How a million little things are dragging you down, and what to do about it. There is a force in our everyday lives that we aren't even aware of-and it's so powerful it threatens to derail otherwise promising careers and lives: microstress. It's the hidden epidemic of small moments of anxiety that infiltrate both our work and personal lives. Because each individual microstress is so small, it doesn't trigger the normal stress response in our brains to help us deal with it. Instead, the microstress just embeds in our minds, accumulating along with scores of other microstresses, day-to-day and week-to-week. The long-term effect is devastating: microstress invisibly weighs us down, damages our physical and emotional health, and contributes to a decline in our overall well-being. What's more, microstress is baked into our lives. The source of microstress is seldom a classic antagonist, such as a demanding client or jerk boss. Instead, it comes from the people-in and out of work-with whom we are closest: our friends, family, and colleagues. The good news is that once you learn about microstress, you can fight back. Drawing on fresh research, Rob Cross and Karen Dillon will teach you how to recognize and manage the most common forms of microstress, and even remove some from your life. Compelling interviews with high achievers who've endured their share of microstress bring to life best practices that show you how to build resilience against microstress, and ultimately how to find purpose in your everyday life, using it as an antidote to your own microstress. It's time to break free from the microstress that's stealing your life. Start here.

Named the Best Management Book of 2021 by strategy+business Named one of "this month's top titles" in the Financial Times in September 2021 Named to the shortlist for the 2021 Outstanding Works of Literature (OWL) Award in the Management & Culture Category A plan for conquering collaborative overload to drive performance and innovation, reduce burnout, and enhance well-being. Most organizations have created always-on work contexts that are burning people out and hurting performance rather than delivering productivity, innovation and engagement. Collaborative work consumes 85% of employees' time and is drifting earlier into the morning, later into the night, and deeper into the weekend. The dilemma is that we all need to collaborate more to create effective organizations and vibrant careers for ourselves. But conventional wisdom on teamwork and collaboration has created too much of the wrong kind of collaboration, which hurts our performance, health and overall well-being. In Beyond Collaboration Overload, Babson professor Rob Cross solves this paradox by showing how top performers who thrive at work collaborate in a more purposeful way that makes them 18-24% more efficient than their peers. Good collaborators are distinguished by the efficiency and intentionality of their collaboration-not the size of their network or the length of their workday. Through landmark research with more than 300 organizations, in-depth stories, and tools, Beyond Collaboration Overload will coach you to reclaim close to a day a week when you: Identify and challenge beliefs that lead you to collaborate too quickly Impose structure in your work to prevent unproductive collaboration Alter behaviors to create more efficient collaboration It then outlines how successful people invest this reclaimed time to: Cultivate a broad network-not a big one-for innovation and scale Energize others-a strong predictor of high performance Connect with others to reduce micro-stressors and enhance physical and mental well-being Cross' framework provides relief from the definitive problem of our age-dysfunctional collaboration at the expense of our performance, health and overall well-being.

In today's de-layered, knowledge-intensive organizations, most work of importance is heavily reliant on informal networks of employees within organizations. However, most organizations do not know how to effectively analyze this informal structure in ways that can have a positive impact on organizational performance. Networks in the Knowledge Economy is a collection of readings on the application of social network analysis to managerial concerns. Social network analysis (SNA), a set of analytic tools that can be used to map networks of relationships, allows one to conduct very powerful assessments of information sharing within a network with relatively little effort. This approach makes the invisible web of relationships between people visible, helping managers make informed decisions for improving both their own and their group's performance. Networks in the Knowledge Economy is specifically concerned with networks inside of organizations and addresses three critical areas in the study of social networks: Social Networks as Important Individual and Organizational Assets, Social Network Implications for Knowledge Creation and Sharing, and Managerial Implications of Social Networks in Organizations. Professionals and students alike will find this book especially valuable, as it provides readings on the application of social network analysis that reflect managerial concerns.

Position yourself for success.

Get more of the management ideas you want, from the authors you trust, with HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself (Vol. 2). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you stay engaged, be productive, and continue to grow throughout your working life.

