Solving Information Overload is one of the highest-ROI actions an enterprise can embark on. With knowledge workers losing about one day a week to this issue, anything that will reclaim them that time is bound to repay itself very rapidly for the company, while improving the victims’ quality of life. There’s just one potential pitfall: some of the organizational solutions available may seem restrictive or oppressive to at least some employees, and that may limit their success. It is important to make the solutions acceptable to the very people they are trying to help!
Here are some ideas for achieving this acceptance:
- Involve the employee base from the very start. That may be the biggest predictor of a successful IO program. Announce your intent to tackle the program early, before the solutions are a done deal! In one company I know this was achieved by the organization’s top manager blogging about his intention to address IO in his internal blog, which drew many enthused responses.
If you set up a team to define solutions, consider including in it employees from all layers in the hierarchy, to give your users a voice.
- Collect ideas for solutions from your employees, thereby securing both their help and their commitment, while giving your program visibility. At Intel IT we held an employee contest for ideas, complete with prizes; we got hundreds of submissions, many quite insightful, and the ensuing program was a great success.
- If the solution is radical, try it out first in a Pilot team. This carefully chosen and motivated team will be more likely to succeed, and the outcome – if it is positive – will be easier to sell to the rest of the organization.
- Be sensitive – and creative! For example, consider the way the VP of Marketing at Veritas software implemented a “No Email on Friday” ban. He went so far as to fine anyone who sent an email that day with $1. That should have caused a big outcry, but instead it was accepted and fondly remembered years later by the employees as a fun program. How come? Because the VP had the wisdom to have the fines go to charity, and to let the employees decide which charity it would be; and he played the whole thing lightly and with a sense of humor, going so far as to put up “wanted” posters for repeat offenders…
If you have any success stories we can learn from, share them in the comments!
