Information Research Weblog

I was out interviewing in a company today as part of my current project on 'information overload'. My colleague, David Allen, and I were interviewing two senior executives and the conversation got round to the impact of the organization's culture on the phenomenon. The company was described as one in which people were under pressure, as a result of 'careful headcount control' and that their (the executives') view was that they hired the kind of people who liked the adrenaline rush, who worked late and intensively, who took their mobile phones away on holiday to be in touch and so on. They were rather nonplussed by my question, "But does the company actually need to be like this?" We never got a clear answer, but the general impression was that, actually, it didn't need to be like that.

I think we are all aware of the damage that this mode of work does to people - stress related sickness also takes its toll of the company. So why is it happening in this country more than anywhere else in the world? How many companies actually need to pressurise people to the point of breakdown when they are in profit, with good market share, and so on? It certainly isn't only the companies that are in trouble that behave this way - even successful companies exhibit the syndrome but not, according to Jim Collins, the truly great ones. Are we on a spiralling track to self-destruct?

The relevance of this for 'information overload'? Well, to date, our feeling is that cultures of this kind result in what we've called 'aberrant communication behaviour', which results in 'watch your back' communications and other mal-practices that increase overload. The culture also fosters work overload, and the response to that is often to generate information overload on others.

The technology is often blamed for overload, but the causes go much deeper.