How You Can Collaborate More Effectively, Reduce Stress, and Perform at a Higher Level

Full Transcript

Enrollify_MissionAdmission_Audio_Ep21(S2E6)_RobCross_Version1

[00:00:00] Rob Cross: When I went into it, I assumed that if we could just solve emails, too many meetings, demanding bosses and unhelpful clients, you know, that would solve it. And yet what I found is, is you know, more than 50% of it is us.

[00:00:23] Jeremy Tiers: Hey everybody. This is Jeremy Tier from Tutor Collegiate Strategies, and you are about to check out the latest episodes of the Mission and Mission podcast, a show that it's designed to help higher ed become better recruiters, communicators, marketers, and managers. Each week, I'll introduce you to an industry leader or difference maker who will share helpful advice, tips, and strategies that will help you grow professionally and personally.

[00:00:45] Mission and Mission is part of the Enroll five Podcast Network. I'm excited to share my latest candid conversation, so let's get started. Hey everybody, it's Jeremy Tiers, and this is episode 21 of the Mission Admissions podcast. [00:01:00] I'm excited to be joined by Rob Cross today, who I will let introduce himself momentarily.

[00:01:06] And then Rob and I are gonna start to unpack the topic of collaboration, which is something that he is very much an expert on and has lots of knowledge to share from years of research. So Rob, before we dive in, can you give everyone listening a CliffNotes version of who you are and what you do? Sure, 

[00:01:23] Rob Cross: sure.

[00:01:23] So I'm Rob Cross. I'm a professor at Babson College. I've been teaching for about 23, 24 years. I, uh, spent a, a large portion of my career at University of Virginia before, uh, taking a lot of the work I do to Babson because of its more entrepreneurial mission and focus in different ways. And, uh, a big part of my role is I also have run a consortium that's called the Connected Commons.

[00:01:43] That's a group now of about 150 organizations that sponsor research into looking at collaboration and the effect of. Uh, you know, collaboration and networks analytically on different aspects of organizations, whether it's culture, uh, org design, team performance, individual [00:02:00] performance. We have a whole bunch of programs 

[00:02:01] Jeremy Tiers: going, and I feel like the common theme in all those things.

[00:02:04] Right, Rob, so you're teaching, you're writing, you're doing research, you're doing all of those things. I feel like one of the common things there is. Ultimately helping people. So Rob, why do you like helping people so much? Where does that come from? 

[00:02:16] Rob Cross: I always know I've been an anomaly from an academic standpoint anyway.

[00:02:20] And that, you know, as an academic you're really inspired, motivated, ient, whatever you wanna say to, uh, produce academic scholarship. And what that often does, it can be very fulfilling. But, um, a lot of times it's, especially in the management fields, it's become so removed from practice that it's hard to.

[00:02:37] Translate, you know, impact into the practical world. So for me, what I always got enthused about was more of that, you know, things that actually had impact on people's lives and you could kind of see what they were gonna do with it. 

[00:02:48] Jeremy Tiers: So I'll go even more specifically than when it comes to, and it's not just faculty, that's to me one part of it.

[00:02:55] But when it comes to different offices on a college campus saying we [00:03:00] understand that our mission, I would argue, is to serve students. How do you ultimately think. Then we get so many silos between Office A, office B, office C, and again, we can fill in the blank with any of those offices you want. Do you think it's a leadership lack of clarity issue?

[00:03:15] Is it something completely different? Just any thoughts on that? 

[00:03:19] Rob Cross: Um, it should be ruminations more so than, um, You know, a ton of evidence, but I think to me, it any, any silo, and I honestly don't think it's any different in academia than I, I, I deal with a consortia with 150 organizations, you know, and basically it boils down to typically incentives games, you know, what are people evaluated on?

[00:03:40] How are they paid? It will boil down to leadership, you know, and, and it can be a product of not conceiving of the service or what we're trying to produce, right? In the, in the, you know, the most holistic way. And I, I don't know how many, um, schools, I think Babson is truly unique in its ability to produce a kid that is ready to hit the [00:04:00] ground running as an entrepreneur.

[00:04:01] So you come in the door and across, you know, the entire four year spectrum that you're there. There is a, a, an, an architecture of the programs that, that build an entrepreneur in ways that, that I don't see in other places, you know, as holistically across those four years. Right. Um, you may have people that care about the first year experience, people that care about.

[00:04:23] Recruiting people that care about, you know, student life. But, um, I, I, that is a unique thing that my moving to Babson kind of opened my eyes to is an interesting kind of way that that arc is built there that's a little bit unique. So, silos for me, you know, handful of things, right? One is incentive schemes, you know, routinely, undoubtedly.

