Myth 6: More Information = More Clarity

By Al Adamsen  |  Future of Work Advisors

The belief that the more information we consider, the more clarity we’ll gain and, in turn, the more intelligence and wisdom we’ll achieve is an annoyingly persistent myth. It’s logical, after all.  Good information, it is commonly assumed, leads to good decisions.  This is a cornerstone of Evidence-Based Decision-Making, kool-aid I’ve been drinking (and making) for the past 30+ years.  Now, with Ai, automated dashboards, and an endless stream of information from direct reports, consultancies, and media, many leaders – and leadership teams – believe that if they can just get more data, more information, then the right insights will emerge and, in turn, sound decisions will follow.

It’s an appealing, understandable pursuit. Who doesn’t want the confidence that comes from having “all the facts”? But here’s the paradox: more information often clouds clarity rather than creating it.

|  The Allure of More Information

The desire for more information is as much emotional as it is rational. In the face of ambiguity, uncertainty feels threatening. To offset the threat, more information promises reassurance, confidence, even control. With Ai tools capable of generating dashboards, analyses, and insights in milliseconds, it feels like perfect clarity is just one dataset, one dashboard, one prompt away.

Yet Yuval Noah Harari, in his exceptionally insightful book Nexus, dismantles what he calls the “naïve view of information” – the assumption that information itself leads directly to wisdom. He reminds us that good information is costly: it takes time to produce, effort to validate, and reflection to interpret. These processes are slow and resource-intensive. By contrast, Ai can flood an organization, society, and leaders’ minds with cheap, effortless outputs that confidently and repeatedly state its "truths".  Such assertions can, at times, be valuable, if placed in the right context.  Other times they can be shallow, misleading, or outright wrong, particularly if not placed in the right context.

As Harari writes, “in the age of Ai, careful truth-seeking competes with content generation at industrial scale”. Leaders must recognize that clarity doesn’t come from information accumulation or access, but from intentional curation, choosing what deserves attention and resisting the seduction of the rest.  This means commissioning and spending time with the information that reflects what’s happening, and what will likely happen, within the system for which they’re responsible at that point in time.

|  The Overloaded Brain

The problem runs deeper than simply time and attention. Neuroscience shows that our brains aren’t designed for the relentless influx of information.

• Working memory is limited. We can only hold a few “chunks” of data at once. Beyond that, reasoning starts to collapse.
  
  
• Decision fatigue sets in. Constant inputs drain the prefrontal cortex, eroding judgment and focus.
  
  
• Digital amnesia emerges. Offloading memory to devices or Ai reduces deep encoding and weakens recall.

Dr. Andrew Huberman emphasizes that attention works best in bursts, punctuated by recovery. Continuous streams of data force the brain into hypervigilance, undermining deep focus and creativity.

This isn’t just theory. Gloria Mark, professor of informatics at UC Irvine and author of Attention Span, has tracked how modern work fragments our focus. Her research shows that the average attention span on a screen task is now just 47 seconds before switching. “More information” doesn’t mean more insight.  To the contrary, it often accelerates distraction, leaving us less capable of sustained, reflective thought.

Similarly, UCL cognitive neuroscientist Nilli Lavie, through her Perceptual Load Theory, demonstrates that attentional capacity is limited. Once the perceptual load is exceeded, errors increase, important cues are missed, and clarity collapses. Ai doesn’t expand this capacity.  It simply pushes us past the threshold faster.

|  When Ai Accelerates the Flood

Ai supercharges the problem. On one hand, it makes it easier than ever to access timely, relevant, and actionable information. On the other hand, it multiplies noise, generating information faster than human beings can possibly process it.

Even more concerning, Ai doesn’t just deliver information; it shapes narratives. Its often confident tone can seduce us into mistaking speed and fluency for truth. As Harari warns in Nexus, information networks can amplify confusion as easily as it can amplify clarity, especially when self-correcting mechanisms like editorial rigor and peer validation are weakened.

The result is a paradox: leaders who chase more information often feel less certain, less focused, and more anxious.

|  Brain Health in the Age of Ai

The challenge is not just organizational, it’s biological. Recent insights from Dr. Daniel Amen, a leading brain health expert, and Dr. Terry Sejnowski, a pioneer of modern Ai, underscore the risks.

• Evolutionary mismatch: Our brains evolved to grow through effort and struggle. Ai delivers instant answers, bypassing the discomfort that builds resilience and deep learning.
  
  
• Creativity decline: Overreliance on Ai can weaken the neural circuits responsible for imagination and divergent thinking. MIT researchers recently suggested that overuse of Ai risks “rotting” memory and creativity.
  
  
• Anxiety amplification: Far from soothing uncertainty, Ai can fuel it, adding layers of data that deepen rumination and fear of missing out.
  
