Is everything you know written down somewhere?

Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a system exceeds its processing capacity.

Toffler first popularized this concept on a cultural level in the sixties and seventies, although various religious mystics and philosophers have been chiming that information bell for warning for centuries.

But now that we’re well into the digital age, the curve shows that human knowledge doubles about every thirteen months.

That’s terrifying. Our cavemen brains were simply not constructed to acquire information as fast as they can get it.

Where this concept really hits home is on an organization level. Because contrary to popular conditioning, knowledge can’t really be managed, only enabled. The best we can hope for is to install rituals, systems and other tools to make it easier for people to use that knowledge as leverage.

Kazuo, the godfather of knowledge management, found that the secret is, knowledge enablement has to happen in a caring environment. That’s what lubricates the flow of information within an organization. The intention with which it’s disseminated and the context and relationships that allow it to be unleashed.

At my last job, one of the projects that became my baby was the company wiki. It wasn’t the prettiest of tools, nor was it something that our team depended on as a lifeline on a daily basis. But when it came to onboarding new employees, boy were those people glad it existed.

Because instead of having to figure out all this information on their own, they could simply consult this internal tool on an as needed basis. It wasn’t some lumbering, overwhelming one hundred page employee manual they had to memorize and then sign off on. Our wiki was an easy to navigate web application that was available at their leisure, speed and convenience. (Read my case study about the wiki Marketing Sherpa!)

In fact, here would be my standard line during the onboarding process:

People don’t want to drink from a fire hose, they want a glass of water when they’re thirsty.

My mentor famously gave me that advice years ago in reference to giving speeches and writing books, and the principle has profound applications at a company level.

Ask anyone who’s ever worked at a startup before. Information organization tends not to be their bread and butter. Small businesses prioritize speed and flexibility, often at the cost of structure. Which is totally acceptable for the purposes of company growth, as long as you have a process to mitigate information overload from the beginning.

To me, it’s a form of generosity and caring. You’re signaling to these new team members, look, you’re going to have a lot of stuff thrown at you at once, so rest easy knowing that it’s all documented and easy to reference in one place, forever.

Bottom line is, wherever you work, information is likely stacking up fast and your team is not processing it well, if at all. That’s not good.

Think water glass, not firehose.

Is everything you know written down somewhere?