[00:04:43] Number two is leaders, and especially two leaders that don't like each other. We'll drive silos into the hundreds in organizations. Um, number three, it's what do you occupationally care about, right? What are you saying is my mission in this game? And culturally, what kind of creates it? Number four is distance.

[00:04:59] We know distance of [00:05:00] even 10 feet down the hallway starts to create silos and organizations. So, you know, offices, buildings, uh, things like that start to, to generate it as well. So, so there can be a ton of, you know, things that, that, that created when you look at these 

[00:05:13] Jeremy Tiers: networks that way. And so let me give you a scenario then, and I'd just love to have your thoughts on how you would give someone advice in terms of handling a situation.

[00:05:23] If I work in the admissions office at a college or the marketing office at a college in 2023, and I want to go and I want to start to nurture a relationship with my faculty. Doesn't matter the department, right. But any faculty in any department to get them to want to be more involved, for example, in the recruitment process of prospective students to get them to see all the awesome things that our school offers.

[00:05:48] But I feel like there's a silo there right now. Where do I start if I know, to your point, it might be a leadership issue that I can't control. And if I'm not in a position of leadership, what do I do? And if there are incentives and goals [00:06:00] like you talked about, just where can someone say, Okay. Does that mean I can't do anything of them because I'm not in a leadership position?

[00:06:06] Where do they start in a situation like that? 

[00:06:08] Rob? 

[00:06:08] Rob Cross: I think you should just be proactive. You know, and I, I think that's not unique to anybody, um, in the sense of just saying, look, you know, I think I could do a better job. Um, as an admissions person in terms of the, the, the groups that I'm bringing through or whatever I'm doing, um, by having, you know, faculty, uh, be open to letting those groups come into their classroom.

[00:06:28] And that requires going out, right? Finding the right faculty member that'll, that'll engage in that with you. Um, things like that in my mind. Anyway.

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[00:08:22] All right, folks, back to the show. 

[00:08:26] Jeremy Tiers: Why do you think there's such a breakdown on communication in general in businesses, in corporations, on college campuses? 

[00:08:32] Rob Cross: Rob, you know, I think the one idea that I think really does matter is to say, to be able to position your ask in the context that's gonna get.

[00:08:41] Everybody involved, right? And so if you can position your ask of say, students, right? And it's faculty no different than students in some ways, you have to give them a reason, right? To, to need to be involved or be invested as well. Um, then you're gonna do better, right? And so I think part of that is how do you frame, you know, [00:09:00] frame your outreach and, and kind of in a way that that helps everybody say, okay, here's how and why working together is gonna have an impact, right?

[00:09:08] For both of us. 

[00:09:09] Jeremy Tiers: You've talked a lot, I know in different books you've written and just conversations that I've read of yours online about this idea of we can all become overwhelmed by just like, All the connecting and collaborating we're being asked to do as human. So unpackage that and break that down for us.

[00:09:26] What is this whole concept of, you know, collaboration overload and how does it really reduce productivity and negatively affect us in your opinion? 

[00:09:33] Rob Cross: Yeah, yeah. So this came, uh, this is work that we've been at for quite some time. So in my consortia, what we will do is analytically look at patterns of connectivity in organizations.

[00:09:43] So who's interacting with whom? In ways that help us see how work's getting done, right? And so this would not just be in a group of say, 20 or 30, but this would be in groups of thousands of people, uh, sometimes even up to 90, a hundred thousand if we're looking at culture change programs. And so what we've [00:10:00] seen, you know, over the past decade or so is as we have evolved and, and increasingly adapted all these different technologies that help us interact, the video, um, Conferencing, the emails, the instant messaging applications, the team collaborative spaces, uh, all of this.

[00:10:16] Combined with a whole bunch of organizational efforts, we've seen the, uh, amount of time people spend in collaborative aspects of their work shoot up about 50% in a decade and a half. And what that means is that, um, you know, typically for the, the typical individual, they're spending about 85% of their week in collaborations with others.

[00:10:35] And that doesn't mean just on calls or answering emails. It means work that you're doing where you're responding to somebody else's work product, or. Kind of collaborating that way, uh, as well. And so we got very concerned with that, right? If you think about another resource being consumed by 50% or greater in that timeframe, uh, in organizations and the CFO would be all over it.

[00:10:58] But because this is [00:11:00] invisible and everybody just expects people to absorb more and more emails, more and more team meetings, more and more, uh, requests, um, it doesn't really show out yet. People are burning out. Right and left. They're overwhelmed, they're tired. They're working longer hours, not because the work's gone up, but because the collaborative footprint around the work has really, you know, e exploded in most, uh, college campuses, for example.

[00:11:22] You see that as a very good thing, right? We have these curriculums now that are formed that are bringing different capabilities, different expertise together. To provide a more holistic learning solution. But all that comes with a significant cost of collaboration, right, to people to be able to organize and deliver these, these programs versus, you know, things that they individually specialize in.

