When Over-Collaboration Leads to Indecision
23:16 Share

Smart leaders make bold, strategic moves. That's why forward-thinking companies are expanding into Ohio, where innovation is transforming industries from technology to healthcare. JobsOhio is your trusted partner, offering workforce development programs, construction-ready sites, and customized incentives to set your business up for long-term success. Get started at JobsOhio.com.

Before we begin, we have a couple of questions. What do you love about HBR on Leadership? What do you want less of? What would make HBR on Leadership even better? Tell us. Head over to hbr.org slash podcast survey to share your thoughts. We want to make the show even better, but we need your help to do that. So head to hbr.org slash podcast survey. Thank you. Welcome to HBR on Leadership.

Case studies and conversations with the world's top business and management experts. Hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. Collaboration is a good thing until it gets in the way of action. Too much collaboration can stall decision-making and hold you back. In this HBR IdeaCast episode from 2018, host Sarah Green Carmichael speaks with leadership coach Rebecca Shambaugh about how to curb over-collaboration in yourself and on your team.

They discuss how perfectionism, workplace culture, and even well-intended leadership messages can lead employees to over-consult and under-decide. Their conversation starts with how to spot the behavior. It's a classic over-collaborator's life. Look like and feel like. Well, I was probably on one of those spectrums, you know, and

I think one of the things that as a manager, if I have a direct reporter or a team member who's over collaborative, they tend to not have a lot of self-confidence within themselves. So that's why they continue to reach out and get other people's inputs. They want to please everyone, right? And it's impossible these days to please everyone. They may not be able to prioritize very much. So there may be key areas where you have to prioritize or collaborate differently.

and get key influencers, your managers, if you will, input or sort of ideas and perspective. But there are other things that, you know what, you should just really make that decision or you should really delegate that. So they're doing a lot of activities that aren't really producing a lot of progress, i.e. getting to a decision.

When they come to you and they say, I just don't have time for the high value projects because they're eating their time and continuing for months and weeks to collaborate with people and not really come to agreements or decisions. So one question I have about that is how much can we emphasize the individual's

responsibility for that situation versus the company culture or the managers kind of mixed messages. In some cases, it's easy to see that, you know, people might not have a bias for action because they've been kind of told to wait for permission to act. How can you kind of diagnose whether it's you or your company that's causing the problem? Well, it could be a combination of both, or sometimes it's just a direct relationship with your manager more than anything.

I always say, you know, look in, invite people to first examine their own belief system, their own narrative that's causing them to show up.

and seek out everyone else's opinion or doing things that are more task related or perhaps you tend to be more on the perfectionism zone where everything has to be 100% right before it goes out the door. Hence, you over collaborate, right? You try to get to consensus with everybody because you tend to be a pleaser. I think also when we coach individuals, we sort of put in front of them an activity-based tool where they look at their whole day or their whole week

and invite them to do a personal audit, right? And say, okay, what are the priority areas that you really feel like you are responsible for, your key objectives? And when I'm personally coaching women in particular, and sometimes men, they'll give me 10 or 15 key priorities. And that's the first thing. You can only have three to five and to do three to five very well. So you've got to somehow reprioritize or delegate or take something off of that to-do list.

You could be spending 60% of your time in low-priority areas. So the first thing is to do that critical self-assessment of ourselves. The other thing is what good managers do. They help you to provide context.

So sitting down or meeting with your manager and saying, look, here are all the activities I'm doing, right? Help me to really prioritize what you see as the top areas. And the first response managers will give you after they see your personal audit, they said, I have no idea you were doing all this. And I didn't know you were making all of these phone calls to get an agreement on something that probably one or two people could really help you to make that decision. Mm-hmm.

So often the advice that we tell ourselves or that we give to other people is about learning to say no. So while, you know, as a manager, we might say this person really just needs to learn to say no. You might even tell that person this is what you need to do. We often blame ourselves if we're feeling overstretched, like I should just be better at saying no. Is that realistic? I mean, it's just declining to take on more work, a realistic solution. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the whole piece around no, is it important to say no? And how do I do that, I guess, is perhaps more of the question there, too. I think before you say no, I think you need to understand the bigger picture and the rationale of their thinking and why they want to give you this project. For example, sponsorship. Notably, women have a lot of mentors, but they're undersponsored. And the sponsors are the ones that give you the lift. They give you the visibility. They give you those projects that aren't

you know, in your site that could really give you greater opportunities to be more engaged in the business and so on and so forth. So if a woman is totally stretched on a rack and doing her best job, but she said, how can I just take on one more project? I invite women to really step back and put on the pause button and say, help me to better understand what's your vision for this project.

