Jonas didn’t think he would fail so miserably. The career-defining moment when he would orchestrate an acquisition touted as a “merger of equals” seemed like a done deal.

“He read the crowd and all the key players wrong,” his former head of strategy, Paula, said, looking back on the year since the purchase. “Jonas felt so strongly that his communication and change management teams would get everyone onboard and working to integrate the two companies. He missed dozens of early warning signs.”

The deal had been years in the making, with a few key players making all the bold, behind-the-scenes moves. When all the financials were agreed to, they quickly raced to formulate a press release that would set the terms and create some buzz in the market. Like many deals like this, there was a lot of wishful thinking that people on both sides would embrace the “synergies” and follow their leadership teams forward.

“When the announcement was made, it was all hype, energy, and spin,” Paula lamented. “None of the people who had a stake in the event knew why the deal was made, and many worried that it wasn’t a blending of two companies at all but an acquisition that would crush one culture and never get teams working together.”

The damage from the overflow of information, and the subsequent noise created, undermined any chance of understanding and success.

Streaming Information

In the weeks and months after the announcement, the communication poured out systematically, as Jonas had planned. There was a steady stream of e-mail blasts, town-hall meetings, social media posts, video tutorials, and cascading messages that flowed from the “war room” with strategic purpose and precision. Change management teams performed flawlessly, following an elaborate process and meeting all key milestones, deadlines, and deliverables.

“Jonas wanted to be transparent and overcommunicate to everyone. And that’s what happened,” Paula said. “People started getting buried with information and started to feel it.”

Losing Momentum

Many workers felt excited at first but started losing enthusiasm as the communication from above felt one-sided and too much like a sales pitch.

“I just didn’t know what information was the most important and what I was supposed to act on,” said Tobias, a veteran marketing specialist at the company. “We had all these meetings and updates, but there was no clear guidance on priorities. We all talked about it around the office. When a new action plan was sent out, we’d look out our cubicles at each other and say, almost unanimously, ‘Did you understand that?’ We’d all respond, ‘Nope!’”

This wasn’t the first major launch Tobias worked on. He’s had years of experience, but even he couldn’t decipher the message.

In meetings, employees weren’t asked to provide input as much as spend time consuming updates and convincing their subordinates and cross-functional teams with even more communication. The process flowed from the top down, pushing out updates, but not moderating feedback nor adjusting the approach.

“The directives kept on coming. I wanted to say something, but the message communicated to us in meetings was that everything was handled already. This started to make me worry because that’s not how it worked with the successful launches I had worked on. There were always opportunities for feedback, adjustments, and questions in the past,” Tobias said.

Powerful Monologue

“They buried any spark of enthusiasm and acceptance with a fire hose of internal communication,” Paula said. “It was a powerful monologue that just fell on deaf ears. And that’s when things went from bad to worse.”

Morale started to become an issue as people were spending so much time in meetings that they couldn’t work. The expected layoffs didn’t help either as the rumor mill spun into high gear.

“There was nothing wrong with the initial idea. It seemed justified. But when they brought me in halfway through the process, I noticed the telltale signs of failure,” said Sandra, a consultant hired to help with the rollout. “The employees were drowning in too much information. Although they believed in the company’s efforts, they had become fatigued by all of the data dumps, e-mails, the endless meetings, and working late nights and weekends without feeling like they were accomplishing anything.”

All Talk, No Action

Fear, confusion, and mistrust ensued as employees listened to executive leadership navigate the change. Jonas felt strongly that putting more information out to people would be helpful, never realizing how he started a process that submerged them, greatly diminishing any chance of long-term success. It just became more noise and very little sound of clear direction. Talk didn’t lead to action but to more talk, discussion, and murmuring.

“It was like the more management talked, the more people would tune them out,” Sandra concluded, looking back on the year-long integration process. “People were tapped out and started tuning out. Their interest and their attention tanks were empty.”

It wasn’t that employees didn’t try to understand. They were just overfed with too much information.