Collaboration sounds great, but it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. A recent cover story in Harvard Business Review looked at the topic of “collaborative overload” and the burnout that can result. According to the article by Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, and Adam Grant, “Over the past two decades, the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more.” In many organizations, they note, the proportion of time spent on meetings, responding to emails, and on the phone hovers at around 80%.
It raises the question: If you spend 80% of your time in meetings or in your inbox, when can you do the solo “deep work,” as productivity writer Cal Newport calls it, that is often necessary to think about the big picture, solve thorny problems, or write your discoveries down?
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