Articles

Information Overload Paralyzes Work

Jana M. Kemp

How many times in the last two weeks have you found yourself stopped in your tracks, hands up in the air, wondering how to proceed because all of the information you have is in conflict? How much junk email, mail, and voicemail are you getting each day? No matter how you count it, the result is an information overload that paralyzes your ability to get work done.

Recently the Idaho Commission for Libraries sponsored Stephen Abram’s keynote “The Perfect Storm – today’s information tornado.” While listening to Abram’s animated information download, I gained several insights into organizing information. For instance, Abram’s says being “intuitive is a learned behavior – when you have learned how to use information it becomes intuitive.” This means we can reduce information overloads by learning to narrow the volume of and focus in on the relevant information that we attempt to work with each day.

“Improve the quality of the questions you ask” was another provoking idea from Abram’s talk. Many organizations I work with fall down on question-asking. Instead gathering too much irrelevant information, jumping to conclusions, and acting before gathering relevant information is the prevailing workplace behavior. So the urging to “improve the quality of questions” rings out as a skill to gain for reducing workplace paralysis and information overloads.

Asking “what” questions will help you improve the quality of your questions. For example: What do we need? What caused the problem? What is working so well that we want to continue doing it? What information is most relevant to our making a decision? What is the problem that this solution solves?

Depending on how you ask “what if” questions, you can expand team thinking or you can end up paralyzing the team and preventing a decision. Asking “what if we didn’t do this” can lead to a discussion that confirms what action to take. Asking “what if this, what if that, and what if it fails” can lead to negative attitudes and to paralysis. So ask ever better questions.

While the high-wire information balancing act that we each daily engage in is not life threatening, it most certainly is exhausting. So, to increase your success, focus on information that is relevant to your daily work. Keep in view the information that may affect your work in the course of the next month and year. And improve the quality of your questions.

Action Item: Reduce the volume of over-information floating around your office. Focus on information that matters and that can lead to action.
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Reprint Permission: The author is willing to grant reprint permissions. Please contact Jana Kemp: jana@janakemp.com or call 208-367-1701.