[00:11:43] Um, so that, you know, what, what we focused on there, we could see that, you know, 90% of the population is burning out. It's experiencing kind of, uh, uh, different forms of overload, but about 10% wasn't. And those people were about 18 to 24% more efficient than their peers. [00:12:00] And so that's the group we studied for that book.

[00:12:03] Let's see, what does this group of people do? So I interviewed 300 women, 300 men, uh, to see kind of what are you doing that's enabling you to buy back about a day, a week of time? Compared to the average person. And then how are you using that time in a way that helps you really drive innovation and scale, uh, differently?

[00:12:20] So, so that's been the, the work that that kind of got started in the consortia around that. 

[00:12:26] Jeremy Tiers: And what were the key findings in terms of what that 10% is doing 

[00:12:30] Rob Cross: differently? It boils down to not one thing, everybody always wants one idea, right? Is there certain technology? Is there a certain practice that if I did the world would be better?

[00:12:39] And you know that that's really never the case. You know, people try to sell books on it or, um, other things. But, and, and similarly here, What you found is they tended to do a set of things in three categories of, uh, of work they were doing. First they tended to put structure into their work differently.

[00:12:57] So they would, um, uh, block reflective [00:13:00] time and hold onto it. They would strategically calendar Friday night or Sunday night, not just with a one week time interval, um, that they were focused on, but typically about two months where there were. Putting in place interactions with others that pulled them into work that they wanted to be doing.

[00:13:14] Uh, so that was, that was one, right? They put structure into their work versus being, uh, structured and falling into a reactive posture. Number two is they tended to manage their own tendencies to, to jump in when they shouldn't. Right? And so that was what really surprised me as I went through these interviews is we all have these triggers that lead us to jump into things when sometimes it's not the best use of our time.

[00:13:34] Right? And so for some it may be, Desire for status accomplishment. You know, we just like helping others. Um, and I found the, the more efficient collaborators, they were best, better in general at not falling into that, that trap. You know, they were more aware of when is it me that's leading me to jump in, uh, fear, fear of missing out, things like that.

[00:13:53] And then the last category was very behavioral or tactical. So we would find that the more efficient collaborators, they [00:14:00] just were really persistent on spheres that they could control, right? So rather than, for example, look at email and say, I can't control all of email, so I'm not even gonna try. They would look at email and say, you know what?

[00:14:12] My team is generating 40% of what I have to process. We actually can set some norms on that and say kind of when, when are we using it? How are we using it? Bullet points versus full paragraph texts. All these norms that, that, that seem small but in aggregate can buy back 10, uh, 12% of the time if people are consistent in, in how they're doing it.

[00:14:32] Uh, so those were the three categories of, of things that we really talked about in that book in particular. 

[00:14:39] Jeremy Tiers: And did you see any terms of, again, if a person just thinking out loud, a person's an introvert versus an extrovert versus they're not an overly organized person, that those three things, for example, are gonna be that much more challenging for them?

[00:14:54] I. 

[00:14:54] Rob Cross: So in general, throughout all this work, we see that you're likely to see an introvert as an [00:15:00] extrovert in the center of these networks. There's a slight effect that the extroverts might reach more and the introverts might be sought more. Um, but it doesn't generally boil down to personality so much in organizations.

[00:15:11] Now, outside of organizations, uh, there's a, there's a different effect there. Um, but absolutely on the organized part, That definitely can come into play. Um, what we would see really specifically is that the more efficient collaborators, um, they were just dogmatically persistent, right? There wasn't one solution, one silver bullet idea that if they adopted it worked.

[00:15:33] They were just really persistent day in and day out, and looking for ways to get those efficiencies back. And that requires, you know, a certain level of organization and, and persistence at the 

[00:15:45] Jeremy Tiers: heart of it. And so was that the biggest thing that surprised you about the research, Rob? Or was there something else that really sticks out that, you know, was a big surprise as you looked back?

[00:15:56] Rob Cross: Yeah, well, I mean, certainly when I went into it, I assumed that if [00:16:00] we could just solve emails, too many meetings, demanding bosses and unhelpful clients, you know, that would solve it. And yet what I found is, is you know, more than 50% of it is us. You know, we'd have a tendency to jump in in ways that that is helpful.

[00:16:13] So I'll give you an example. For me, it's accomplishment. If I see a five minute window of space and my day open up, I will inevitably try to jam 60 minutes of stuff in it and then completely ignore. The, you know, three to four hours of work I need to do to coordinate with my team to get everybody on the same page.

[00:16:29] And inevitably, that five minutes feels great, right? I feel like I just did something. But what always happens is kind of two weeks, three weeks, four weeks out, I have, you know, people that I didn't understand this, you know, or there's more emails coming back or more meetings for clarification. And I'm always like, how does this happen?

