Can we collaborate ‘too much’ and end up with feeling overwhelmed by information overload?
Email is the proof that we can collaborate too much, and especially in the wrong way.
We definitely have too much information today with often too many tools for doing the same things. It can be confusing for employees to understand where to go to get their job done. Tools are often siloed – you need different log-ins, and you may end up replicating the same information in different systems. Without mentioning that many of us bring their own technology to the workplace (e.g. Dropbox). While that may look as a good solution in terms of personal productivity and comfort, social software fragmentation easily increases risks, redundancy and costs for the company.
On the other side, ‘feeling alive' while working and being able to engage with your peers without too many suffocating policies is a lever both for efficiency and motivation.
It is an organisation responsibility to explicitly link collaboration to both business goals and personal benefits. Choosing the right technology becomes much easier, once clear purpose and agreement around the digital workplace have been reached.
Collaborating for collaboration sake is just a waste of time; it is not particularly appealing to employees as not everybody likes to spend his time writing wiki pages or posting to a blog. Being able to reach your targets with less time and effort looks like a much better motivation for change.