I mean, they told management that the o rings weren't able to handle the kind of temperatures they were working with, and also that it could have catastrophic results.

What do you want them to have done? They told management what was going to happen and were ignored because NASA didn't want to postpone. I fail to see how they could have "adapted" their communication to be more clear.

How is this not a complete failure by management?

Thiokol management initially supported its engineers' recommendation to postpone the launch, but NASA staff opposed a delay. During the conference call, Hardy told Thiokol, "I am appalled. I am appalled by your recommendation." Mulloy said, "My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch—next April?"[18] NASA believed that Thiokol's hastily prepared presentation's quality was too poor to support such a statement on flight safety.[17] One argument by NASA personnel contesting Thiokol's concerns was that if the primary O-ring failed, the secondary O-ring would still seal. This was unproven, and was in any case an argument that did not apply to a "Criticality 1" component. As astronaut Sally Ride stated when questioning NASA managers before the Rogers Commission, it is forbidden to rely on a backup for a "Criticality 1" component

According to Ebeling, a second conference call was scheduled with only NASA and Thiokol management, excluding the engineers. For reasons that are unclear, Thiokol management disregarded its own engineers' warnings and now recommended that the launch proceed as scheduled;[18][19] NASA did not ask why.[17