Can bottom-up communications work?
I realize that this thought experiment does not engage the very real obstacles to moving towards the model suggested here, foremost of which may well be the reluctance of company leadership. Internal communications groups already wrestle with defining return on investment for our colleagues in the profit-and-loss segments of our businesses, but at a minimum, top-down communications can be easily assessed in terms of whether the leader’s message was accurately captured and effectively communicated. Let’s also accept that it’s fun to be at the table with the executive team, to think topdown, to develop big ideas and bigbudgeted events that we can roll out to employees. The challenge is real. I am a long way from establishing a bottom-up internal communication model where I work. However, I have begun to move towards such a model in several ways that can be implemented without requiring a conversion among company leadership. I devote more time to understanding my audience—not just highly
