Beyond Collaboration Overload

If you’re drowning in emails and meetings, look no further than this book. Drawing on a wealth of evidence and experience, Rob 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

Rob Cross has produced a genuine marvel. He shows why collaboration is often overused and underwhelming—and 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

Every leader needs to study this book, carefully. 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

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 Saïd Business School; Visiting Scholar, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy

Most readers will immediately recognize the profound truth of collaborative overload, which haunts organizations and people in every vital modern industry. In compelling stories that bring each chapter to life, Rob Cross documents the emotional toll and productivity drain of collaborative overload and offers a way out—with the concept of essential collaboration. Practical and wise, this book is a game changer.

—Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School; author, The Fearless Organization

Beyond Collaborative Overload is the most positively disruptive book I have read in years. Grounded in two decades of research, the book brilliantly conveys how high performers are able to reclaim 18–24 percent of their time by intentionally cultivating their most essential connections. The results are profound: greater innovation, performance, and well-being. Contrary to conventual wisdom, when it comes to your network, more is not always better.

—Michael J. Arena, Vice President, Talent & Development, AWS; author, Adaptive Space

This must-read book is a practical, evidence-based recipe for thriving in today’s hyperconnected organizations. Get ready to confront common fallacies, like the conventional advice to build large networks and collaborate rapidly. Replace them with proven ways to actually reduce unnecessary collaboration and cultivate the pivotal connections that support both performance and well-being. Beyond Collaboration Overload provides a much-needed foundation to thrive in, rather than endure, the new world of work.

—John Boudreau, Professor of Management, Emeritus, and Senior Research Scientist, Center for Effective Organizations and Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California; author, Beyond HR, Retooling HR, Lead the Work, and Reinventing Jobs

Never in history have we had greater ability to shape our work and who we collaborate with. Why do we so quickly give up that control and choose to endure careers in a stressed-out and reactive posture? Beyond Collaboration Overload provides the insights and resources for us all to proactively manage collaborative demands and invest in connections that help us thrive in both work and life.

—Herminia Ibarra, Charles Handy Chair in Organizational Behavior, London Business School

Effective leadership and management both begin at home. And Rob Cross, a respected thought leader, brings it to your doorstep. To help you lead in an often dizzying environment of accelerating demands, Cross has compiled a set of best practices on how to make ourselves more effective leaders for our organizations, and happier at the same time. Only read this if you want to accomplish more, but with less stress.

—General Stan McChrystal, US Army Retired; author, Team of Teams and Leaders

Employees are not simply bundles of skills that we can bring together in the latest future-of-work scenario to work as seamlessly as we think. They are embedded in networks of connections that when intentionally cultivated can be the difference between an overwhelmed, stressed-out workforce and one that is thriving—both on screen and in person. Cross’s two decades of research in Beyond Collaboration Overload provides this much-needed road map, especially in times of evolution and change.

—Dean Carter, Chief Human Resources Officer, Patagonia; former Chief Human Resources Officer, Sears

Beyond Collaboration Overload presents compelling studies and stories that show how too much of a good thing can be terrible. Rob Cross’s masterpiece is packed with proven advice to help you, and those you lead, streamline your networks, meetings, emails, and webinars so that, rather than feeling frazzled and exhausted day after day, you will feel energized and be more productive and creative.

—Robert I. Sutton, Professor of Organizational Behavior, Stanford School of Business; bestselling author, The No Asshole Rule and coauthor, Scaling Up Excellence

Ensuring workforce performance and well-being in today’s networked economy has quickly become an organizational and societal imperative. Cross’s research and resources provide practical and easy-to-apply strategies to help us all.”

—Ashley Goldsmith, Chief People Officer, Workday

The future of work will require people to manage networks and collaboration more intentionally. Beyond Collaborative Overload provides a recipe for doing that. It’s a must-read for high-growth organizations and provides a blueprint of what will be required of us all for the foreseeable future.

—Stuart Hockridge, Senior Vice President, Global Human Resources, Align

Collaboration is critical to individual performance and well-being today. Based on two decades of research, Beyond Collaboration Overload shows how people can succeed in today’s hyperconnected economy by streamlining collaborative demands and investing in connections that enable scale and innovation.

—Trudy Stein, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, IQVIA

Work is geometrically more interdependent and complex in a post-Covid world. This makes the volume, diversity, and friction of collaborative demand overwhelming. We know that more meetings, faster, is not the answer, which makes this book centrally important today. Cross’s writing and research are always powerful, and this is no exception—compelling, reality-based storytelling of leaders figuring out what works, right now!

—Dennis Baltzley, Global Solution Leader, Leadership Development, Korn Ferry

Academic research has provided very powerful insights to understand the link between peoples’ networks and their success at work, at home, and in life. Cross’s Beyond Collaboration Overload adds to this body of work through interviews with hundreds of successful leaders. The insights, tools, and practical applications throughout this book make it a critical resource in today’s collaboratively intense work.

—Nancy Vitale, cofounder and Managing Partner, Partners for Wellbeing; former Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Genentech