tnr2013 rob cross, where has the time gone addressing collaboration overload in a networked economy

Collaborative Efficiency:

A Critical Dimension of Network Effectiveness

© 2013 Activate Networks

Formal Structure

S u th e r la n d

S m ith

C ro s s le y

D h il lo n

Z a h e e r

K e lle r

A n g e lo

S c h u ltz

C o rd o z a

K lim c h u c k

M itc h e ll

M c W a tte rs

M y e rs

R a m ire z

A v e ry

M a re s

H o p p e r

H u s s a n

M ila v e c

W a r in g

Informal Structure

Networks are often under-appreciated in comparison to

the formal structure.

Exploration & Production

Zaheer

Schultz

Mitchell

Klimchuck

Angelo

Keller

Smith

Geology Dhillon

Myers

Petrophysical Crossley

Exploration Avery

Cordoza

Sutherland

Ramirez

Drilling McWatters

Waring

Production Hussan

Reservoir Hopper

Production Milavec

Senior Vice President Mares


Networks are often under-appreciated in comparison to

the formal structure.

S u th e r la n d

S m ith

C ro s s le y

D h il lo n

Z a h e e r

K e lle r

A n g e lo

S c h u ltz

C o rd o z a

K lim c h u c k

M itc h e ll

M c W a tte rs

M y e rs

R a m ire z

A v e ry

M a re s

H o p p e r

H u s s a n

M ila v e c

W a r in g

Informal Structure What are the downsides

to organizational or

individual performance

of too many Mitchells?

Matrix based structures

or many collaborative

tools don’t account for

imbalances in network

connectivity.


Executive Director

Director 1

Director 2

Director 3

Director 4

Associate Director 1






Portfolio Lead

Admin

Formal Restructuring and Network Overload

18 DR 9 DR 0 DR 9 DR 11 DR 9 DR 8 DR 12 DR 0 DR 9 DR 2 DR

11 DR

65

Informal Collaboration: Including direct reports,

how many others indicate this person is an

important source of information and

collaboration?

105 75 75 66 73 41

92

Key Overloaded Individuals: would

reducing span of control to 8 DRs help

enough? More may be needed

Greater Access: What % of

collaborators indicate greater access

would be helpful or crucial?

18% 32% 25% 23% 20% 15% 22%

36%

Others seem to be doing well; maybe the solution is

unit-specific and not one-size-fits-all?

Subject Matter Experts:

Adding DRs can derail their

ability to positively impact org.

95

14%


Too often the things that make you successful – being accessible, a problem solver, etc – become career de-railers at

the next level of responsibility

• His effectiveness suffering…

•Health problems (overweight, high

cholesterol, pre-diabetic).

•Family problems (stress of work came

into home life).

•Interactions at work becoming more

toxic.

•Subordinates intimidated and over-

prepping.

•Peers though he was becoming an

A*(%)hole.

• His group’s performance was suffering…

• Many people on the fringe were

disheartened by missed opportunities.

• Several geographies were extremely

disconnected.

• Top team had significant blind spots

into key functions.

• Churn and gridlock on increasingly

routine decisions.

Meet Scott P.


Scott initially focused on structural drivers of overload – informational requests and routine decisions that he did not need

to be involved with

Project management: travel

approvals, capital approval,

budget, manuscript clearance

forms, project strategy, etc

Capital requests

and justifications

Alliance and collaboration

management

decisions (confidentiality

agreements, milestone

payments, etc.)

IT and data systems: data

management, tools,

reporting, workflow,

data processing

Performance review

and planning

processes that were

non-developmental.

Experimental planning,

protocols, setup and

design. Technical

planning and technical

alignment.


He also focused on behaviors – things he did that created network reliance/overload

• Sent employees to meetings he had been attending to

either be “in the know” or protect his group.

• Began to ask more questions (and answer fewer) while

connecting people around him in the network.

• Was more selective on problems that he jumped into to

help others solve.

• Became more cautious in improving employees’ plans

(don’t do if not more than 25% impact).

• Focused on addressing conflict earlier so that problems

did not manifest deep into the network.

• Began using a blog to communicate certain ideas more

consistently.


What Practices Promote Efficient Collaboration In Your Organizations?

Five Minutes In Small Groups:

Identify three things you (or others) do to efficiently manage

collaborative demands and be prepared to share one from your group.

