The State of Work The alignment paradox 32 Beyond communication, the But these innovators seem Be choosy about choosing very technology that should to have landed on a solution. Leveraging the boost productivity can under- They are the most likely to feel Determine which decisions mine it. Nearly half of all that collaboration tools are an power of choice 1 you can delegate to others or knowledge workers surveyed effective form of communi- technology. (49%) reported that switch- cation, at almost three times ing between apps prevents the rate of employees at lag- in the workplace them from getting essential gard companies (those that are work done. among the last to adopt new Identify your priorities products and services). From the innovator stand- The average working person in a Select three to five significant The innovator’s dilemma point, it’s clear that apps aren’t 2 problems or ideas to focus on. going anywhere. So the best, developed country deals with an The app overload effect is most effective approach is to extraordinary amount of information particularly profound at “inno- consolidate them in a collab- vator” companies—those that oration platform to stem the each day—the equivalent of reading Keep your end goal in mind adopt new products and ser- fragmentation of attention. 174 newspapers, according to vices first. Almost all workers True to form, the innovators Rather than reacting to at innovator companies report may have found and adopted Columbia Business School professor 3 incoming information, define using more apps than they did a solution that will inform the Sheena Iyengar. Here, she shares what you need to know to five years ago. future of work. strategies for dealing with too move forward. And as with aligned workers many decisions. overall, app switching can get in the way of actual work. Set limits Eighty-one percent of work- ers at innovator companies Put a time cap on information- report spending at least 30 4gathering and set an endpoint minutes each day switching for making a decision. between apps. © SLACK TECHNOLOGIES, INC. 2019