Critical upward communication: Ten commandments for improving strategy and decision making

Long Range Planning

Volumn 38, Issue 5, 2005, Pages 485-503

  Tourish, Dennis ^a  

^a ROBERT GORDON UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMMUNICATION; DECISION MAKING; MANAGEMENT SCIENCE; MANAGERS; STRATEGIC PLANNING;

AUTOMATIC VIGILANCE EFFECT; CRITICAL UPWARD COMMUNICATION; SENIOR MANAGERS;

INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT;

COMMUNICATION; CORPORATE STRATEGY;

EID: 27744548622     PISSN: 00246301     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.lrp.2005.05.001     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. The importance of securing a wider input into strategy formulation is discussed by M. Hay and P. Williamson Good strategy: The view from below Long Range Planning 30 1997 651-664
2. The role of scanning, including internally, is the main theme of a paper by G. Day and P. Schoemaker Driving through the fog: Managing at the edge Long Range Planning 37 2004 127-142
3. This research has been reported in detail in a number of publications. Communication audits involve the quantitative and qualitative analysis of communication climate in its broadest sense, including an evaluation of who is communicating with whom, about what issues, through which channels and with what effects. The results of eight major Audits in the British National Health Service, involving samples of many thousands of employees, are reported in D. Tourish and O. Hargie Communication between managers and staff in the NHS: Trends and prospects British Journal of Management 9 1998 53-71
4. The results of a specific investigation into critical upward communication in a further European health care organisation that employed over 8000 people are reported in D. Tourish and P. Robson Critical upward feedback in organisations: Processes, problems and implications for communication management Journal of Communication Management 8 2003 150-167 (I also draw several examples from this rganisation, in the current paper.).
5. Several case study chapters in a major book that I co-edited on the subject also explore the nature of communication audits, how they connect to organisational strategy, and the findings that typically emerge: See O. Hargie and D. Tourish Handbook (eds.) of Communication Audits for Organisations 2000 Routledge London
6. For example, Weick and Ashford convincingly argue that organisational learning is much facilitated by a climate of open discussion, while Nutt has established that one of the drivers behind the high failure rate of most managerial decisions is an absence of discussion in general and critical feedback in particular. See K. Weick and S. Ashford Learning in Organisations in F. Jablin and S. Ashford (eds.) The New Handbook of Organizational Communication: Advances in Theory, Research and Methods 2001 Sage London 704-731
7. P. Nutt Why Decisions Fail: Avoiding the Blunders and traps that Lead to Debacles 2002 Berret-Koehler San Francisco, CA
8. This research is exhaustively reviewed in D. Seibold and B. Shea Participation and decision making in F. Jablin and L. Putnam (eds.) The New Handbook of Organizational Communication: Advances in Theory, Research and Methods 2001 Sage London
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12. A useful discussion of communication in the context of employee participation can also be found in M. Marchington and A. Wilkinson A Direct Participation in S. Bach and K. Sisson (eds.) Personnel Management: A comprehensive guide to theory and practice Third Edition 2000 Blackwell Oxford
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28. Researchers in Britain have also found massive discrepancies between the perceptions of managers and staff on the levels of information provided and levels of consultation successfully achieved: See M. Cully S. Woodland A. O'Reilly and G. Dix Britain at Work 1998 Routledge London
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33. K. Grint The Arts of Leadership 2000 Oxford University Press Oxford Quote is from p.420
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35. E. Schein I. Schneier and C. Barker Coercive Persuasion 1961 Norton New York Quote is from p.80
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37. C. Stohl and G. Cheney Participatory processes/paradoxical practices: Communication and the dilemmas of organizational democracy Management Communication Quarterly 14 2001 349-407
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39. D. Sull Revival of the Fittest: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Managers Remake Them 2003 Harvard Business School Press Boston
40. The role of 'red flag' mechanisms in this regard is particularly well discussed in J. Collins Good to Great 2001 Random House Business Books London
41. This account of the 'Monday notes system' is drawn from the work of P. Tompkins Apollo, Challenger, Columbia - The Decline of the Space Program: A Study in Organizational Communication 2005 Roxbury Los Angeles Tompkins later revisited the NASA issue, and his detailed account of how its earlier effective communication systems fell into disrepair can also be found in this book
42. The nature of this disconnection, and useful ideas on how to overcome it, is discussed more fully by C. Coulson-Thomas Strategic vision or strategic con?: Rhetoric or reality Long Range Planning 25 1992 81-89
43. J. Pfeffer The Human Equation 1998 Harvard Business School Press Boston is particularly notable in this regard. He identifies the reduction of status differentials, and the limiting of top pay relative to the earnings of the organisation's other employees, as one of the top seven practices of successful organisations. Pfeffer cites extensive data which shows that the most effective CEOs and the best performing companies, such as South West Airlines, pay a great deal of attention to this question
44. W.S. Churchill The World Crisis 1916-1918 Abridged Edition 1941 Macmillan London 653 While this dictum is oft-quoted, it is worth pointing out in this context that Churchill refers here on the lack of realistic advice reaching Sir Douglas Haig from the front line in 1916 before the catastrophic Battle of the Somme