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Rob Cross is the founder and research director of the Connected Commons, a consortium of over 100 leading organizations accelerating network research and practice.

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Rob Cross logo

Speaker, Educator, Consultant.

  • Home
  • About
  • Network Strategies
    • Elevate Personal Performance and Well-being
    • Accelerate Role Transitions
    • Execute Critical Work through Networks
    • Propel Organizational Agility and Alignment
    • Promote Rapid Innovation
  • Speaking
  • Work With Rob
  • Courses and Tools
    • Resources: Elevate Personal Performance and Well-being
    • Resources: Accelerate Role Transitions
    • Resources: Execute Critical Work through Networks
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The Microstress Effect

What Readers are Saying…

The Microstress Effect is a revelation. Cross and Dillon offer practical and sensible strategies for regaining control of your time and your well-being, drawn from years of academic research. If small hassles and burdens are infecting your life, this remarkable book is the antidote.

—Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author, The Power of Regret, Drive and When

Cross and Dillon provide fresh insight into one of the most important topics of our time—why so many high performers are at risk of burnout in both their careers and their lives. Based on solid academic research, The Microstress Effect offers not only hope but also practical guidance for fending off microstress and living a rich, fulfilling life.

—Susan David, #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Emotional Agility

With stories that everyone can relate to, easy-to-use self-assessments, and practical coaching breaks, the authors offer us real hope that we can create a happier and healthier life for ourselves and those around us. This book should be required reading for corporate leaders and individuals alike! I will be giving it to the people I care most about.

—Jacqueline Williams-Roll, Chief Human Resources Officer, General Mills

I read this brilliant book and said “Yup, yup, yup” over and over again. Cross and Dillon put the experiences of high performers into words. Microstresses exist and cause inordinate social, emotional, and physical risk. Following their astute insights, readers will recognize their stresses and how to overcome them. Nothing could be more meaningful in this emotionally demanding time.

—Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Collegiate Professor of Business Administration, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan; Partner, The RBL Group

Timely, practical, credible, and timeless, with more practical tips for lowering my stress levels than anything I’ve read in years, The Microstress Effect is a game changer. I read it in one sitting and need the people around me to read it—now!

—Tom Rath, bestselling author, StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Life’s Great Question

Cross and Dillon shed light on the unexpected ripple effect of our daily interactions and relationships, clarifying the critical nature of human connections in this important new book. Introducing microstress as new form of stress, they also provide practical steps for fighting back. Everyone can benefit from reading this book.

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

The Microstress Effect gives fresh, actionable advice to fight back, take control, and live a richer life each day.

Dorie Clark, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, The Long Game; faculty member, Executive Education, Duke University Fuqua School of Business

With so much attention being paid to individual well-being, it’s astounding that so little consideration has been given to the day-to-day microstress every one of us endures. Thank goodness for Rob Cross and Karen Dillon. In The Microstress Effect they help us recognize this invisible epidemic and leverage research to help us remove microstress so we can live healthier and happier lives.

—Kevin Oakes, CEO, Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp)

This is an enlightening work on a new, insidious, and invisible form of stress that is derailing even the most high-performing employees. But the authors offer solutions as well. This book should be required reading for business leaders in organizations of all sizes.

—John Boudreau, Emeritus Professor of Management and Organization, Emeritus, and Research Director, Center for Effective Organizations, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

Cross and Dillon have done a masterful job of flipping our thinking. Their identification of microstressors that sits below our perceptual threshold is uniquely powerful. Just as powerful is the idea that the sheer number of necessary connections we must have today can be reframed and redirected to create resilience rather than spiraling down into collaborative and connective overload. A post pandemic must-read for business leaders.

—Dennis Baltzley, Senior Partner and Global Head of Leadership Development, Korn Ferry

The Microstress Effect makes a compelling case that, for most of us, it’s the cumulative impact of one little problem after another that can ruin our lives. Rob Cross and Karen Dillon pack this lively gem with practical and proven solutions. It will help you eliminate pesky microstressors, suffer less from your remaining troubles, and—by taking joy in the lovely little moments—travel through your days with a zest for life.

—Robert I. Sutton, Professor of Organizational Behavior, Stanford Graduate School of Business; bestselling author, The No Asshole Rule, Good Boss, Bad Boss; and coauthor (with Huggy Rao), Scaling Up Excellence

Powerful! The Microstress Effect gives you the actionable steps you need to take control of your life and create a balance in your work that leaves you feeling fulfilled. A must-read for anyone feeling stuck in a cycle of stress and hurry!

—Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach; New York Times bestselling author (with Mark Reiter), The Earned Life, Triggers, and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Chock full of practical tools, this empowering guide reminds us of the critical importance of relationships and shows us how to meaningfully cultivate them in our everyday choices.

—Stew Friedman, Practice Professor of Management, Emeritus, The Wharton School of Business; author, Total Leadership

The Microstress Effect is a real eye-opener and will forever change the way I look at stress. I absolutely recommend it for anyone who wants to regain their energy, focus on what truly matters, and live a life fully in alignment with their core values.

