescriptions you'll be both happier and more effective. Only because it's based on solid evidence from leading firms and leaders. Do it!" Thomas H. Davenport, President's Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management, Babson College; Visiting Professor, Oxford's Sad Business School; Visiting Scholar, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy

If youre drowning in emails and meetings, look no further than this book. Drawing on a wealth of evidence and experience, Cross has written an unusually practical guide to help you make your collaborations more efficient and effective. Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author, Think Again; host, TED podcast WorkLife with Adam Grant

Every leader needs to study this bookcarefully. It's loaded with insights about how to scale up your leadership and help others to do more while maximizing your time in the process! Tom Rath, former Senior Scientist, Gallup; author, Eat, Move, Sleep and Well Being

Author Bio

Rob Cross is the Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College and the cofounder and Chief Research Scientist of the Connected Commons business consortium. For more twenty years, he has studied the underlying networks of effective organizations and the collaborative practices of high performers. Working with more than three hundred organizations and reaching thousands of leaders from the front line to the C-suite, he has identified specific ways to cultivate vibrant, effective networks at all levels of an organization and at any career stage.

Cross has authored six Harvard Business Review articles on practical approaches to enhancing collaboration. He is the coauthor of five books, including The Hidden Power of Social Networks.

You can find more about Rob Cross at
robcross.org
connectedcommons.com