Issues – more commonly known as problems – happen in business and daily work all the time.
People have certain expectations about an organisation or brand, and when those expectations are not met, problems can arise. This can happen for many reasons, both inside and outside of the control of the organisation or brand.
Issues can have significant consequences – across commercial, financial, legal, or regulatory areas – so it is essential to address them quickly and effectively.
Sometimes issues can arise due to external factors such as changes in market conditions or societal values, making it difficult to predict or prevent them. Other times, problems arise due to internal factors such as poor decision-making or inadequate communication with stakeholders. This can be frustrating because these issues are usually able to be prevented through proper planning, communication, and processes.
A goal of any organisation/brand should be to continuously improve and address potential issues before they become significant problems.
Contrary to the lived experience of many communicators, it is possible to identify and address issues before they become problems.
Issues are the path to lost time.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda
In the same vein.
Issues are the path to lost time. Lost time lead to gaps in delivery. Gaps lead to a failure with execution. Failure to execute results in more issues.
This can be time spent on growing, scaling or improving areas of the business from product/services to processes and systems.
With this lens, issues management is less ‘management’, that is, managing the issue in real time. If you are already at this step, then time has already been lost, and the best way to manage forward is through good project management.
Issues management is effectively anticipation and pre-emption.
For many communicators, I suggest that it is critical to create an issues management strategy and plan and secure co-ownership with internal stakeholders of the process, steps and actions required. This must be done prior to an issue surfacing that must be dealt with.
An effective issues management strategy should include the following:
- Regular stakeholder engagement: Engaging with stakeholders on a proactive and regular basis can help organisations better understand their concerns, expectations, and potential issues. This step allows the communications/PR team to anticipate potential issues and take steps to address them before they escalate.
- Risk assessments: Conducting regular risk assessments can help organisations identify potential issues and develop strategies to mitigate their impact. This can include identifying potential risks associated with changes in market conditions, shifts in societal values, or other external factors that could affect the organisation.
- Issues management planning: The plan can help organisations effectively respond to and manage issues when they arise. It should include protocols for communication, decision-making, and stakeholder engagement, as well as identify key personnel responsible for managing the crisis.
Think about the strategy and plan as insurance. With insurance, the communications/PR team can effectively manage issues as they arise and prevent them from escalating.
Bonus points: Executing the issues management plan – especially with assessments and engagement – can help the team build trust and credibility with internal stakeholders. At the minimum, the team becomes more familiar with the business, and how different teams are working together to deliver business goals and outcomes.
What do you have to lose?
Issues management: Anticipate and seek to prevent them.
As part of the issues management strategy, a large success factor is the communications/PR team’s ability to anticipate issues.
If there is a failure to prevent the issue from occurring, the next best step is to pre-empt the second and third level outputs resulting from the development of the situation.
However, prior to the issue happening in real-time, there is the chance to prevent it and head off whatever negative impact there is.
How do you anticipate issues successfully?
Issues do not happen overnight – no matter how blindsided you or the team might feel about it – and typically has a gestation period.
To keep your senses attuned to potential issues, you have to go beyond your immediate environment and engage with the stakeholders in your industry. The following suggestions can form part of your ‘tool kit’:
- Monitor emerging trends and issues: Keeping up to date with emerging trends and issues in your industry, wider society, and even politics can help organisations anticipate potential issues before they arise. This can include monitoring media, news, and industry thought leaders/subject matter experts for emerging trends and issues that may impact your organisation.
- Collaborate with external stakeholders: Collaborating with external stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, regulators, and industry associations can provide valuable insight into potential issues. These stakeholders often have a unique perspective on a macro and industry level and can identify potential issues that may not be immediately apparent.
- Conduct horizon scanning: Horizon scanning involves scanning the external environment for emerging risks and trends that may impact the organisation. The Futures Platform has a handy framework and methodology to use involving an exercise you can conduct with your team.
Sidebar: Why do people like to bury their head in the sand when there are issues/problems to deal with?
People – and leadership/management are people – tend to bury their head in the sand when there are issues or problems to deal with due to a range of cognitive and emotional biases.