[00:16:47] Right? Because I study this stuff and it's always because I tried to jam too much in. Right. And it felt good in the moment, but it caused more work for others. It's a desire to help. You know, they see being a good colleague is helping and helping [00:17:00] directly and helping quickly. And so they jump into help, uh, in situations where they really shouldn't be doing that work and they really didn't want to anyway, but they felt like they should in the moment and they get overwhelmed, right.

[00:17:11] With that. Um, uh, for others it's status, right? And this is one of the big things with academics. They, they try to preserve their status, uh, in different ways. And so they jump in in ways that kind of take. Engagement from others. So I think that was the biggest surprise overall was the degree to which, um, it's, it's, it's very controllable by us.

[00:17:31] We tend to, we tend to think it isn't, but it's very controllable, uh, in different 

[00:17:35] Jeremy Tiers: ways. Do you ever feel like, okay, if we do a better job of controlling those three things, Do you ever think it can give off, right or wrong, the perception to your colleagues, well, you're just not a team player and you're in your own world and you're not trying to be involved as much, or is that something that maybe isn't really kind of something that can result from that?

[00:17:58] Rob Cross: Yeah, I mean, and people can, especially in [00:18:00] academia that can build impressions off of all sorts of things, but, but that's not what we were finding. What we were finding and studying were the people that, that were more efficient. They were actually collaborating more. With other people. It wasn't a matter of not collaborating, it was a matter of the way you're doing it to find ways to buy that time back.

[00:18:17] So that simple idea of, like I mentioned email, but a very simple thing to do with your team and admissions teams can do this too, is sit down and, and take a blank piece of paper. Draw two columns, you know, down at two lines down in the first column. Say, here's all the ways we're collaborating. Right. All the modalities, right?

[00:18:32] And we have email, video calls, meetings, uh, probably certain collaborative spaces. We're evaluating potential candidates on all this stuff, right? Usually people end up having between six and nine ways they're collaborating to get work done, and that alone shocks 'em. Right. Then in the second column, say, here's three positive norms for each of these things that we wanna start doing.

[00:18:54] So if it's email, say that we're gonna start using it for bullets and not full paragraph text. We're gonna state what we [00:19:00] want in the subject line. You know, we're, we're gonna use it in certain ways to confirm agreement versus fighting over what we want right out there. And then the last column, uh, I want you to write three norms that you wanna stop doing.

[00:19:14] Right. So maybe if it's again, email, uh, we're not gonna send it after 10 o'clock at night, right? Maybe when you can do it because your children are in bed, but it don't send it, then you may have to write it then. But send it on a delay the next morning. So you're not starting this always on culture or, um, we're going to, you know, stop CCing everybody.

[00:19:31] On everything because it's easy to do, but it's consuming other people's time. So you do that with me, and if you get the idea right, it's a grid. You've got the modalities down, the column three norms, we're gonna start for each of these things, three norms are gonna stop. Then take that into your team and spend 30 minutes in a meeting and say, does this make sense?

[00:19:48] This is how we want to kind of live. And people universally say they just laugh at the absurdity of what they do to each other. The constant copying, you know, the over meetings, you know, uh, unstructured meetings, whatever it may be. [00:20:00] Um, but what that does is it gets everybody on the same page. And you find that people get, you know, eight, 10, 12% of their time back almost immediately because they're more conscientious of how they're using these, uh, ways of, of collaborating.

[00:20:14] So, um, so very simple things that you can do, you know, pretty quickly to, to have an impact there. 

[00:20:22] Jeremy Tiers: And I love all the tangible takeaways you just gave the listeners around email, Rob, I think those are gonna be super helpful. I would be curious because I know it's something that a lot of my audience deals with, what are ways they can then better manage meetings?

[00:20:36] Because that's another thing you brought up and inevitably there was a lot of those right on campus too. Is it a different way that meetings, again, we're not having meetings just for the sake of having meetings. There's a better agenda that's laid out clearly everybody, I mean, Just things you've seen that people have more effective meetings because they do a, b, abc, 

[00:20:53] Rob Cross: whatever those are.

[00:20:54] Yeah. Yeah. So you definitely see that the, that, that the people that are more efficient have a tendency to [00:21:00] put greater structure into than to meetings. Right. And they do that before the meeting by being very clear on who's, who's coming, what their role is in the meeting. It's not an over inclusion. Uh, or an assumption that we have to have everybody from every different department, you know, if that isn't helpful in that specific context.

[00:21:16] Um, uh, then there's, there's more specific structure in the meetings. Much more likely to be run with an agenda set of purposes, you know, rule kind of guidelines set out, out front. Um, and then they tend to do more even after the meeting. So they we'll tend to post, here's the. The things we agreed to the next, you know, follow on step so that people can see it.

