Читать книгу Communicating in Risk, Crisis, and High Stress Situations: Evidence-Based Strategies and Practice - Vincent T. Covello - Страница 17

I organized this book around two primary aims. The first is to help professionals understand the best communication practices for a high concern or emotionally charged situation. My second goal is to give readers the skills to apply these best practices in a variety of situations.

How you communicate in high concern situations will directly influence the course of the events you manage. In a crisis, stakeholders (i.e. interested and affected individuals and organizations) demand timely and accurate information. Leaders, managers, engineers, scientists, and technical professionals will be asked to take on unfamiliar roles and responsibilities. Those involved in the crisis will be surrounded by uncertainty, ambiguous information, high emotion, and upset people. Beyond the situation of an immediate crisis, competence in risk, high concern, and crisis communication is a prerequisite for navigating through the many situations where feelings and facts are at odds, whether it is concern about a health‐threatening risk or high anxiety about an impending change. Performed well, high concern communication can enhance trust and confidence, calm nerves, reduce anxiety, encourage cooperative behaviors, provide information for informed decision‐making, and help mitigate or reduce potential adverse outcomes. Poor, inadequate high concern communication can disrupt processes, fan emotions, undermine trust and confidence, and result in adverse outcomes.

I have organized this book to introduce theory and best practices in high concern communication, focusing specially on meeting the communication needs of those who work as engineers, technical professionals, leaders, or managers in fields that may encounter health, safety, occupational, and environmental responsibilities and challenges. Communications related to health, safety, occupational, and environmental issues are often stressful. They often raise complex technical, economic, social, political, policy, and ethical questions and then place the resulting demands on organizations.

I also wrote this book for technical professionals, leaders, and managers at all levels who desire to communicate more effectively in high concern situations within their organizations. For example, organizational change often raises concerns and emotionally charged issues from employees, including such questions as: What is the proposed organizational change and why is the change needed? Will I lose my job because of the change? How will the change affect me and my relationship to others? How technical professionals, managers, and supervisors respond to these and related questions is critical to the successful initiation and sustainability of change.

During high concern situations, ineffective communication can cause inefficiencies; disruption; low morale; and wasted time, money, and other resources. Ineffective communication results in messages being garbled by the noise, unintended adverse consequences, rejected messages, and unnecessary fear and confusion. When deployed effectively by leaders and managers at all levels, risk, high concern, and crisis communication skills serve as invaluable tools for engendering trust, protecting organizational value, and helping people make informed decisions.

Leaders, managers, supervisors, and technical professionals can benefit from effective risk, high concern, and crisis communication skills by ensuring their customers, potential customers, and the public have the information they need to evaluate the company’s products and operations. Effective communication often determines why some ideas and products are accepted over others, and why some individuals are accepted as leaders over others.

By keeping internal and external stakeholders informed about potential risks, corporations can reduce adverse outcomes and protect themselves from reputational damage. Internal stakeholders are particularly important because of their high credibility, especially when their views about a risk or threat differ from those of management. Similarly, nonprofit and governmental organizations can benefit from effective risk communication by educating and informing their constituents about threats and issues. With the ever‐widening array of information sources, the negative effects of misinformation are more likely and damaging. People may not be aware of critical information or may take actions based on misinformation.

Engineers, technical professionals, leaders, and managers, as well as students aspiring to these positions, can read this book, gaining a comprehensive overview of the most important aspects of the field. I wrote each chapter to be self‐contained and have provided additional resources for those who want to further probe particular topics. The intent is to make it easier for readers to home in on issues, such as stakeholder engagement, communicating numbers, decision‐making tools, warning systems, working with the media, theory, message development, or evaluation.