How do you see this mapping out to my growth goals, you know, areas that I can really benefit from, from a career growth perspective, from a visibility perspective, and just from a peer advancement, you know, and promotion perspective? And they may know something that you don't know. And then to me, it's all about negotiations. Okay, well, if I am going to be doing this extra project, which I'm – this sounds something like I've always wanted to do but didn't really have the access to it –

Something else has to give. And so I'd like to propose that I resource a couple of these other activities out so I can be putting all my best discretionary effort into this project. And so build the business case around that. Be solution-based. And sometimes you don't have to say no, but also looking at other alternatives to really redesign things.

your day-to-day activities, responsibilities, so that you can do this. And why do you tend to focus on women when you're talking about this topic? I think women tend to, by virtue of their socialization and early on, and I don't want to generalize and put women just in a box. This doesn't mean that men aren't

you know, in this position as well. But women tend to be, they want to please. They tend to be more facilitative in nature, hence more collaborative. They tend to like a little bit more harmony, you know, and less competitive. And so sometimes we default, right, to some of these styles that disempower us.

It doesn't mean that women don't have it within them to be more strategic in terms of how they're spending their time. But I think they need to, number one, give themselves permission to do that. And they need sometimes the feedback and the coaching and the tools and the skills to shift that.

Number one, their narrative and their belief system about themselves and be able to believe that they can do this role, that they can speak up, they can make an ask versus the concern they're going to rock the boat. So in the first book I wrote, The Sticky Floors, a lot of times women, their own beliefs will sabotage their best interest, right? And self-limit their ability to grow and advance and to really evolve beyond that.

So we have a tendency to disempower ourselves and, you know, be more critical on ourselves than sometimes men do.

It's interesting because I recently read some research that we published on hbr.org that suggests that in single sex groups, women will share sort of unglamorous tasks equally. Whereas groups of men, it tends to be like the same two guys doing those tasks over and over again. And so...

And so I wonder if that's a case where women's sort of collaborativeness helps. Like if you happen to work in a group of all women, you're kind of rotating those chores. But whereas, you know, men, it seems like the two same guys are kind of out of luck over and over again. So I think there's a lot, even though I agree with you, there's a lot of research on over collaboration and women. I do think there are guys out there who really struggle with this, too. And I think the evidence bears that out.

Well, there's no question about that. And again, you know, we need balanced leadership. And I think a strength of women we need to embrace and tap into more is the spirit of collaboration. And how do you do that? Collaboration is all about building trust. And trust is down in most companies. So it's important to be able to connect the dots and be cross-supportive to achieve a unified goal together.

And I think men tend to just go and do it, right? They just go and do it. They tend to be more transactional to some degree. So I think it's important to have both.

But this is an area where we coach men on quite a bit is to be inclusive, is to be more collaborative and to open up your aperture to a variety of different relationships beyond just you to go to, to ask their perspective or view on a problem or issue or just their advice is to broaden and diversify your network so it is diverse. And you're not always going to the same people who look and think like you.

So if you're managing someone who is genuinely too collaborative, male or female, one of the pieces of advice you've given to managers is to help them get over this by giving feedback that's goal-oriented. Can you give me an example of kind of what non-goal-oriented feedback would sound like, but then fix it so that it's goal-oriented and proper feedback?

I think if you're a manager, this is not always an easy conversation, but I always start off in coaching men or women to say, tell me how you're spending your time. What do you see as the key priorities? And really have them map that out for you, what their assumptions are around that. Because all they know is what they know. And they could be operating in a vacuum that they don't know some of the top priorities or they're

Perhaps they may not understand that, you know, honestly, we don't need to get to consensus on this. You really need to step back and let me give you a better sense from a feedback perspective. The organizational dynamics, and in this case, in this particular project, you know, while you share with me, you reached out and got consensus with 10 people already.

