Question

The company president has noted a constant increase of reports passed on to her, many of them through the mail, and others through the company’s Intranet. Most of these reports remain unread, although the company president when traveling for business does find time to browse through some of the reports while on the airplane. It has clearly become difficult for her to keep track of all projects due to information overload. However, she does not want to abandon her personal objective of being constantly informed, and she does not want to query her vice presidents for summaries of major developments. What are the alternatives available to the company president?

Answer 1

Here is how I feel the situation can be handled by Company president:

• Prioritisation: The company president will have to decide between the priority, important reports and the ones that can be taken care/ screened later on. The ones with priority can be handled immediately and the rest can be checked later on.
• Leadership & trust in delegation: It is important for the company president to understand that not all reports can be checked and the information overload will impact her overall performance. She will have to trust certain managers and department heads to analyse the reports and take actions accordingly.
• Phase wise improvement - She can begin with giving a few reports to the manager or her personal secretary and post-screening she can give her inputs in the project.
• Schedule the reports - Another possible alternative is to have a schedule for reports to be submitted to her. Certain working hours and days can entertain particular reports. This way depending on the schedule she can check the reports and spend less time screening the diversity of reports.
• Plan do not disturb time in the day - The last working hour or later in the day can be allocated to check all the reports and no other engagement will be prioritised at that moment. This can help her to stay focus and screen all the unread reports.

Being President the roles and responsibilities increase and the project screening being important for taking decision needs time & planning. The president needs to plan the daily calendar, need to use certain technology advantages like labelling of important and less important reports, trust the managers and allocate a few hours to screen the most important decisions.

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