With insights from leading experts including Susan David, Joseph Badaracco, and Laura Morgan Roberts, this book will inspire you to:

• Identify your purpose and translate it into action
• Make time to learn—and stay relevant in a world of rapid change
• Turn your strengths into superpowers
• Spend more time on the work that matters
• Tackle even your toughest decisions with confidence
• Reduce burnout from collaboration
• Take a stand for yourself and for others

This collection of articles includes "From Purpose to Impact," by Nick Craig and Scott A. Snook; "Learning to Learn," by Erika Andersen; "Making Yourself Indispensable," by John H. Zenger, Joseph R. Folkman, and Scott K. Edinger; "Make Time for the Work That Matters," by Julian Birkinshaw and Jordan Cohen; "Collaboration Without Burnout," by Rob Cross, Scott Taylor, and Deb Zehner; "Emotional Agility," by Susan David and Christina Congleton; "How to Tackle Your Toughest Decisions," by Joseph L. Badaracco; "How Dual-Career Couples Make It Work," by Jennifer Petriglieri; "Cultivating Everyday Courage," by James R. Detert; "Be Your Own Best Advocate," by Deborah M. Kolb; "Building an Ethical Career," by Maryam Kouchaki and Isaac H. Smith; "When and How to Respond to Microaggressions," by Ella F. Washington, Alison Hall Birch, and Laura Morgan Roberts.

Breathing new life into Ireland's history once again, this carefully restored and colourised collection of wonderful black and white images captures the beauty of the nation's fascinating past. This sequel to the bestselling The Colour of Ireland presents a huge variety of captivating images from the 32 counties, from Dublin to Galway and Antrim to Cork, and inspires a new vision of Ireland's heritage. With incredible attention to detail, author Rob Cross has gained a worldwide following by using cutting-edge technology and careful historical research to accurately depict the colours of Ireland's history and tell the stories within these rich images. It's a collection to treasure, enjoy and reflect on for years to come.

The Colour of Ireland: County by County 1860-1960 is a photographic celebration of the history, culture, people and places that make up a century of life in Ireland. Covering all 32 counties, this beautiful, meticulously researched collection takes a past only ever viewed before in black and white and - in glorious colour - breathes fresh energy and emotion into it. With close to 200 colourised photographs set alongside their black and white counterparts, here is a world seen for the first time: a treasure trove to fire the imagination and reignite our connection to the past as it was actually lived. From the thatched cottages of Meath to the libraries of Trinity College, from 1920s sunseekers in Dun Laoghaire to women spinning and carding wool in County Mayo, all Ireland is vividly brought to life. Along with key moments from the Irish War of Independence and the turbulent history of the 32 counties, these images capture rural landscapes, villages, towns and cities. Endlessly, uniquely fascinating, The Colour of Ireland offers a wealth of perspectives on the bygone ages of an ever-changing land.

The Colour of Ireland: County by County 1860-1960 is a photographic celebration of the history, culture, people and places that make up a century of life in Ireland. Covering all 32 counties, this beautiful, meticulously researched collection takes a past only ever viewed before in black and white and - in glorious colour - breathes fresh energy and emotion into it. With close to 200 colourised photographs set alongside their black and white counterparts, here is a world seen for the first time: a treasure trove to fire the imagination and reignite our connection to the past as it was actually lived. From the thatched cottages of Meath to the libraries of Trinity College, from 1920s sunseekers in Dun Laoghaire to women spinning and carding wool in County Mayo, all of Ireland is vividly brought to life. Along with key moments from the Irish War of Independence and the turbulent history of the 32 counties, these images capture rural landscapes, villages, towns and cities. Endlessly, uniquely fascinating, The Colour of Ireland offers a wealth of perspectives on the bygone ages of an ever-changing land.

A powerful, visual framework helps managers discover how employees really communicate and collaborate to get work done - and helps them identify ways they can influence these social networks to improve performance and innovation. In The Hidden Power of Social Networks, Cross and Parker, experts in "social network analysis"--a technique that visually maps relationships between people in large, distributed groups - apply this powerful tool to management for the first time. Based on their in-depth study of sixty informal employee networks in well-known companies around the world, Cross and Parker show managers how to conduct a social network analysis of their organization.

In an age where the pace and complexity of change is accelerating, it's easy to lose sight of the fact we're all just human beings, leading other human beings. Rob's groundbreaking book challenges the status quo, helping us realise that leadership is no longer about being the all-seeing, all-knowing heroic character that we've been told is the answer to all our prayers. Using stories drawn from over 20 years' of working with leaders from across the globe, Rob debunks the myths around what it truly means to 'be a leader', replacing old and obsolete leadership models with a new human-led philosophy fit for the 21st century.