第1778-c期:How to be a team player -- without burning out

Collaborative work is everything we do to come up with big new ideas and make plans to bring them to life with other people. The modern workplace is set up with so many ways to foster collaboration: meetings and brainstorming sessions, Zooms and Slack channels, email, instant messaging, so many tools to help us work closely together. And aspects of this are great, but we're doing more collaborative work than ever before, and the problem is it's overloading us.

协作工作是我们为提出新想法并制定计划与其他人一起实现这些想法所做的一切。现代工作场所设置了许多促进协作的方式：会议和头脑风暴会议、Zooms 和 Slack 频道、电子邮件、即时消息，以及许多帮助我们紧密合作的工具。这方面很好，但我们比以往任何时候都在做更多的协作工作，问题是它让我们超负荷。

From launching a new product to creating a vaccine, almost every endeavor we do at work requires working with others towards a common goal. And collaboration is a great thing. It can help us work better and smarter. It can help us come up with ideas we never would have had on our own. And it can make us happier than executing tasks alone.

从推出新产品到研制疫苗，我们在工作中所做的几乎每一项努力都需要与他人合作以实现共同目标。协作是一件好事。它可以帮助我们更好、更聪明地工作。它可以帮助我们想出我们自己永远不会有的想法。与单独执行任务相比，它可以让我们更快乐。

But collaborative work has risen 50 percent over the past decade. It's now taking up to 85 percent of most people's workweeks. And those numbers from my research were pre-pandemic. Studies show that people are working five to eight hours more a week now, with collaborations drifting earlier into the morning and later into the evening.

但协作工作在过去十年中增加了 50%。它现在占据了大多数人每周工作时间的 85%。我研究得出的这些数字是大流行前的。研究表明，人们现在每周多工作 5 到 8 个小时，合作时间早到早上，晚到晚。

When I came into this research, I was 100 percent convinced the enemy was external. It was emails, time zones and demanding clients, to name just a few. But after hundreds of interviews, I've discovered that even when given a choice not to participate, people are taking on more collaborative work than ever before. We’re just too eager to jump in to collaborations that burn up our time and that might actually run better without 20 people in the fray.

当我进入这项研究时，我 100% 相信敌人是外部的。这是电子邮件、时区和苛刻的客户，仅举几例。但经过数百次采访后，我发现即使可以选择不参与，人们也会比以往任何时候都更多地参与协作。我们太急切地投入到耗费我们时间的合作中，如果没有 20 个人的参与，合作实际上可能会运行得更好。

About 50 percent of the collaboration overload problem starts with the beliefs we have about ourselves and what it means to be a good colleague and a productive person. These beliefs are hard to change, but if we examine them more closely, it can allow us to make stronger choices about what we do at work and who we do it with.

大约 50% 的协作过载问题始于我们对自己的信念，以及成为好同事和富有成效的人意味着什么。这些信念很难改变，但如果我们更仔细地审视它们，它可以让我们对我们在工作中做什么以及与谁一起做更有力的选择。

There are many triggers that spark our desire to say yes so often. But today I want to focus on the top three: the desire to help others, the need for accomplishment and fear.

有许多诱因会激发我们如此频繁地说“是”的愿望。但今天我想重点关注前三项：帮助他人的愿望、成就感和恐惧感。

The first trigger is the desire to help. And the desire to help others is a positive, constructive thing and an important factor in success. It fulfills a deep need to be useful and bolster our identity as a good teammate, But it's also one of the most significant drivers of overload. The more you're helpful, the more people ask for your help. The problem is that you get so bogged down in helping that it prevents you from meeting your own goals. And over time you become a bottleneck, slowing others down. And this is all coming from a good place, the desire to help.

第一个触发因素是提供帮助的愿望。而乐于助人的愿望是积极的、有建设性的事情，是成功的重要因素。它满足了我们对有用并增强我们作为好队友的身份的深刻需求，但它也是超载的最重要驱动因素之一。您提供的帮助越多，寻求您帮助的人就越多。问题是你太专注于帮助别人，以至于无法实现自己的目标。随着时间的推移，你会成为瓶颈，拖慢其他人的步伐。而这一切都来自一个好的地方，即帮助的愿望。

The second trigger's the need for accomplishment. Our drive to achieve is another admirable trait critical to success and productivity in the workplace. And it also feels good, as little wins throughout the day and week give us a burst of satisfaction. The issue is that the cycle can get addictive. It leads you to solve more and more small problems for other people and avoid the bigger, thornier ones critical to your own success. This is my trigger. If I see a five-minute window, I will inevitably try to jam 60 minutes of these little fixes into it and completely ignore the three hours of coordination I need to do to get my team on board with what I'm up to. And then I end up overwhelmed six weeks out, again, all from a good place of trying to get something positive done.

