These are my opinions backed by research by PMC, HBR, Haiilo, ResearchGate, et al.
1. Information overload makes it hard to find the signal
Research shows too much info can hurt decision making rather than help it. When the volume or complexity of info crosses a threshold then people struggle to process and use it effectively.
Might sound obvious but I'm often struggling to wrap my head around one internal doc let alone a few.
2. Too much internal comms correlates with stress and lost productivity
When people are continuously bombarded with messages, notifications, and documents, they get stressed, burn out, and performance tanks. Too much time spent parsing.
Again this might be obvious but much time do you spend daily sorting through Slack, Gmail, Notion, etc.?
3. Communicating more info does not always mean communicating useful info
Internal docs often include facts, history, details and context without prioritising what actually matters right now. The decision, the risk, or the next step. When people are overloaded, which you often are, they skim, misinterpret, or skip info entirely.
4. Communication impact is hard to measure
Internal comms professionals themselves report difficulty proving the ROI of their work and often can't connect messages to concrete business outcomes or engagement metrics. There's a mismatch between volume and value.
5. Best practice alternatives exist.
One well known industry example comes from Amazon's culture where long slide decks are deliberately replaced with structured narrative memos, like six page written briefs. These clarify and priositise what matters most in decision contexts. Industry accounts describe this as a method to traverse the common "more info=better" assumption.
Altogether you fuck yourself up with: