The selfish benefits of collaboration

Work together in ways you never thought possible. That’s the idea that inspires iMeet Central. A lot of the buzz around enterprise collaboration centers – rightfully so – on the transformational impact it makes across your team or company.

Today, though, let’s talk about you.

Collaboration can be a springboard for self-improvement and a weapon against ADT and FOMO (more on those in a minute).  It’s a wonderful cycle, since you’re an even better collaborator when you’re feeling happy, relaxed and efficient. So when you’re considering a new collaboration solution – or judging your current one – feel free to get a little selfish and ask “what am I getting out of this?”

At the risk of sounding like I’m trying to push pills in an infomercial… ahem… Do you feel perpetually distracted? Impatient? Pushed and pulled in a million directions? It’s been about eight years since Edward M. Hallowell started talking about attention deficit trait (ADT). “Caused by brain overload, ADT is now epidemic in organizations,” Hallowell wrote. Since then, we’ve added social media and 24-7 connectivity to the daily stew, and many organizations have received marching orders to do more with less… and less. People feel like they adapt by multitasking, but they’re usually wrong.

Central Desktop potentially puts unprecedented amounts of information at your fingers – which may sound like the last thing that will help you focus. But with workspaces, status updates and email digests allowing you to manage the flow of information, you’re actually able to reduce noise, automate some of your busywork and put an end to FOMO (fear of missing out). You will clean up your inbox, too, thus helping guard against one of your workday’s most relentless time wasters. Hallowell also recommends that you create daily lists of top tasks and priorities.

Professors Sumantra Ghoshal and Heike Bruch believe managers are often their own worst enemies. “It can seem easier to fight fires than to set priorities and stick to them,” they wrote in HBR’s On Managing Yourself, drawing from a five-year study of 100s of managers. “The truth is that managers who carefully set boundaries and priorities achieve far more than busy ones do.”

There’s also increasing evidence that flexibility results in greater productivity, and cloud collaboration empowers you to work from anywhere and keep connected to your team even if you’re remote. Isolated employees are at higher risk for ADT, while collaboration done right has a measurable effect on your frontal lobes. It’s good for the big picture of your business, yes, but it’s good for your very own brain, too.

The options have evolved tremendously since Hallowell wrote about ADT, but he was right in cautioning against embracing technology as a problem solver in and of itself. There is no magic pill for peace, patience and prosperity. With the right collaboration solution in place, though, you make it much easier to retake the reins on your workday.