Repetition

An excerpt from the book Homo Imitans by Leandro Herrero:

In an information-cluttered working environment where many ‘initiatives’ compete for airtime, repeated topdown communications become terribly inefficient. In Cluttered Corporate Inc, noise and signal get blurred. Eventually all is noise. The biggest health hazard of world I is information pollution. In fact, the mathematics of world I are the maths of attrition: start with aiming at everybody and then

cascade down. Information will reach initial destinations (stocks). Some people will pay attention. From those first ‘receivers’, some people will pay enough attention to understand. From those, some will consider doing something.

From those, some will actually attempt to do something. When you get to the terminus, a relatively small percentage has been truly influenced by the communication(s). Attrition is not only embedded, amazingly, we have come to accept that this is perfectly OK, a natural part of the process.

To fight attrition, we usually have a not-so-secret weapon: repetition. A new, bigger and better communication campaign will take place. This time perhaps communication packages will be prepared for VPs. VPs will brief directors, directors will have workshops with managers and managers have meetings with staff. And this way, ‘everybody will have gone through it’ (this is the language you hear) to ensure consistency. It is a noble and expensive goal. Large budgets are allocated, but the programmes have relatively small impact.

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