Working in consulting, or the broader knowledge economy, requires continuous soul searching: being clear on your ‘why’, awareness of the trade-offs, and working on yourself to maintain a healthy mindset enabling you to grow and move forward. Companies have playbooks for this, but the frameworks in the playbooks can be out of synch with ‘reality on the ground’. I found Beyond Collaboration Overload helpful to refocus on networking and collaboration, a useful reminder that these are the foundations of the consulting world, a world where the project is the product. A research based guide to ‘Play offense’, be in control, whilst controlling health and happiness.
Renewal strategies – essential collaboration:
Tapping broad networks early in the life of each new project whilst simultaneously investing in longer-time-horizon relationships for efficiency and innovation (which is much more counter-conventional than it may sound.)
Becoming an energizer to stimulate a flow of great ideas and great people toward you.
Engaging in targeted collaborative renewal activities to build greater physical and mental well being.
Energy trumps all:
We have consistently seen that people who create energy or enthusiasm in networks are far more likely to become and remain high performers as well as move more fluidly in and out of groups.
For me the biggest challenge has been managing distractions, both external and of my own making. The following paragraph really hit home:
But to become an essential collaborator, you must be able to overcome the factors that keep you focused on the distractions of the everyday–factors such as ego, reactivity, inertia, defensiveness, and fear–so that you can initiate innovative responses and mobilize people affectively, while also taking care of yourself.
Be more anti-fragile by building a noninsular network.
These structurally divers networks often bridge expertise domains, cultures, geographical regions, functional areas, and other pockets of mastery and opinion.
Another concept I found helpful is the idea of networking across time horizons: short, medium, and long term.
The point is that these long-term explorations are an essential part of the work of successful people in today’s hyperconnected organizations. These interactions are not things to do when you have time. The are as essential as the work itself.
Overall the book is helpful in making what we do intuitively, in my case not optimally, more visible with a structured framework to be more purposeful and effective.