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Mostly, in high tech, this is done poorly. And it's often overdone.
At my last company, Seagate, they'd gather us for quarterly meetings and show us videos, sometimes even skits, about the latest weird management idea they wanted to push on the company. They'd have the meeting down at the local civic auditorium, 700-800 people there and everybody else at remote locations watching via TV hookups. The CEO and SVPs would come on with a light show and music effects usually reserved for rock stars. Unfortunately, most of the news they gave us was massaged and self-serving. They never mentioned layoffs, even when actual layoffs were going on. Somebody dared ask about the layoffs in Q&A, and was told, "Well, it's a tough business these days. What do you expect?" End of subject. Arrogant bastards.
I can't say that it was _overdone_ at Hewlett Packard, but it sure was weird. Every quarter the CEO would get on _the public address system_ and lecture employees while they were sitting at their desks. Usually to tell them that they had to do more, more, more, with less, less, less. Everybody took it stoically, mainly because what they were really waiting for was the profit numbers for the quarter -- half the staff were old-timers who were hooked into profit-sharing. I was only a contractor, not even an employee, but it was so demeaning -- Big Brother shouting down at you -- that I wanted to find the guy and kill him. It's probably different now that Carly Fiorina's in charge -- but not better.
In the old days at Tandem Computers, CEO Jimmy Treybig would use the company's elaborate video studio (they didn't need it, but Treybig liked video) to put on weekly video broadcasts to the troops, some very elaborate. I didn't see it, but the one in which he and his execs dressed up in Star Fleet uniforms is legendary.
I could go on, but why? The key concept in all these misadventures is arrogance -- although at least Treybig believed in treating people well.
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