The key people that will be advocating and sponsoring this and moving this through, this project for us, and who politically we need to really connect the dots with and help them to be aware and get their input are these three people. And helping them to understand why it's those three people as opposed to those 10 or 12. Sometimes our team members just don't have that bigger picture thinking or understand why.

the organizational dynamics, what's some of the changes happening around the corner. So I think that's really important. And helping them to go through self-discovery versus telling them, you're spending too much time here, right? You need to get over and be more collaborative or be more directive. We hear this all the time that women, you know, or people just don't know what to do with that. You might be efficient.

You're checking off all the boxes. But at the end of the day, it's holding you back from being really strategic. It's holding you back from really tapping into the right relationships to really get the project moving versus stalling. And then helping them to see that, you know, gosh, you feel like you need to get agreement from everyone. Well, you know what? Empowering him, letting him know that.

you are the one who knows more than anybody else on this project. I remember I got this feedback many, many years ago when I was still working in corporate America, and I was a perfectionist. I felt like I needed to get everyone to agreement. And then my manager came by and gave me this helpful piece of feedback. He said, you know, I appreciate all the hard work you've done here, but at the end of the day...

I hired you because you know more than anybody else around this particular project and area of expertise. And I'm really relying upon you at the end of the day to make this decision. So empowering them and giving them the confidence to know that they have the authority to do that, but you believe in their strengths and their experience and background to make those decisions. Okay.

A common sort of employee response to being told to spend time on higher value activities is to say, I don't have time to do those higher value activities because I've got too many of these low value tasks on my plate. So if they've done the time audit and they're spending most of their time on stuff that's really not a priority, they might come back and say, that's like the organization's fault or that's my manager's fault. And this is just what I have to do. And this is the amount of time it takes.

How can you as a manager help them see that they sort of do have control over this? How do you help them problem solve so that they can free up time to do the stuff that really will get them promoted?

Yeah. I mean, a lot of times, again, it gets back to our own belief system. We need to do all these things. And sometimes they need to be done in a way that I think they need to be done because no one can do them better, right? Or I love all these projects because I get a lot of fulfillment and satisfaction, but you know what? It's getting me nowhere. So it's incumbent upon a manager to help them to move further into the traditional covey, you

is to be more thoughtful and mindful about, you know, your time and how it's being spent. So I think it's really, and this is generally, you know, not just necessarily women, but men too, is to really go over, you know, what are there? It's rare that a manager will sit down these days and say, where would you like to grow? What's your future career lifeline look like?

And really kind of together examine what they're doing and how those activities are growing new skill sets, are expanding, you know, their relationships, giving them more visible projects versus the mundane projects that really aren't, you know, seeding their growth and their confidence, right? So it's really helping them to recalibrate those activities and then really creating a plan of action to make that happen. And I think that it's...

It's incumbent upon not just waiting for the manager to come and observe that, but it's important for us to come and say, look, you know, here are some ideas. Here are some things that I need to really talk to you about before your things do go off the tracks or you realize that you just can't do this job anymore. Yeah.

So the research does show that women are often expected to be more collaborative. We get asked to volunteer for more projects, especially the low-value ones. We're often expected to lead through consensus, and we do. So I'm wondering, for male managers of women, because we have a lot of men who listen to the IdeaCast, what do you wish that they knew about this? This gets back to understanding women

The diverse spectrum of styles, you know, amongst your team and really opening up your lens to see where those different styles can bring value to the things that you're doing. That's really important. And I think sometimes, look, we all have bias.

Right. Which can turn into stereotype about how we view a certain person. If I'm more collaborative, inclusive, you know, and the other person is more directive, just like right to the point, likes to make a decision and move on.

you know, that's okay, but understanding that people have different styles in terms of how they make decisions. So I think it's important to have a diverse spectrum on your team of different ways of, you know, thinking about something, processing something, different communication styles. If not, you get the group think. You get the same people thinking the same way and communicating the same way. And that's just not going to work in today's environment. So

I mean, I don't think it's a negative necessarily for men to come up and say, why does she talk that way so much? Why is she overly collaborating? She could have made that decision. It's just our lens and our norm of what we have been used to. So it's inviting men to, this is the same thing about diversity and inclusion, right? Companies have a lot of diversity, but we're not tapping into and leveraging diversity

the best styles, the best strengths and experiences of everyone. If we did, we'd probably in most cases have better outcomes, higher, you know, greater levels of problem solving and decision making. So I just encourage them to be open to those different styles and look at ways where you can utilize those styles for the benefit of everyone. Mm-hmm.

