However, Mr. Ackoff explains, “if you’re the CEO of a large corporation, you know the CEOs of other large corporations. If you get abused by the system, you pick up the phone and call a friend, and you get your problem fixed.”

What’s true in customer service is true in communication as well. Consider just a few ways CEOs—and other senior leaders—are different than everyone else:

Technology
CEOs have all the latest gee-whiz gizmos, if they want them—and if they don’t, their assistants will manage technology for them. They never have to try to use a kiosk (like manufacturing employees who don’t have their own computers), or try to get online via slow dial-up (like sales and remote employees often do).

Information Overload
Senior leaders do have to process an alarming amount of information. But there are two key differences between CEOs and us in this regard: First, they have assistants to run interference, and trusted VPs and advisors to tell them what really matters. Second, it’s their job to make sense of data and take action on it. For the rest of us, managing information is an extra responsibility, on top of our day-to-day work.

Context
When a CEO asks the question, “What does this mean?” someone is there to provide an answer—or get it fast. Senior leaders aren’t out there in the organization like the rest of us, wondering, “How does this affect me? What should I do differently?” and finding out that no one—even our manager—has the answers.

What can you do about the fact that CEOs have a completely unique—and skewed—communication experience? Mr, Ackoff suggests that “top management place themselves in the position of the customer, like a CEO of an airline flying in coach.” But if your CEO won’t spend his day in a warehouse, replicating the communication experience of those employees, you need to bring the warehouse to the CEO. Make sure you have both accurate data (such as what percentage of employees have electronic access) and compelling qualitative feedback (such as how employees feel about information overload) to bring the employee experience to life.

Unless you do so, the CEO may well insist on a communication approach that works only for him—and is ineffective for everyone else in the organization.