Feeling overwhelmed by constant collaboration? You're not alone. Uncover the nine underlying beliefs and fears that often fuel this overload. Let's delve into the psychological aspects that might be contributing to your stress and explore ways to regain control of your work-life balance.
Collaboration Overload
We are collaborating too much
- To reduce the overload, one essential step to take is to recognize the desires, needs, feelings, expectations and behaviors that lead us to taking on too much.
- Rob Cross looks at some of the most common and how we can counter them.
Trigger #6: Fear of losing control of a project
Control-oriented people never seem to have enough information, a clear-enough process or a perfect-enough plan.
- What you can do: Draw a line between high-risk tasks that do require you to hold on to the work and the lower-risk work that you can delegate without concern.
Trigger #8: Discomfort with ambiguity
The ambiguity-averse argue that uncertainty can create chaos; it’s better to do the research and have the discussions well ahead of time so all the details are pinned down.
- But pinning things down can lead to significant overload, not only for the manager but for the employees who run around looking for hard facts in the fog of uncertainty.
FOMO
The fear of missing out on better projects, better colleagues and better opportunities can become a persistent, nagging problem that won’t let you rest or stay in the moment.
- What you can do: Before jumping into a new project, make sure that your plans aren’t driven by an emotional, knee-jerk reaction based on fear or social comparison
- Bring people with a broader scope of responsibilities into your network.
Trigger #4: Concern about being labeled a poor performer or colleague
When we get requests from bosses or others, most of us don’t want to hesitate or be seen as complaining
- Offer choices, such as “What order would you like me to get these done in?”
- Create transparency into your capability and capacity
Trigger #1: The desire to help others
If you jump in too quickly or too often, you can become a target for ever-expanding requests that bog you down and prevent you from meeting your bigger goals
- Develop an awareness of why people beat a path to your door. Is it because you represent the route of least resistance? If so, learn to be comfortable saying no.
Trigger #5: The need to be right
Being on top of all the details can lead to unproductive activities
- Admit that you don’t know the exact answer, and are willing to find out
- Establish this early on, at the beginning of a project or when you join a new group
Need for closure
Remind yourself that closure – or an empty email inbox – should not be your sole priority. Let nonpriority work or requests wait or slide off your radar altogether.
- Do not attend every meeting on your calendar. Skip those where your input isn’t needed.
Trigger #2: The sense of fulfillment from accomplishment
The desire to help and the satisfaction from accomplishment set up expectations in ourselves and others that can get out of control
- When we continually intervene, we expect those we’re helping to respond, which adds to their workload
- Practice avoiding activities that give you the rush of accomplishment for accomplishment’s sake by extracting yourself or giving partial direction while building others’ capabilities
Trigger #3: The desire to be influential or recognized for expertise
Don’t look for status in the expertise and knowledge that defined you yesterday. Let go of those old, familiar ways of interacting so you can create the space to develop in new ways as a leader who enables the team to take ownership and engage independently
