The myth that "you can't overcommunicate" is one of the most destructive fallacies in organizational management. Leaders often believe the solution to any communication problem is volume. If the message didn't land, the assumption is simple: we didn't send it enough times. This leads to the reflex of overcommunication: sending the same update through multiple channels, copying everyone who might possibly need to know, and relying on repetition instead of precision.
The result is noise. When employees receive three versions of the same message in the same morning, a Teams notification, an email, and an intranet update, they learn a dangerous lesson: Most of what I receive is redundant. They stop treating incoming communication as essential, and they start treating it as disposable.
This overload creates a chronic attention deficit. Employees waste massive amounts of time processing and discarding duplicate information just to find the single, essential instruction buried underneath. The system is designed to reassure the sender that they "covered their bases," but it transfers the burden of filtering onto the recipient.
Overcommunication is a common habit that looks like thoroughness, but it starves the organization of focus. If your message requires constant repetition across multiple channels to be seen, the problem is not the distribution; the problem is the lack of utility in the content itself.
To fix this, leaders need to enforce message scarcity; define one channel for one purpose. The moment you are tempted to send a second email on the same topic, stop and ask: What new, essential action does this second communication require? If the answer is none, the message is noise, and you need to cut it.
Clarity requires strategic intention; the goal is to maximize the utility of every message you send. The best evidence of communication discipline is the volume of internal messages your employees don't need to read.
