Communication Upward

Middle- and upper-level executive should recognize that they are dependent on information that has been filtered, analyzed, abstracted, sorted and condensed by other segments of the organization. It is hard for them to stay in touch with unprocessed reality. Every official must periodically step outside the executive cocoon and experience the basic realities that the system is presumably designed to deal with. 

Every organization has its front-line activities— selling, fighting, healing, teaching— and its bureaucratic or executive-level activities. Both are important, but the frontline activities take place far from the executive’s swivel chair. The front-line people who wrestle with action problems every day know a lot more than anyone ever asked them.

The layers of middle and upper management can be a formidable filter against creative ideas generated below; and there have been many attempts to create alternative opportunities for communication upward, such as the suggestion box and the inspector general.But there is probably no substitute for creating a culture— a set of attitudes, customs and habits throughout the organization— that favors easy two-way communication, in and out of channels, among all layers of the organization. Two key messages should be implicit in such a culture: 1. “You will know what's going on, and 2. “Your voice will be heard.”

John W. Gardner, On Leadership