[00:21:36] And that that, you know, also takes down a lot of this, oh my gosh, I've missed that meeting. Or, you know, that happens a tremendous amount in academia. People feel, uh, an entitlement to be in every single meeting, every single decision. And that over inclusion, not, and it's not exclusive to academia, but that over inclusion.

[00:21:53] Causes problems. Um, so you know, what you can do is start being very clear on, on kind of who's invited, [00:22:00] why and how, what's gonna happen there. But then post the results of it. So if people miss, they can see, okay, here's what's happened. Here's how I can have a voice if I feel it's important. And that just stops a little bit of the over inclusion in, in certain contexts.

[00:22:16] Jeremy Tiers: And so regardless of all of that, I would argue we probably all are still gonna face stress, whether it's, you know, at a lower level than other people. So Rob, how do you manage stress in your day-to-day? 

[00:22:26] Rob Cross: Uh, oh yeah, that's a great question. So, I mean, the, the book that, that just came out this week, what we focused on, Was, um, um, the, the collaboration overload idea was really, it came from studying high performers and understanding people on that level across hundreds of organizations.

[00:22:44] Then the consortia about five or six years ago, was pushing me to really think about not high performers, but happier people. Right. And what people that are just thriving in their careers are doing today. Because, you know, as I went through the overload work, I could see that people were overwhelmed. I mean, in a, in a pretty [00:23:00] significant way.

[00:23:01] Ways that we don't appreciate when you get into these interviews, um, the first 10 minutes of every discussion you have with successful people, they have their facade up. Right. And it's, you know, everything is rainbows and lollipops. Life is great. Um, but then you kind of get down into it and minute 45, minute 60, and you see that most people are struggling to, to get through the worlds they've built around themselves, professionally and personally, right?

[00:23:25] And, and many are making decisions on what balls to drop, not how to excel. In any one, you know, area. And so as I went through that, um, those interviews and the effect that that had on people's wellbeing, what we really came to see is the stress that's killing us today. Is, um, it's not so much the big things, right?

[00:23:45] They definitely exist, right? We have really ridiculous bosses or health scares or, or things like that, or it's not even really the disassociated kinds of stress, like the war, the economy or social justice that's weighing on us. But what [00:24:00] I was hearing is it was generally the small moments of stress.

[00:24:04] Created, by the way, we're interacting with so many other people today. So you, you know, we call these micro stresses and you, you sit in a meeting and, and you're seeing, for example, uh, suddenly that you're out of alignment with a colleague. Um, and you're wondering, how do I, how do I solve that before things get too separated, right?

[00:24:21] And it causes a lot of, a lot of problems. Or you, uh, see a team member that needs to be coached for the third time on a call, and you're thinking about, how am I gonna do that? Um, and, and kind of keep their engagement. And then two seconds later, you get a text from a child and you, you know, they're grumbling about something and you can't tell if it's something serious or something that they're over in, in two minutes and you worry about for three or four hours.

[00:24:44] All those are. Just things we naturally work through, right? We don't even, we feel guilty even complaining about 'em cuz they're all small moments. The problem is because of the way we're so interconnected through all the technologies and the ways of working today that, um, we are [00:25:00] absorbing more than we were meant to.

[00:25:01] Right as humans. And, and what happens is our brains don't register and we don't go into this fight or flight response. It's almost underneath the, the mechanisms that protect us. But our bodies are absorbing 'em. And, uh, we have, um, you know, blood pressure issues. We have days where we just go through and you end the day, you're exhausted.

[00:25:19] You can't quite put your finger on what just happened. Uh, even metabolically, it affects our bodies. There's. Research that shows that when we're under that form of social stress, uh, if we have a meal within two hours of being under that form of social stress, we metabolize that meal, uh, at the same exact meal, uh, uh, with 104 more calories to it, right?

[00:25:40] Because the way metabolic our bodies process, And so you add that up over the course of a year, and that can be like 11 pounds difference, um, because of the, the stress and what it does to us. So, so when you say, how do I think about stress for me that that book and that work has really shifted how I look at it because [00:26:00] I'm focusing very carefully on.

[00:26:02] How do I shape interactions that are creating small moments of stress and take those outta my life? How do I make sure I'm causing less stress? Because what I found is the stress we create inevitably boomerangs back to us in a different form. Uh, and then how do I find ways to rise above some of it, right?

[00:26:20] Because there's so much of it, uh, coming at us today that you're not gonna be able to deal directly with it all. And what we found is some of the more successful people, their strategies were really about creating dimensionality in their lives and doing other things that helped them rise above it, uh, in, in pretty specific 

[00:26:36] Jeremy Tiers: ways.