  
• Blocked development in youth: If children use Ai too early, they may miss opportunities to build emotional regulation and resilience, the psychological muscles of adulthood.
  
  
• Brain reserve depletion: As Dr. Amen notes, “brain reserve”, our buffer against decline, depends on effortful thinking and active use. Ai weakens this reserve when it trains us to outsource too much.

The implication is sobering: Ai isn’t just accelerating information overload.  It may be reshaping our very capacity to think, focus, and create.

|  Clarity Is a Social Act

If more information doesn’t create clarity, what does? The answer is sense-making, a social process of filtering, framing, and interpreting together. Clarity emerges when leaders slow down, invite diverse perspectives, explore ideas, and synthesize what matters most.

The best leadership teams aren’t those with the most data, but those who can curate, contextualize, and create shared meaning through an enduring, cross-functional decision-making process.

The AWARE Model: A Decision-Making Framework for Future-Ready Leaders & Leadership Teams

To facilitate this, leaders need a decision-making framework that honors the cognitive capacity of individuals and teams alike. My AWARE Model offers such a guide:

• Assess — Begin with intention. Where are we going?  Why?  What situation are we in now? What’s leverageable?  What presents risk?  What gaps must we acknowledge?
  
  
• Weigh — Explore ways to get your organization to where it wants to go.  Integrate perspectives and carefully weigh options. The act of deciding is informed not by sheer volume of inputs but by relevance, quality, and team dialogue.
  
  
• Act — Move from deliberation to execution. Plan, act, and measure in ways that align with the organization’s vision, strategy, and values.
  
  
• Reflect — Create space for collective witnessing and learning. Iteration builds clarity, capability, and confidence, and helps leadership teams resist the inertia of the past while building enduring adaptability to learn and adjust over time.
  
  
• Embody — Own it.  Beyond analysis and planning, leaders must embody their choices, feeling the weight of decisions, espousing them authentically, and committing fully.

The AWARE Model guards against cognitive overload by respecting the limits of our individual and collective brains.  It facilitates continuous learning, creating, and doing. It ensures that clarity emerges not from chasing endless information, but from intentional, reflective, and embodied leadership. As James Clear notes in Atomic Habits:

“We don’t rise to the level of our potential.  We fall to the level of our systems.”  

This is true for individuals, as well as teams and organizations.  As such, this framework allows leadership teams to navigate uncertainty without succumbing to temptation of more information for the sake of more information.  Rather, it channels the finite attention and working memory of individuals into a structured, collective process, a process that transforms information into relevant insight, lucid ideas and, eventually, aligned action.

|  Checklist: Managing Information for Clarity & Brain Health

For Individuals

• Set boundaries: Block time for deep work, away from feeds and notifications.
  
  
• Practice effortful thinking: Don’t outsource everything. Struggle builds resilience.
  
  
• Digital fasting: Step away from “glowing rectangles” (screens) to reset and recover.
  
  
• Move and rest: Exercise and sleep strengthen brain reserve.
  
  
• Reflect: Journal or pause to convert information into meaning.
  
  

For Leaders & Teams

• Curate inputs: Define shared filters for what qualifies as “timely, relevant, and actionable.”
  
  
• Create clarity rituals: Regular cross-functional dialogues to interpret together.
  
  
• Balance fast vs. slow thinking: Allow reflection before big meetings and decisions.
  
  
• Invite diverse voices: SMEs, employees, and peers surface hidden insights.
  
  
• Model restraint: Show that leadership is about curation, not hoarding.
  
  

|  Final Takeaway

The myth that “more information = more clarity” is not only false, it’s dangerous. It blinds leaders to the biological and cultural realities of cognitive overload. It weakens our capacity for deep thought, creativity, and resilience. And in an era saturated with Ai-driven content, it risks overwhelming the very systems – both human and organizational – that must learn and adapt wisely to ongoing change.

True clarity doesn’t come from merely amassing data and analyzing endless streams of information. It comes from the courage to curate wisely, the discipline to think at the right speed, and the humility and openness to make sense together.

Leaders, and leadership teams, who embrace this truth won’t just protect themselves from overwhelm. They’ll unlock a deeper clarity and confidence that enables their organizations to learn, adapt, and innovate at speed, at scale, and in sustainable ways. This kind of organizational agility isn’t optional, it’s a cornerstone of competitiveness in the age of Ai and continuous disruption.

To learn more about the other Myths click here.  And to learn how to assess your organization’s adaptive readiness and, in turn, build executive decision-making processes rooted in timely, relevant, and actionable insight, follow and connect with me here on LinkedIn.  Finally, be sure to subscribe to the Future of Work Advisors Newsletter.