What Is The Term Used To Describe When Information Exceeds Our Processing Capacity?

It is "Information Overload (IO)", which is one of the barriers to effective communication, and in such situation, the manager can’t understand all the messages received because the time is limited and he is unable to read and understand all the messages received during working hours. This also limits his processing capacity. An example of information overload occurs when a manager received too many messages received from customers, employees, etc., in his daily business life. Since the information is exceeded his capacity to process and understand the messages completely, so he is unable to make effective communication and as a result, he can’t make quality decision.

Disadvantages of IO

1. Difficulty In Decision Making

As the complete information of lots of messages can’t be obtained, so quality decisions can’t be made. There is uncertainty and lack of clarity to make effective decisions. This also makes Group or Team decision making process difficult to work to reach the accurate and quality decision.

2. Unrest Increased

Due to lots of information received on daily basis causes unrest to management and employees and they feel frustration during working hours which affects the working performance of the organization and common goals become difficult to achieve.

3. Lack of Motivation

Due anxiety of handling IO, the employees and management feel less satisfaction which discourage and demotivates them to focus and make full efforts on their important tasks. They lose interest on the daily tasks to accomplish on time and to achieve common goals. Due to this, they may give up in difficult situation which badly affects the working flow of the organization.

4. Decrease In Collaboration

As the message is not read at all or less read out by manager or employees during working hours, so complete information is not shared among group or team members which confuse them to work together. It creates lack of coordination among them and common goals can’t be achieved under group or team work.

How To Deal With IO

In an organization, IO can’t be completely controlled, but with the right strategy, it can be limited to be shared more relevance to the requirements of the job tasks.

1. Reply To Selective, Urgent And Important Messages Only

To overcome IO, the manager may decide that he will reply those important messages which he can process i.e., first 20 urgent and important messages within his schedule time. In this way, he can easily reply to those needed and important messages which he can understand well and conveys effectively to target audience.

2. Sort Out Relevant Information

A manager sort out urgent and most relevant information so that most important and relevant work can be do on priority basis. All irrelevant information should be discarded or pass through to the concerned department.

3. Use of IT Tools To Filter Important E-Mails

In an organization, the use of latest advanced IT Tools to filter relevant and important e-mails in inboxes to get the right information to be shared among the team members in workplace.