[00:26:38] Any specifics. Rob, if you're willing to share, not just obviously from the research, but even from your own personal experience, how are you then saying, all right, I'm going to make sure I'm fixing some of these social stresses, or, you know, limiting these micros stresses. Just what, what are you doing differently because of the research, or what did you see some of those high performers do in terms of tangible [00:27:00] strategies to fix those 

[00:27:01] Rob Cross: things?

[00:27:01] Yeah. And so there's 14 of these micro trusses, and they each, each, each are, uh, they, they each have different ways of dealing directly with them, right? Um, and so we, you know, it really is dependent on what you see there. But what we, uh, really focus on is having people isolate out two or three. That, that are affecting them, that they, they're systemic enough in their life that they should do something about it.

[00:27:27] Right? So, I'll give you an example. For me, I have a, a, a, a daughter. That's a, that is the highlight of my life, right? Somebody that I speak with a ton, you know, super positive sense of purpose in my life, teaches me how to live intentionally. Humor, you know, everything. And this young woman, um, when she was a, a junior tennis player in high school, uh, she was, she got very good, she was a nationally ranked tennis player.

[00:27:49] And so we would travel the country together and go to tournaments. And as a product of that, we just fell into a, a way of her relying on me and me jumping in to help solve [00:28:00] problems that, that when she became an adult persisted. Right. And so she would. Anytime is, you know, she's graduated from one of the best schools in the country.

[00:28:08] She's pursuing med school and still, anytime something goes wrong she'll say, you know, write me a note saying this just happened. Right. And what was, what was literally just a knee jerk reaction from her, you know, she didn't care about this stuff. It just got to be how she was used to passing it on. I would worry about for three hours, it'd be in the back of my mind.

[00:28:26] Didn't, didn't. You know, fight or flight me, right? I didn't run out panic, but I'm, it's in the back of my mind. I'm ruminating on it and, and worried about it until over a glass of wine. We discovered this, right? And just kind of talked about it and I said, Rachel, cut it out. You know, um, you're killing me.

[00:28:41] And, and she did. Like, she just said, you know what, I, if there's something that's really significant, I'm gonna let dad know and dad's there in a heartbeat, but I don't need to be passing this stuff on. It's just a knee-jerk reaction. As simple and as silly as that sound, it's had a material impact on my life.

[00:28:56] By just shaping that interaction, uh, [00:29:00] alone, right? And so if you start looking for that in the relationships, and you don't just think about stress as the people that are toxic, right? Or the people you don't like, because if you, if you're paying attention, this is stress that's created by somebody I love, right?

[00:29:13] Not somebody that I dislike. Um, but if you start looking to say, how do I shift the interactions a little bit? Then we, we have a sea of opportunities to do that and have a material impact. So, so that's, you know, on that side, that's one example of 10 I could give you, right? Where I'm, where I'm focused on, okay, what is it that's spiking me?

[00:29:31] All these things, typically I would just say, you know what, I'll just get through it. But if you actually start finding ways to take 'em outta your life, the, the impact of that is huge. We know the negative interactions have three to five times the impact on our happiness. That the positive? Do you know?

[00:29:46] What we know is, is the happier people, they're not typically defined by doing one or two really big things. They're typically defined by, um, living the small moments more authentically in connection with others. Right. So what that means for [00:30:00] me is I, I cycle, I do about a hundred miles a week with a group of people that, you know, I, I don't go out by myself.

[00:30:07] We ride together. And, and that is a, a, a form, a dimension in my life that I've built in because it, it, it gives me a different activity that allows me to push back on work, but it puts it in a set of people that are coming at life from very different perspectives. Right? So, you know, a mailman, an IT executive, a neurosurgeon, That are all part of this group, and you just start to get in conversations that you see your life differently, right?

[00:30:34] Than if you're just hanging out with the same people, uh, over and over again. And that was really critically what I saw about the happiest people, is that they tended to be authentic members of at least two and usually three groups outside of their profession. And that created dimensionality, right? So that they weren't down in the weeds.

[00:30:52] And if you know anything about academia like you do, That's one of the biggest challenges is they say the academics, the fights are so vicious because the [00:31:00] stakes are so small, right? And that's what academic institutions do, is they get into the weeds quickly and everything is a, uh, a battle. And I think we need to, to fight to do the reverse of that, right?

[00:31:11] Fight to find other dimensionality in life that starts to put things in perspective and help. Uh, help keep some of that happening. So, so those are some of the things, right from the books and some things specifically that, that I'm doing with it. I focus on building dimensionality, physically, things that create physical health for me with cycling and tennis, um, spiritually, uh, and aesthetically, right?

[00:31:34] I've started to play a musical instrument, um, as a way to bring something new into my life and do 

[00:31:39] Jeremy Tiers: that with others. I appreciate you sharing all of that. And, and I love this idea of, you know, getting out and surrounding yourself with different groups of people and just doing other things that you enjoy that allow you again to, to, you know, have that happiness.

[00:31:55] Rob, you've also helped hundreds of organizations with, you know, leadership effectiveness. [00:32:00] What do you think, gimme two, three, as many as you want to give me traits that you think every effective leader has in 2023. 

[00:32:08] Um, 

[00:32:09] Rob Cross: so from my lens, the way that I look at it, um, it's really critical to be thinking about how do you reduce the collaborative demands.

[00:32:16] Uh, as we've talked about, if you're not doing that, eventually people get overwhelmed. Their creativity falls off, their ability to engage others falls off and they falter, um, in different ways. We see that. It used to be that not getting connected enough was one of the critical derailers. For leaders now we're finding it's the, it's getting overwhelmed, right?

[00:32:36] That tends to be the things that take people off the top career paths. And then the second thing for me is, well, what do you do with that time? Like if you're creating that space, how do you use that time? Well, from a network standpoint, and what we find is the more successful people, they tend to initiate connections, um, and explore possibilities with others at a greater rate.

[00:32:55] So that's what I was thinking initially with that admissions committee question is, [00:33:00] um, you know, it may take. That admissions person setting up eight meetings and spending 30 minutes with eight different faculty. But in that, in that, you probably get five that say, you know what, I'm not gonna do it, but maybe you get the two.

[00:33:13] That are the rock stars that come in and, and have some really cool thing in environmental science that they're willing to share and gets everybody enthused. Right. And that's kind of what, what I see that's creating a more successful person is that they would proactively make outreach and exploration a part of their job.

[00:33:31] You know? And these would be short, 30 minute discussions where they were reaching into other pockets of their organizations and seeing. You know, how, what are you doing? How could what I do benefit you? How could what you do benefit me? Are there ways we could and should be working together? And you do enough of that, right?

[00:33:47] And you'll come across the right sets of interactions that help you see and package what you're doing differently. 

[00:33:54] Jeremy Tiers: So what else do you feel like then? We've unpackaged a bunch of stuff and I appreciate your [00:34:00] willingness to share around collaboration and just handling stress and this fact that so many of us are.

[00:34:08] Over extended, you know, stressed out about a bunch of things. What else do you think ultimately, in so many industries right now is causing people ultimately to say, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. And because of that, obviously we've got retention issues everywhere. Anything else that we haven't really highlighted today, Rob, that you feel like impacts it significantly?

[00:34:29] Rob Cross: Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of the burnout that we're experiencing, as I described, is driven by. Um, these micros stresses, right? The small moments of stress that are accumulating around people. I think the other thing that, um, we're not doing enough of is the, the, the level of energy in organizations and just enthusiasm for what we're up to is dropped.

[00:34:49] And so I've actually mapped this, believe it or not, uh, for about 23, 24 years. I would you go into places and I'm asking. When you interact with Jeremy, do you walk away more enthused or not typically? [00:35:00] Right. Not every time, but typically, uh, do you walk away a little bit more enthused about what you're up to in, uh, the context of your work?

[00:35:06] And if you do that with everybody, you can create these dynamic maps that show our people energized by working with each other, and who are the people that create energy and enthusiasm. And, and then you can actually reverse the scale and say, who are the people that suck the life out of the place? Um, in different ways.

[00:35:21] Uh, the negative deener energizers and generally what we've seen. Is as we've moved through Covid and we've lost a lot of the serendipitous exchanges and the space for serendipity to happen, um, energy has kind of declined a little bit, right? And that to me is a real problem. I mean, it's a huge predictor of high performers, of more innovative cultures, of, um, of, of places where engagement is higher.

[00:35:45] Kind of all those things. So we are doing a lot with that too. We know that the way people create energy and networks is very behavioral. It's not extroversion or introversion. It's people that see realistic possibilities that use humor well, that invoke [00:36:00] fun into 

[00:36:00] Jeremy Tiers: their work. Any final advice you would just give somebody listening, especially if they're not in a leadership position when it comes to.

[00:36:08] Again, where do I start with all of this? Is it to your point, sitting down and writing things down and having lists of, I want to fix this. This stresses me out, interacting with these certain people seems to make me happy, versus these people, what are two or three tangible things that somebody, especially if they're not in a leadership position can do that they'll see an immediate impact if they do 

[00:36:30] Rob Cross: it.

[00:36:31] We have more ability as human beings today to shape what we do and who we do it with, but we give it away. Cons constantly, you know, I mean, we don't, we don't rely on the weather to eat anymore. You know what I mean? I mean, it's just crazy how much latitude we have in our lives and work. And yet we, we tend to assume, oh, I can't reach out to that person, or, oh, because this person turned me down this time, you know, I'm just not gonna do it anymore.