Think broadly about things like:

• Technology use (e.g., norms on email, use of collaborative tools, etc.)

and mis-use (e.g., do you move off email when sensing mis-alignment),

• Meeting planning (e.g., purpose, agenda, etc.), communication (who is

invited and prep, who is legitimately excused, etc.) and process,

• Shifting routine decision approvals or information requests (e.g., pushing

info requests to others, documentation, blogs etc.),

• Building bench strength and legitimacy of others in the network (e.g.,

taking them to meetings early so they can sub for you later) and keeping

them from pushing you back into central position by empowering.

• Checking your own tendencies (e.g., jumping in too early to solve

problems, handling bad news poorly, addressing conflict early, etc.).


Structural:

1. What routine decisions are you involved in (such as travel approvals, hiring or

promotion decisions, and small capital expenditures) that could be reallocated to

less-overloaded people or embedded in a policy?

2. What information are you routinely sought for that could be made available through

others or on web sites?

3. What portions of your role could you shift to people deeper in the network as a

developmental opportunity for them?

4. Do people around you filter and focus inquiries to ensure that issues reaching you

are targeted to expertise you currently hold (and not what made you successful in

the past)?

5. Do you have buffering mechanisms (e.g., administrative assistants or calendaring

rules) that encourage collaborators to be focused and efficient when they meet with

you?

6. Do you employ periodic meetings to build vision and coordination (vs. too many

fragmented interactions that result in lost information and lack of alignment)?

7. Are you clear about what will be decided and who must be present at meetings you

run (and so relieve optional participants of the need to attend “just in case”)?

Are You An Efficient Collaborator? (Ways of Promoting Efficiency Around You)


Behavioral:

1. Do you drive too many decisions back to you by signaling (intentionally or not) that you need

to be in the loop? Can you create connections around or beneath you?

2. Are you too responsive or quick to help and so an easy outlet for people with problems?

3. Are you creating too great a reliance on you in expertise domains that have become less

central to your success now and in the future? Can you remove yourself from meetings or

use them as a way to develop key talent around you?

4. Do you hold people accountable for lack of execution (in as positive a way as possible)?

5. Do you act quickly to correct collaborative problems before they escalate?

6. Do you make decisions when you should – even in the face of ambiguity or less than perfect

information – so that you are not creating churn by asking others to un-necessarily study an

issue further?

7. When you make suggestions on employee’s work, do you focus on changes that will yield

significant (>25%) improvements?

8. Do you co-create solutions with employees such that they take ownership and need less

vision and motivational interactions with you over time?

9. Do you go face-to-face for high-stakes interactions and thereby reduce the need for follow-up

meetings by discovering and addressing subtle signs of dissent or mis-alignment early?

10. Do you switch from email to direct contact early when you see signs of misunderstanding?

Are You An Efficient Collaborator? (Ways of Promoting Efficiency Around You)


Network Overload Is An Increasingly Common Career De-railer

The Over-Loaded Leader or Expert

Issue: Intentionally or

unintentionally creates

heavy reliance on self.

Uses own time – and

others – inefficiently

Outcome: Personal

burnout, the

organization’s network is

too slow to respond to

threats or opportunities,

innovation and decision

making can stall

Decisions/Info You Can Shift

Behaviors You Can Alter


Step 1: Identify Overload Points Driving Network In-efficiencies Due To Style/Personality or Role.

Example: 71 people identified Person 1

as an effective source of info and 27

responded that greater access to him is

critical to improving their effectiveness.

Many of the people to whom

others desire more access are

also effective sources of

information.

This is likely driven by two issues:

– Structural: Requiring re-

allocation of decision-rights,

information access and role.

– Personal: Requiring

development of alternative

expertise and potentially

coaching.

Scatterplot based on:

• Information: Effective interactions

• Access: Greater access would improve

my efficiency

Person 1


Decreasing Relational Load Is Important For

BOTH Performance and Well-Being At Work

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

% o

f C

oll

ea

gu

es

Ra

tin

g t

he

In

div

idu

al a

s a

n

Eff

ec

tive

So

urc

e o

f In

form

ati

on

% of Colleagues Desiring Greater Access


Step 2: Identify And Remove Routine Informational or Decision-

Making Interactions (e.g., Travel Approvals).

Operations

• Demand / capacity analysis of FTEs

• Resource accessibility/request for support

• Resourcing of projects/initiatives

• Regulatory affairs and decisions

• Travel Requests

Expertise

• Best practices & historical view

• Drug metabolism

• External grants and collaborations

• Modeling and simulation

• Clinical protocol

HR Policies

• Hiring

• Personnel decisions

• Talent management

• Conflict management

• Compensation, employee status

Project Management

• Approach to protocol design

• Scientific project execution

• Consistency on analytical approach

• Communication updates

• Preparing presentations


• Drafted guides on overall decision-making principles and practices. Embedded routine decisions or focused on new “go to” people.

