I suspect that we have all been in situations where we have had so much information coming at us that we simply cannot process it as we should.It has been my experience that information overload can lead to Task Saturation when a person becomes so totally focused on outcomes that he or she forgets to do the steps necessary to achieve success.Training and experience are the keys to keeping information overload from havinglethal consequences.That, of course, is one of the major themes of CTE; and it is important to remember that as leaders, one of our major responsibilities is to provide information at the right time so that our team members are not overwhelmed, but also have theinformationthey need when they need it.

One of the few things I hate about working in teams is that they are extremely inefficient, particularly in their early stages of development.There are many reasons for this inefficiency, but one of the major ones is that it simply takes time for people to learn to work together and learn new ways of doing our jobs.This can be the result of information overload and can result in Task Saturation.In a team situation, Task Saturation results in paralysis of the team: the team fails to accomplish its mission.Why?Perhaps the team members were overwhelmed and simply gave up.One long-time employee once told me "Too much to learn and not enough time.It's just not worth it."