[00:36:53] Right. And we've become smaller versions of ourselves, I would say Fight that. You know, and, and just continue exploring until [00:37:00] you find the two best friends that, that see admissions and getting the best students possible in the door. And, and they're willing to kind of contribute effort or work with you in different ways.

[00:37:10] That's what happier people are doing, right? They're not putting these restrictions on themselves. They're more proactive. They're not creating an invisible fence, uh, on that. Not that all these other things we talked about don't exist, right? You have recalcitrant faculty, you have toxic cultures. All sorts of things.

[00:37:27] Um, but, but you shouldn't let that overwhelm the ability to find the positive pockets, uh, too, and to, to kind of outreach and, and make things happen that way. 

[00:37:37] Jeremy Tiers: Control what you can control, right? That's 

[00:37:40] Rob Cross: it. 

[00:37:42] Jeremy Tiers: Well, Rob, we like to end every podcast doing a couple of things. The first thing I want to ask you is a question I've been asking all my guests this year.

[00:37:50] Who or what has been the most influential resource for you in your career? 

[00:37:55] Rob Cross: Uh, the most influential impact for me has been my kids. And [00:38:00] actually seeing kind of how they live life differently. Right. And, and it's been a blessing to have, uh, two kids that are very thoughtful, um, very intentional, uh, about what they're doing with their lives.

[00:38:11] And so I would, I would have to flag them, you know, and there's others I could point to, mentors and things like that. But if I really was honest, um, it would be kind of my respect and admiration for what they're trying to do with their lives. That's been the, uh, the, probably the biggest, biggest influence for 

[00:38:25] Jeremy Tiers: me.

[00:38:26] The last thing we do, Rob, is something I call fun rapid fire. So I'm just going to give you a handful of things and I just want some quick immediate answers from you, okay? Okay. More, more beautiful campus, Virginia or Babson.

[00:38:43] Rob Cross: That's a hard, I'm gonna go Babson.

[00:38:49] Jeremy Tiers: Better tennis player. Andre Agassi or Pete Samra. 

[00:38:55] Rob Cross: That's, I'm gonna go Pete Apress. He had the better record, but they were both very good at [00:39:00] different things. That's the challenge, right? 

[00:39:04] Jeremy Tiers: Your dream location to enjoy your passion for cycling. You go anywhere. You haven't been with your cycling group. Where do you want to go?

[00:39:12] Myorca. 

[00:39:13] Rob Cross: Spain. Beautiful coastline. Really hilly countryside. Challenging but stunning, stunningly spectacular seafood and wines at the end of every night. 

[00:39:23] Jeremy Tiers: Best live concert you've been to in the last five years, 

[00:39:26] Rob Cross: casting crowns this year. It's a, a Christian rock band. Um, but, but, but, uh, uh, instrumental, I mean, just crazy good.

[00:39:34] And if I had a second, I'd say maroon five. And what Adam Levine does with an audience is, uh, is pretty spectacular. 

[00:39:40] Jeremy Tiers: And what's the hardest part of writing a book? Cuz you've written a couple of them. So what's the hardest part? 

[00:39:45] Rob Cross: It's the, the tedium. You know, I, I laugh about this with people all the time.

[00:39:48] They will say, you know, I'm gonna go rent a cottage on the lake for two months. I'm gonna write a book. And I'm like, you have no idea how this happens to you. It's the, the tedium of every morning getting up, going through this chapter [00:40:00] for the 33rd time, getting feedback that some of which you agree, some of which you don't agree with, um, uh, but, so you have to be passionate right about it.

[00:40:07] You have to believe that you're onto something that's worth not just getting the book out, but then also supporting it in the marketing stages and. And things like that. 

[00:40:15] Jeremy Tiers: Thank you so much, Rob, for being on and just sharing so much with us today. And. Speaking of books, obviously we've mentioned a couple of them today, but I really encourage everybody listening, if you're looking for ideas to help you with collaboration, please go check out Rob's Beyond Collaboration Overload book and the new book that just came out around Micro Stress and the Micro Stress Effect is the name of the book.

[00:40:37] Just how those little things pile up and as Rob says, create big problems, I think will also be helpful. If people want to connect with you, Rob, what's the best way for them to 

[00:40:46] Rob Cross: do that? Um, my website, uh, rob cross.org is the, the quickest way to reach 

[00:40:51] Jeremy Tiers: out to me. Awesome. Rob, again, I appreciate your time and knowledge today.

[00:40:55] Thank you so much. Thank you so 

[00:40:56] Rob Cross: much. 

[00:40:59] Zach Busekrus: Hey [00:41:00] all. Zach Here're from Enroll Fight. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Mission Admissions with Jeremy Tiers. If you like this episode, do us a huge favor and hit that follow and subscribe button below. Furthermore, if you've got just two minutes to spare, we would greatly appreciate you.

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