Using the Expectations Approach to Improve Managerial Communication and Organisational Effectiveness

For many years it has been clear that one of the main barriers to improving managerial performance has been inadequate communication. This is in no way surprising given that in even a small managerial group of, say, 25 managers there are 600 potential two‐way communication channels, and increasingly the size of modern organisations is such that managerial groups in excess of 100 are relatively commonplace. A communication system based on the expectations approach was developed in 1973 capable of handling both the volume of communication and the complexity of communication channels which are used in the managerial groups of large organisations. Since that time over 700 managers in 25 organisations have used the system in a variety of applications.