• Dramatically reduced numbers and sizes of committees (e.g., consolidated pricing and distribution committees).

• Meeting management practices.

• A cultural and behavioral change program demanded individual accountability and reduced the cost of inclusion/sense of entitlement.

• Leaders encouraged risk taking amongst well-positioned experts in the network.

Number of hours employees reported spending

with...

4941 4822

2835 2378

1116

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

Input

providers

Advice

providers

Those who

"needed to

know"

Decision

makers

Those who

"wanted to

know"

60%

Step 2: And Consider Cultural Drivers of Over-Inclusion


Step 3: Address Collaborative In-Efficiencies Accruing Around Roles and Low Performers Within Roles

Number of times individual produced value in

collaboration with colleague

Total Interaction time

Organizational Lead

Project Manager

Less Effective Employees

Just Helping The 20 Least

Effective Employees To

Become Average Yields

Savings of 38 FTEs


Improving Collaborative Efficiency – Bio Tech Example

• ONA at R&D department of major global biotech company revealed that

first-line leaders varied considerably in collaborative efficiency

• Senior leadership saw opportunity to improve collaboration practices

amongst least efficient first-line leaders

• Without senior management present, all first-line leaders were gathered

for a morning-long workshop to discover and share best practices

• Highly efficient first-line leaders were paired with least efficient first-line

leaders (without their knowledge) and asked to find 3-5 collaboration

practices that differed between them

• Each pair then focused on the one collaboration practice that they felt was

most valuable to share with the group, and produced guidance that was

then shared with all at the workshop

• In a freeform discussion at the end of the workshop, many participants

could point to 5-10 things they would do differently and some admitted

they had never appreciated how their interaction habits influenced others


Wrap Up & Discussion

Collaboration is critical but does impose

a real and growing cost to employees

and organizations.

We are obviously just beginning to think

about this in our research – what

directions do you think we should

pursue with these ideas?


Proportionately More Efficient People

Proportionately Less Efficient People

If people who are proportionately less efficient improved to the average time per interaction, just over 10 FTEs would

be gained in this group of 109 People.

Role with the Highest # Hours Spent in Internal Interactions

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

# of Incoming Ties

To

tal #

Ho

urs

in

In

co

min

g In

tera

ctio

ns Avg Time =

1.9 hrs/tie

Proportionately

more efficient

Proportionately

less efficient

NameAvg Time In

(hrs/wk)

# Incoming

Ties

Incoming Time

(hrs/wk)

Joseph 9.00 2.00 18.00

Kathy 8.17 3.00 24.50

Mauricio 5.75 8.00 46.00

Matthias 4.86 7.00 34.00

Suzanne 3.71 7.00 26.00

George 3.50 12.00 42.00

Jorge 3.35 10.00 33.50

Tamara 3.12 17.00 53.00

Peter 2.60 10.00 26.00

Louis 2.50 16.00 40.00

Juan 2.41 35.00 84.50

Sameer 2.30 22.00 50.50

NameAvg Time In

(hrs/wk)

# Incoming

Ties

Incoming Time

(hrs/wk)

Isabella 1.11 22.00 24.50

Roman 1.07 7.00 7.50

Ray 1.02 21.00 21.50

Jeffrey 1.02 51.00 52.00

Jose 1.00 16.00 16.00

Rosita 1.00 4.00 4.00

William 0.97 54.00 52.50

Hunter 0.96 54.00 52.00

Ajay 0.90 10.00 9.00

Pranab 0.90 5.00 4.50

Grace 0.86 11.00 9.50

Carlos 0.77 11.00 8.50

Luke 0.72 16.00 11.50

Step 3: Address Collaborative In-Efficiencies Accruing Around Roles and Low Performers Within Roles


How We Best Help Organizations Address This Problem With Network Analytics?

In a typical work week what percent of your time do

you spend on the following three activities:

• On the phone,

• On email and

• In meetings – virtual or face to face.

Collaboration overload is a big problem with

implications for efficiency, innovation and well-being

at work. How should we best study this together?


Senior VP

Time Per

Interaction

1.2

1.5

1.7

2.1

2.4

2.5

Jr Analyst

30.2

25.9

17.0

15.4

10.4

9.4

2.6

2.8

33.6

29.6

Avg Incoming

Time Per Person

A Second Way To Focus On Formal Structure Is By Diminishing The Impact Of Hierarchical Decision-Making

Solutions can take

many forms:

• Reducing formal

approval layers

• Revising

committee or

governance

structures

• Leadership training

and accountability

for timely decision-

making

• Cultural change

programs fighting

over-inclusiveness