Decision overload is the real productivity killer

29/01/2026

Decision overload is the real productivity killer

Too many dashboards. Too few decisions that land.

Productivity is often framed as an efficiency challenge. Organisations look for faster processes, better tools and more automation in the hope that this will improve performance.

In practice, we observe something different.

The real slowdown is not in the work

In many organisations, the real slowdown does not occur in the execution of work itself, but in management decisions that never fully land. Decisions are prepared, discussed, documented and supported, yet they often remain open.

This is not simply a matter of motivation or competence. In many cases, the information required to decide is not available in a form that genuinely supports decision making.

Fragmented information and disconnected dashboards

Important information is still fragmented across organisations. It lives in manually maintained Excel files that are updated just in time for meetings and in PowerPoint presentations that attempt to compensate for missing context. In more than one organisation, even essential internal and external reporting still depends primarily on Excel.

At the same time, dashboards do exist. They are often well designed, technically sound and based on reliable data. Yet they do not always contain the information decision makers actually need. The issue is not the quality of the dashboards, but the fact that those designing them are rarely given sufficient clarity on the decisions to be supported. Requirements tend to specify which KPIs should be shown, but not why those KPIs matter, which questions decision makers are trying to answer, or which choices should follow from the insight. As a result, dashboards present clear averages and trends, while the underlying decision questions remain implicit and critical assumptions go unchallenged.

This gap widens as priorities change faster than information can follow. New questions arise and new KPIs become relevant, but delivery cycles are fixed, budgets are exhausted and information arrives too late to support the decision at hand. The result is a familiar tension. On the one hand, there is a lack of shared, reliable and decision ready information. On the other hand, there is an overload of reports that do not truly help people choose.

External pressures amplify the tension

This tension becomes even stronger in today’s context. Economic uncertainty, faster moving markets and rising societal expectations significantly increase decision pressure.

Organisations face growing pressure from wage indexation, high energy prices and fiscal regulation. Management teams want to act, but decisions often remain unresolved because the impact on customers, employees and social partners is difficult to assess.

Markets also move faster than traditional reporting cycles can follow. In sectors such as retail, logistics and mobility, demand and volumes change from week to week, much faster than before, while decisions are still prepared using monthly or quarterly figures.

More data, fewer choices

At the same time, societal expectations around sustainability, inclusion, mobility and transparency continue to rise. This frequently creates tension between political ambitions, budget realities and what is operationally feasible.

In response, many organisations invest further in data platforms, AI initiatives and additional dashboards. More information is produced, more explanations are offered, sometimes supported by advanced technology and sometimes through manual effort. Yet the fundamental question often remains unanswered. Which decisions do we actually want to take better.

The discomfort of incomplete decisions

The effect is visible. More effort is invested, but this does not automatically lead to more direction.

Decisions are taken with incomplete information, under time pressure, or not taken at all. Discussions circle, preparation replaces choice and hesitation becomes structural.

Decision overload is not a technology problem, not simply a data problem and rarely a capacity issue. It is an organisational tension that emerges when decision making becomes more complex, while information, structures and governance are not aligned with that reality.

The productivity cost is real, but often invisible. It sits in postponed decisions, recurring discussions and initiatives that never fully move forward. It also sits in IT and data teams working hard to deliver quality information, while what truly matters for decisions remains unclear.

Webinar: Why organisations struggle to decide, even when data is abundant

This article highlights just one of the patterns we observe across leadership teams. In our webinar “Why organisations struggle to decide, even when data is abundant”, we step back and examine why decision making has become so difficult, even in organisations with mature data capabilities.

The webinar does not focus on tools, dashboards or solutions. Instead, it creates recognition around situations executives face every day and offers a clearer explanation of why more data does not automatically lead to better decisions.

We explore decision overload, dashboards that inform but do not decide, ownership of information and the reasons why many data initiatives fail to relieve decision pressure.