第二个触发器是对成就的需要。我们追求成就的动力是另一个令人钦佩的特质，这对工作场所的成功和生产力至关重要。而且感觉也很好，因为一天和一周的小胜利让我们感到一阵满足。问题是循环会让人上瘾。它会引导你为其他人解决越来越多的小问题，并避免对你自己的成功至关重要的更大、更棘手的问题。这是我的触发器。如果我看到一个五分钟的窗口，我将不可避免地尝试将 60 分钟的这些小修复塞进去，而完全忽略我需要做的三个小时的协调工作，以使我的团队了解我的工作。然后我再次在六个星期外不知所措，所有这些都是从一个试图完成积极事情的好地方开始的。

The third trigger is fear. Fear is a major driver of overload today that takes several forms. The fear of missing out on better projects, better colleagues, better opportunities, can become a persistent, nagging problem that never lets you rest. You feel a frantic need to be a part of things, worrying that it'll be your last opportunity. The fear of losing control is just as bad. It makes you reluctant to delegate or connect the people around you, sentencing you to a life of doing everything yourself. And the fear of what others will say is powerful, too. Your knee-jerk response becomes to say yes early and often, so everyone can see how responsive you are. Unfortunately, these fears drive unproductive choices and lead us into burnout today.

第三个诱因是恐惧。恐惧是当今超载的主要驱动因素，它有多种形式。害怕错过更好的项目、更好的同事、更好的机会，可能会成为一个持续不断、令人烦恼的问题，让您永远无法休息。您感到迫切需要成为事物的一部分，担心这将是您最后的机会。对失去控制的恐惧同样糟糕。它让你不愿意委托或联系你周围的人，让你过上自己做任何事情的生活。对别人会说什么的恐惧也很强大。你下意识的反应会变成尽早且经常说“是”，这样每个人都能看到你的反应有多快。不幸的是，这些恐惧导致了无效的选择，并导致我们今天精疲力尽。

Chances are you recognize yourself in one or more of these triggers. And since I gave you three triggers, how about three ways to deal with them?

您很可能在这些触发因素中的一个或多个中认出了自己。既然我给了你三个触发器，那么三种方法来处理它们怎么样？

Number one, learn to get comfortable saying no. Don't let yourself fall into the belief that you don't have power in situations where your help is requested. Remember that your answer doesn't have to be a binary yes or no. If you get a request from a boss or a colleague, chances are they have no idea what obligations you're juggling. Be clear about what projects or deadlines you have ahead. Ask them to help you prioritize. And if you just don't have the bandwidth, ask the person if you can show them how to do the task they're asking or discuss if there's a different way to accomplish their goals. At the end of the day, every yes means saying no to something else. Save your yeses for when they really matter to you.

第一，学会坦然地说不。不要让自己陷入这样的信念，即在需要您帮助的情况下您没有权力。请记住，您的答案不必是二元的是或否。如果您收到老板或同事的请求，他们很可能不知道您在处理什么义务。清楚你有哪些项目或截止日期。请他们帮助您确定优先顺序。如果您只是没有足够的带宽，请询问此人是否可以向他们展示如何完成他们要求的任务，或者讨论是否有不同的方法来实现他们的目标。归根结底，每一个是都意味着对其他事情说不。把你的肯定留到它们对你真正重要的时候再说。

Number two, remember, you can delegate. Opting out of a request can actually help others become more self-reliant. I’ve found that the most efficient collaborators get their sense of worth not from always giving input and being involved but from developing others and positioning them to grow, too. Draw a line between tasks that really do require you and lower-risk ones that you can delegate without concern. Look for moments when you can give partial direction, empower someone and then step out of the way. And celebrate other's wins. Don't succumb to the temptation to point out how you would have done it differently.

第二，记住，你可以授权。选择退出请求实际上可以帮助其他人变得更加自力更生。我发现，最高效的合作者并不是总是通过提供意见和参与来获得价值感，而是通过培养他人并让他们成长。在真正需要您完成的任务和您可以放心委派的低风险任务之间划清界线。寻找可以给予部分指导、授权某人然后让开的时刻。并庆祝他人的胜利。不要屈服于指出你会如何以不同方式做到这一点的诱惑。

Number three, be intentional in crafting your work life. High performers are strategic in knowing their goals and identifying what they can and should take on. They think about their priorities not only for the week ahead but on a two-to-three month time horizon too. So when a collaboration surfaces, make sure you're not making an emotional decision based on a false belief. Ask yourself, how does it align with my goals? How much time and energy will it take each week? And what are the upsides of the outcome? Try to maximize those collaborations where you want to do the work, it contributes to your goals and you're the best person to do it.

第三，有意识地规划你的工作生活。高绩效者在了解他们的目标和确定他们可以和应该承担的事情方面具有战略意义。他们不仅会考虑未来一周的优先事项，还会考虑两到三个月的时间范围。因此，当合作浮出水面时，请确保您没有根据错误的信念做出情绪化的决定。问问自己，它如何与我的目标保持一致？每周需要多少时间和精力？结果的好处是什么？尝试在您想开展工作的地方最大限度地开展合作，这有助于实现您的目标，并且您是最适合做这件事的人选。

The crazy thing about collaboration overload is that it feels good right up until it doesn't. All it takes is one thing too many to start a downward spiral. Remember, you're the only one who knows all your goals and obligations and that you often have more choice than you think.

协作超载的疯狂之处在于，它感觉很好，直到它消失为止。只需要一件太多的事情就可以开始螺旋式下降。请记住，您是唯一知道自己所有目标和义务的人，而且您的选择往往比您想象的要多。