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August 30, 2006
Should you be responsible for solving overload?
This week, I’ve had three conversations with three separate clients about communication overload:
- One company is suffering from survey overload. It seems as if every department surveys employees (and it’s almost always all a census of all employees) about nearly every issue. Our client is planning a communication audit and worries about contributing to the glut.
- Initiative overload is an issue in another organization. Every initiative project leader and/or executive sponsor wants to make sure his program gets enough attention. That means they all want full-scale programs, complete with communication teams, a logo, events, a publication, a web site, etc.
- The third client continues to struggle with electronic (especially e-mail) overload. It’s gotten so bad that open rates are declining to embarrassing level even when an e-mail comes from the CEO. Increasingly, employees’ standard response is to delete e-mails without reading them.
In my last web log, I wrote about the idea of declaring e-mail bankruptcy to start afresh—but today I’m thinking that perhaps we need to broaden that concept to information bankruptcy. When all communication is treated equally—as if it’s extremely urgent and vitally important—it loses its differentiation and becomes an undistinguishable blur. White noise. Nothingness.
That’s why I ask: Who’s responsible for solving the problem of information overload in your organization? I’d like to suggest that maybe that person is you.
“Not so fast,” you protest. “I only impact a small percentage of the communication received by employees. And I’ve got so much on my plate that it’s overflowing. I don’t have the time—or the authority—to take on this problem.”
All true, but if you don’t address this problem, who will? It’s getting worse and worse all the time. It seems that every manager who can code HTML is creating graphic e-mails, and every professional who can create a Microsoft Word document is developing electronic newsletters. How will the madness stop unless someone, anyone decides that the problem must be addressed holistically and systemically?
It takes courage, it takes senior-level buy-in, and it certainly takes a strong stomach. But the person who leads the charge (because it will have to be a team effort, for sure) to slay the Information Overload Dragon will become a hero in the organization for sure.
Are you that person?
Posted by Alison Davis at August 30, 2006 03:58 PM