Many leaders are now aware of the dangers of collaboration overload and collaboration-tool overload in the workplace. The evidence continues to mount that, for many organizations, the costs associated with meetings, emails, IMs and other forms of workforce collaboration now exceed the benefits.
Collaboration Overload Is a Symptom of a Deeper Organizational Problem
Many people experience the problem of collaboration overload in today’s workplace. But what often gets overlooked when designing solutions is that collaboration overload is almost always a symptom of some deeper organizational pathology and rarely an ailment that can be treated effectively on its own. Attempts to liberate unproductive time by employing new tools (for example, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Box) or imposing new guidelines and meeting disciplines will prove fruitless unless steps are taken to deal with the underlying organizational illness. Companies that have successfully combatted the excesses of overload have done so by focusing on the root causes of unproductive collaboration — and not merely the symptoms — in devising the cure. Bain research found that the most productive companies — namely, the top quartile in a study of 300 large corporations worldwide — lose 50% less time to unnecessary and ineffective collaboration than the rest. This article shares the five ways that these companies attack the underlying causes of collaboration overload and drive greater workforce productivity.