Information chaos – the hidden cost of an organization
How much does “someone will sort it out” cost your company? The lack of an information owner does not set off any alarms, but every day it slows teams down. Blurred accountability stretches out decisions and multiplies open threads. The data shows this is one of the main brakes on effectiveness. If communication is to lead to an outcome, it needs structure – otherwise it will always be just a conv...
Every piece of information in a company without an owner is like a parcel without an address. It sets off into circulation, reaches a few people, comes back in an e-mail thread, disappears in a chat app. The topic formally exists, but nobody feels responsible for it.
Communication chaos rarely tears down the structure of an organization outright. It blurs it. Sentences appear: “we will check later”, “someone will sort it out”, “we will come back to this”. Decisions are not made, tasks are not closed, and accountability dissolves between departments.
From a financial perspective this chaos does not issue an invoice. That is why it tends to be underestimated. Yet the data shows the cost is real.
A McKinsey & Company report on knowledge work productivity indicates that employees spend a significant share of their time searching for information and coordinating activities instead of doing their actual work. According to the latest Gartner analyses from 2025, one of the key factors reducing team effectiveness is the lack of clearly assigned accountability in cross-departmental processes. Organizations with a high level of role clarity achieve markedly better project delivery timeliness.
So the problem is not communication alone. The problem is the lack of an information owner.
When a message has nobody assigned to it, it turns into an “open thread”. And open threads generate costs: extra meetings, reminders, tension between teams, lost focus. We pay for it with attention, time and stress – every day, in small instalments.
This, however, is an area an organization can genuinely influence.
Bringing order to accountability does not have to mean adding more procedures. What matters is creating an environment in which every case has an owner, a status and a context.
With askee, accountability stops being guesswork and becomes structure. The system does not merely pass information on – it embeds it in a role, a project and a task. It indicates who is responsible for the next step and what the current status is. As a result, communication stops being an exchange of messages and becomes a process that leads to an outcome.
An effective organization is not one where everybody knows everything. It is one where everybody knows what they are accountable for.
When information has an owner, it stops circulating.
It starts leading to action.