Because I could see if you were trying to get better at saying no to tasks that don't add value or acting more decisively while, you know, still being somewhat inclusive, I could really see it coming off kind of the wrong way. You know, no, I won't do that. And here's the decision I'm making. And, you know, it does seem that it's the kind of thing that does take a little bit of practice before it feels natural and before it comes across as natural to other people. Yeah.

Yeah, and I just want to say layered in that is what's really important is emotional and having the emotional and social intelligence, right? There's a time and a place to say no, right? There could be layoffs and reorganization. Your manager comes up and said, look, this is a tough time for the next six to eight months. I need you to jump in and help out with this, right? And so you want to be a team player. You want to be...

understanding the needs and concerns of others and their schedules and their priorities. So I think when you are saying yes or saying no, it's just not a straight yes or straight no. It's really taking into consideration your colleagues, right? The bigger picture.

And your rationale for the yes or no should really think and link to the needs, right, in the context of others so that that decision isn't just more of a self-serving, self-oriented decision. I think when people on the other end know that you've taken their best interest in mind and it still may be a no, right, that you've thought through this,

Maybe not this, but I could do this in the context of what you're trying to do. That would be something I could best align with and support you. So it's again, it's understanding that's being inclusive in your decision making and your ask and how you say yes and how you say no. Becky, you have mentioned that you earlier in your career struggled with some of these issues. And I'm wondering for you, what really made the difference? How did you change your own mindset around some of this so that you could be free of this problem?

Well, I think you do have to look inside. And sometimes what got you here is not going to get you there. And I think I was, as I shared with you earlier...

I was a perfectionist. I mean, I would rework PowerPoint decks. I would over-collaborate, you know, because I self-doubted my own sort of worth and knowledge. And, you know, I did a lot of the same things I coach people on. I went out and I talked about expectations and what's good enough and, you know, how I needed to really better align my activities with things that perhaps were more higher value things.

But, you know, I realize that all this is giving yourself permission to, if I'm an over collaborator, a perfectionist in my, one of the things that I realized in my journey of getting feedback and talking to other people around some of these similar challenges they had, but how did you move, navigate through this, right? How did you come out of this as a great leader? And a lot of it is just

knowing and believing in yourself, right? And as a perfectionist, I said, you know, the 80% of the people I spoke to are not perfectionists. Why am I being more difficult on myself? Why don't I just join the world of imperfection and realize that everything doesn't have to be perfect? So I think a lot of this starts within in our own belief system and narrative and

and understanding how that can be self-limiting for us to a certain degree, right? And I was lucky to have a manager who helped to empower me to believe in myself. And then after several experiences, after speaking up, after being more decisive,

people sort of the room shifted. People began to see me as a leader, right? Part of because I started to believe in myself and I started to get that confidence. And I was intentional then eventually about that. So it's not an overnight process, but I think those are just some of the things that, you know, I give advice and guidance to when making those shifts, you know, early on or during these situations where you feel stuck.

Well, Becky, thank you. This has been really helpful and I appreciate your time. You're welcome, Sarah. Always enjoy. That was leadership coach Rebecca Shambaugh in conversation with Sarah Green Carmichael on HBR IdeaCast. We'll be back next Wednesday with another handpicked conversation about leadership from Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

While you're there, be sure to leave us a review. And when you're ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world's top business and management experts, you'll find it all at hbr.org. This episode was produced by Mary Du and me, Hannah Bates. Kurt Nagish is our editor.

Special thanks to Ian Fox, Maureen Hoke, Amanda Kersey, Rob Eckhart, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you, our listener. See you next week.

Get $100 off at getmagic.com slash HBR. That's G-E-T magic dot com slash HBR.