Some of these biases include:
- Cognitive biases: Cognitive biases are errors in thinking that can lead people to misinterpret information or make flawed decisions. One common cognitive bias is the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to search for and interpret information in a way that confirms pre-existing beliefs or expectations. This can lead people to ignore or downplay information that contradicts their beliefs, including information about potential issues or problems.
- Emotional biases: Emotional biases are biases that are influenced by our emotions and can impact our decision-making. For example, the ostrich effect is the tendency to avoid negative or threatening information, particularly if it may cause anxiety or distress. This can lead people to ignore or downplay potential issues or problems to avoid discomfort.
- Perception of control: People may also bury their head in the sand when there are issues or problems to deal with if they perceive that they have no control over the situation. This can lead to feelings of helplessness or hopelessness, which can cause people to avoid or ignore the issue rather than confront it.
- Fear of consequences: People may also avoid dealing with issues or problems due to fear of the consequences. For example, they may fear that addressing the issue may lead to negative outcomes such as damaging their reputation, or harming their relationships.
From an issues management perspective, the biases are demonstrated through behaviour such as:
- Lack of awareness: People may ignore or downplay potential issues by being unaware of them. This could be due to poor communication, lack of engagement with stakeholders, not allocating enough time, which can prevent people from identifying potential issues.
- Denial: People may also deny the existence of potential issues or problems, particularly if they believe that they may reflect poorly on the organisation or themselves. This can lead to a failure to act and address the issue proactively.
- Fear of negative impact: People may be reluctant to acknowledge potential issues or problems if they fear that doing so may have a negative impact on the organisation, such as damaging its reputation or causing financial losses.
- Lack of resources: People may ignore potential issues or problems if they feel that they lack the resources or capacity to address them. This could include financial, human, or technical resources, as well as expertise or knowledge.
As the communicator in the room, recognising the bias or the behaviour and addressing them – with information, a strategy/plan, outlining advantages/disadvantages, providing reassurance – can go a long way in securing cooperation, support and ownership.
3 best practices for issues management that you can implement today in your organisation or for your brand/s.
Issues management is a means of anticipating, pre-empting and preventing problems from escalating and delivering a negative impact to the organisation/brand.
Consider adding these best practices to your issues management plan:
- Conduct audits: Conducting regular audits of the organisation’s operations and processes can help identify potential issues and areas for improvement. This can include auditing financial records, operations, and supply chains to identify potential risks or issues. This would typically require buy-in from leadership/management and set-up as a project co-owned between the different business units or functions.
- Conduct vulnerability assessments: Vulnerability assessments involve identifying the organisation’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses and developing strategies to mitigate them. This can help prevent potential issues from arising or reduce their impact if they do occur.
- Conduct scenario planning: Scenario planning involves developing hypothetical situations and testing how the organisation would respond to them. This can help identify potential issues that may not be immediately apparent and develop strategies to address them.
The practice and application of an issues management strategy and plan by a communications/PR team should be viewed as a way for a business to demonstrate leadership and customer-first thinking by taking ownership of an issue and ensuring that customers do not suffer from the impact. This is a way that the organisation/brand can differentiate themselves against their peers and competitors.
I provide communications and PR solutions for organisations and practitioners through counsel, consultancy and training. With over 20+ years in the industry, we have created frameworks, methods and content that enable you and your team to launch, grow, level up and earn revenue effectively and efficiently.
Here are 3 ways I can help communications, marketing and PR practitioners:
- Consultancy and enablement: My team can support brands with lean and growing teams as a plug-and-play strategy and execution solution that delivers business outcomes relating to revenue, entry, scale, and expansion.
- Workshops and Digital courses: We train practitioners in-person and a cloud-based learning management platform on topics such as project management, stakeholder management and on PR skills such as writing, creating and measuring outcomes, campaign execution, media relations, issues management, and crisis communications. Training is done through the academy – alongside other experienced trainers – with a focus on levelling up practitioners’ skill sets, competencies and personal development by taking their craft to the next level.
- Custom LMS: My team builds custom LMS solutions for your learners, providing an interactive platform and adapting your organisation’s specific methodologies into the learning content.
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