Many people believe burnout is always caused by too much work. In fact, it can also be driven by something seemingly innocuous: too much collaboration. To reduce burnout caused by collaboration overload on your team, start by asking these questions.

* Can we reduce structural complexity? Investigate your team’s hierarchical structure, communication habits, and competing priorities. Then identify places of redundancy or inefficiency that can be improved.

* Do our workflows still make sense? Ask your team where new technologies and platforms have introduced complexity, additional work, and stress. Then agree on a new set of simpler, team-wide, collaborative norms.

* Are micro-teams causing microstress? Organizations increasingly rely on smaller sub-teams to take on projects, which requires more communication and collaboration between employees. Keep the number of these micro-teams in check to mitigate collaboration creep.

* Do employees feel a sense of purpose? While many organizations focus on rallying employees around a collective corporate purpose, research suggests that purpose can also be found in positive, everyday interactions with colleagues. Enable employees to build on each other’s ideas, which helps create a sense that you’re in this together..
This tip is adapted from “What’s Fueling Burnout in Your Organization?,” by Rob Cross et al.
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