—Friederike Fabritius, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, The Brain-Friendly Workplace

The Microstress Effect

Build resilience against microstress, find purpose, and cultivate relationships that enable you to thrive both at work and in life.

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The Microstress Effect by Rob Cross and Karen Dillion

PreOrder Now!

More About The Microstress Effect

There is a force in our everyday lives that we aren’t aware of—
and it’s so powerful it threatens to derail otherwise promising careers and lives: microstress.

It’s the hidden epidemic of small moments of stress that infiltrate both our work and personal lives. Because each individual microstress is so small, it doesn’t trigger the normal stress response in our brains to help us deal with it. Instead, the microstress embeds in our minds, accumulating along with scores of other microstresses. The long-term effect is devastating: microstress invisibly weighs us down, damages our physical and emotional health, and contributes to a decline in our overall well-being. What’s more, microstress is baked into our lives. The source is seldom a classic antagonist, such as a demanding client or jerk boss. Instead, it comes from the people—in and out of work—with whom we are closest: our friends, family, and colleagues.

The good news is that once you learn about microstress, you can fight back. Drawing on fresh research, Rob Cross and Karen Dillon will explain the science behind what microstress is doing to you and teach you how to recognize and manage the most common forms of microstress, and even remove some from your life. Compelling interviews with high achievers who’ve endured their share of microstress bring to life best practices that show you how to build resilience against microstress, and ultimately how to find purpose in your everyday life, using it as an antidote to your own microstress.

Break free from the microstress that’s stealing your life. Preorder now.

About the Authors

Rob Cross

Rob Cross is the Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College, cofounder and director of the Connected Commons, and the author of Beyond Collaboration Overload (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021).

Karen Dillon

Karen Dillon is contributing editor to Harvard Business Review and the co-author of three books with Clayton Christensen, including the New York Times bestseller, How Will You Measure Your Life?

Explore the 14 Microstressors Revealed in Our Research

Click on the category below to explore different sources of microstress

Microstressors

Misaligned Roles and Priorities
Keep misalignment from causing stress by building shared commitment to roles, priorities, and resources and making quick course corrections.
Watch Video
Small Performance Misses from Colleagues
Reduce the stress of colleagues’ small performance misses by addressing early warning signs, building accountability, and not owning others’ missteps.
Watch Video
Unpredictable Authority Figures
Reduce the stress that comes from unpredictable authority figures by anticipating their needs, building in buffer time, and rebalancing work.
Watch Video
Inefficient Communication Practices
Improve inefficient communication practices by shaping norms and expectations, streamlining interactions, and guarding against personal tendencies that drive overload.
Watch Video
Surges in Responsibilities
Reduce the negative impact of sudden surges by refining what is asked of you, redirecting work, and securing assistance.
Watch Video
Managing and Advocating for Others
Keep misalignment from causing stress by building shared commitment to roles, priorities, and resources and making quick course corrections.
Watch Video
Confrontational Conversations
Minimize the stress of confrontational conversations by ensuring alignment, focusing on facts, and expressing empathy and good intent.
Watch Video
Lack of Trust
Build trust in you and your team members to reduce uncertainty about motives and concern about whether people will perform as needed.
Watch Video
Secondhand Stress
Prevent stress from diffusing by checking your own reactions and coaching others to prioritize and not pass their stress on to others.
Watch Video
Political Maneuvering
Counteract the stress of politics by talking with opinion leaders, building coalitions, and aligning tightly with your leader.
Watch Video
Conflict with your Personal Values
Reduce stress created when work challenges your values by clarifying professional objectives, reinvesting in life outside work, and maintaining your commitment to personal priorities.
Watch Video
Confidence or Control Undermined
Minimize stress from having confidence or control undermined by building trust proactively, understanding causes of conflict, and co-creating expectations.
Watch Video
Draining or other Negative Interactions with Family or Friends
Reduce stressful interactions with family or friends by aligning on goals, modifying interactions, and creating boundaries.
Watch Video
Disruptions to Your Network
Avoid stress created when relied-on networks change by leaning into transitions, helping others, and reconnecting with past colleagues and communities.
Watch Video

Select Media

The Hidden Toll of Microstress

Harvard Business Review

The Hidden Toll of Microstress

Linkedin News

Linkedin News

Today’s Top 10 Highlights

Experiencing microstress

Fortune

Are you a high flyer like Rihanna? You may have the same ‘microstress’ that makes her work-life balance ‘almost impossible.’

The Next Big Idea Club’s April 2023 Must-Read Books

Next Big Idea Club

April 2023 Must-Read Books

How tiny stresses pile up — and what to do about it

Axios

How tiny stresses pile up — and what to do about it

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About Rob Cross

Rob CrossRob Cross has studied the underlying network dynamics of effective organizations and the collaborative practices of high performers for more than 20 years. Through research and writing, speaking and consulting, and courses and tools, Rob’s network strategies are transforming the way people lead, work and live in a hyper-connected world.

More About Rob

About Connected Commons

Connected Commons logoRob Cross is the research director and a co-founder of Connected Commons, a consortium of leading organizations accelerating network research and practice.

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