Clawing Back Time from Collaborative Overload

Creativity and Communication

How do you stretch your creativity? How do you communicate more effectively? Writing poetry can help you do both. Not in the way you may have come to understand through the greats like Shakespeare, Rumi, or May Angelou. But in a more personal (not public way like what is about to happen ??) and practical way. I use it for things like

• Understanding my emotions and shifting emotional states
• Visualization—I find it easier to write the vision I want to create before I can run images through my mind in visualization. Plus, poetry's playfulness removes the pressure associated with goals and opens the door to a more creative flow.?
• Communication?- poetry?forces you to get to the essence of what you want to communicate.?There is profound wisdom in communicating succinctly whether that's to an audience or your subconscious mind.

Recently, I have had the inkling to write more poetry. I put my?non-linear ?brain to work on how I might use it to highlight the absurdity at work in many organizations. How might I communicate in a way that awakens leaders to seek ways to design their organization for a better experience for all (leaders, employees, and customers)?

Collaborating with AI to Call Out the Absurdity of Work

While true creativity and innovation come from human intelligence and not the regurgitation of all that exists to date through learning language models like Gemini and OpenAI ChatGPT, it is still a helpful tool. So, without bearing the vulnerabilities of specific organizations, I decided to hunt for absurdities at work in one of my favorite magazines -?Harvard Business Review. ?A glance at?their posted articles ?on LinkedIn and this one caught my curiosity.

How to Collaborate without Burning Out

So, I asked ChatGPT to "give me five things that might be absurd from this article." It quickly obliged. Here is what it came up with.?

Five Absurdities at Work from Collaborative Overload Research

1. Overwhelming Workload Portrayed as an Individual Problem: The article suggests that collaborative overload is primarily an issue that individuals need to solve on their own through self-management techniques. This approach overlooks the systemic factors contributing to overload, such as organizational culture, unrealistic expectations, and ineffective processes.?While individual strategies can help, they might?not?address the root causes of collaborative overload.
2. Attribution of Collaborative Overload to Personal Mindsets and Habits: The article implies that collaborative overload is partly caused by individuals' own mindsets and habits, such as the desire to be seen as helpful or influential.?While personal factors can contribute to overload, they may?not?fully explain why collaborative demands have surged in recent years.?Ignoring broader societal and organizational trends could oversimplify the issue.
3. Suggestion?of Easily Attainable Time Reclamation: The article claims that individuals can?claw back?18% to 24% of their collaborative time by implementing just a few strategic self-management practices.?This assertion might?oversimplify?the difficulty of changing ingrained work habits and?underestimates?the complexities of managing collaborative demands in modern workplaces.
4. Emphasis on Individual Responsibility Over Organizational Solutions: While acknowledging the role of organizational factors in collaborative overload, the article places greater?emphasis?on individual actions for addressing the issue. This approach could absolve organizations of their responsibility to implement systemic changes that promote healthier work practices and reduce overload for all employees.
5. Implication of Inevitability and Lack of Structural Change: The article suggests that collaborative demands are a "reality that's here to stay" and implies that organizations are not managing collaborative activity strategically. This fatalistic view overlooks the potential for organizations to implement structural changes, such as?clearer?communication channels, better workflow processes, and more reasonable workload expectations, to mitigate collaborative overload.

Shifting from Digital to Paper

Armed with the absurdities ChatGPT had generated, I shut my laptop. I shifted to pen and paper to craft a poem that would encapsulate decades of user interviews, deep dives into employee experience, and my personal experience. Having survived ten M&As in ten years as a Banking VP, transversing each time through the challenge of bringing two opposing teams together for success, I decided to channel all the collaborative overload stories I had accumulated.?

So, without further ado, here's "Clawing back Time," aptly named from a cringe-worthy line in the?Harvard Business Review ?article.?

Clawing Back Time

You own my time and how I spend my nine-to-five.

You own the systems and say?it allows?the company to thrive.

You own the policies and processes by which you say we can't survive.

You own the projects designed to innovate.

But when it comes to collaborative overload, you manage to skate.

Responsibilities for the burden.

That makes the death of my mental health certain.

The problem is me, so your ego's determined.

Balancing the organizational dysfunction becomes the responsibility of one person.

Focus on one goal you advise and watch the overload come undone.

Alas, I can save my soul if I claw back time with the skill of a surgeon.

But do not worry, do not fret.

Though my eyes become blurry, I know what I will get.

Time for self-management, reflection, and focused individual work.

Time for passion, autonomy, and purpose - those will be my perks.

When at last I claw back time from you Jerks.?

-Overloaded Leader

Your Turn

Share your thoughts on collaborative overload and what effective ways you've seen organizations tackle the problem. Or feel free to share your own #absurdityatwork story.