Information overload vs. filter failure

I'm a big fan of Nathan Zeldes' blog. Aside from his seminal piece on "Infomania," he's a clear-eyed observer of the email hell in which most corporate employees find themselves trapped. Recently, he rebutted Clay Shirky's argument (here and here) that "It's not information overload. It's filter failure." Shirky's maintains that (since Gutenberg at least) there's always been more information than any individual could possibly process -- but it's not a problem, because as long as reading it all isn't mandatory, who cares? But Zeldes rejects that argument. As he says,

It is not that there’s a lot of information; it is that there’s a lot more information that we are expected to read than we have time to read it in. It’s about the dissonance between that requirement and our ability to comply with it, and this requirement was not there in Alexandria or in Gutenberg’s Europe: you were free to read only what you wanted to and had time for. This is what has changed, not just the filtering....there is an expectation (express or implied) that you must go through all the mail in your Inbox.

I think Zeldes is exactly correct in this analysis. And to his credit, he points out that along with the obvious reasons for the growth of email (it's free, easy, and instant), there are powerful cultural reasons as well: CYA, publish or perish, mistrust, escalation, and so on.

Okay, these aren't exactly Copernican insights here. So what?

Well, as Jamie Flinchbaugh constantly reminds me in regards to A3s, getting the problem statement right is at least half the battle. And I think that the problem statement, "I/We have too much email" isn't very good. After all, how do you define "too much"?

Instead, I think it's worth asking questions like "Why is so much communication done via email?" Or, picking up on Zeldes' point, "Why are we expected to read all that mail?" These questions lead to much more interesting -- and fruitful -- conversations about corporate culture, service level agreements, allocation of authority, etc.

In an earlier post, I talked about how Peter Drucker viewed an excess of meetings as a sign of a dysfunctional organization. He wrote that

Too many meetings always bespeak poor structure of jobs and the wrong organizational components. . . if people in an organization find themselves in meetings a quarter of their time or more — there is time-wasting malorganization.

Too many meetings signify that work that should be in one job or in one component is spread over several jobs or several components. They signify that responsibility is diffused and information is not addressed to the people that need it.

I wonder if you could say the same thing about too much email. Yes, when you're collaborating with teams located in different offices around the world email is a incredibly useful communication tool. But lord knows that there are plenty of people, teams, and companies that don't have that convenient excuse.

The root causes behind our biblical email plague are myriad -- and almost certainly don't involve something we can't fix, like a vengeful god. Asking questions that reveal the root causes can help you take appropriate countermeasures. It's a better approach than blaming email on "filter failure," or meekly accepting the worsening status quo.

The downside of automation

Nathan Zeldes, former Intel engineer and author of the seminal paper on Infomania, argues that IT tools can reduce productivity. He doesn't suggest that computers and information technology, writ large, is a bad thing (he's an Intel guy, after all), but rather that any specific IT tool might not be good for the organization. He describes a typical situation:

I’ve seen many an MD cursing under their breath while struggling to enter my examination data and conclusions into a new computerized system. Instead of scribbling a few illegible lines on paper and chucking it into a manila file, to be processed later by an assistant, they had to use an unfamiliar and possibly ill-designed piece of technology, and it took them much longer. And because of this they had less time to apply their real value added, their precious ability to cure the sick.

Zeldes isn't advocating a return to the 50s, complete with pink collars, steno pads, and 3-martini lunches. (Although, who knows - he might be a fan of Mad Men.) He realizes that the benefits of IT are enormous. But I think he raises an interesting issue: the downside of IT systems and automation.

Zeldes says that usually technology

gets deployed with little attention to the wider implications. Thus, if a tool enables the manager or engineer to do the admin’s work, the temptation to remove the admin and become “lean” and “efficient” is great. But the fact is, an admin is paid much less than a highly skilled engineer or manager (or surgeon); and the latter only has so many hours in a day, which may be better used for doing higher level tasks. This is not to say that we can’t streamline some of the work by having it done by the manager; the question is which part, and to what extent. As is often the case, it’s pretty much about identifying the correct balance.

Toyota is famous for being very slow to introduce new, expensive, technology: they never want to automate a broken process. That slowness to add technology also enables the company to understand how it will affect the value stream, and whether that's wise.

When I see companies leaping at technological solutions for time and attention management, I have a feeling that they're in for a big disappointment. Buying a piece of software isn't a cure for poor work flow any more than buying a bigger pair of pants is a cure for your weight problem. Understanding the root cause(s), developing multiple countermeasures, and going through several PDCA cycles is a more reliable route to success.