By balancing concern and optimism and focusing on power, leaders can speak more obviously about all risks.
Photography via CasarsaGuru
Using a can of beer, tape measure, spray pumps filled with starter fluid and polystyrene model heads, YouTube personality Uncle Rob made a popular video illustrating the strength of the mask to prevent aerosols from other distances.
The video is my favorite among the wide variety of messaging equipment that Americans and organizations have used to convince others to take steps to lessen the dangers to themselves and others amid COVID-19. A close moment would be the widely shared memes. ” Stay home, save lives “that my fellow chicagos have made a cardboard cut from our mayor with a stern look on his face. Both use creativity and a generous dose of humor.
Charts showing how (and how not) to use a mask and color-coded maps of states that show progress in the disease are simpler but equally vital examples. The World Health Organization has produced a series of infographics to combat the “infodemic” of false data on the effectiveness, for example, of garlic, sesame oil, chilli and hot baths as a prevention of COVID. In particular, he presented the facts in sources larger than myths.
COVID-19 messaging provides an objective lesson about how, and how not to do it, in a way that leads others to recognize the nature of a risk and act in a way that reduces the dangers to themselves and others.
It is widely acknowledged, for example, that public fitness officials in many countries made a serious mistake at the beginning of the pandemic when, in the face of a shortage of non-public protective devices for fitness professionals, they deterred others from dressing in masks. While the goal is admirable, reserving the limited offer to others who risk their lives for others, the message gave many others the impression that they did not want masks. This lack of communication made it more difficult to convince others. to use them later, when they turned out to be a vital defense.
Of course, it is vital percentages of data as accurate as possible, data of the right type that turn out to be incorrect and transparent about what you know and don’t know, but there are other vital classes that we can be informed of. communication about the dangers of fitness that can be implemented to communication about other types of hazards. Here are three key examples.
It is vital not to minimize the problem. Researchers at the University of Connecticut and Zhejiang University in China have discovered that the challenge of threat communication is to correct the bias of optimism: people’s tendency to see the most optimistic things than they are and to minimize or forget about threats.
But the opposite is also an effective tool for threat messages.
The good communication of threats is to tell stories that are not scary enough to discourage other people or weak enough to make them complacent, Emilio Mordini, an Italian psychiatrist specializing in threat communication, told me.
Mordini provides the main notes from Uncle Rob’s video for the way he presents a compelling narrative that balances concern and courage through his description of the virus as an explosion of fire, which evokes a knight fighting a dragon. “Paradoxically, it’s not scary. It’s reassuring because it’s a fairy tale, ” he told me.
Visual images play a role in pitch definition. For example, a new coronavirus particle looks like a naval mine, a weapon that unconsciously evokes conspiracy theories, while the Ebola virus looks like a fatal coral snake. Mordini is concerned that these visual associations may provoke reactions of concern and denial.
The same data would possibly seem very depending on the photographs and narratives used. “In Germany, the media reported data on dogs sniffing COVID with very many other photographs. One of them showed police officers in uniforms and glasses covering their eyes. Others only used a “Great Picture of a Dog with a Splendid Nose,” Mordini said. “Or they said the fact, but one terrorized and the other reassured.
While it is vital not to give the impression that there is no threat, overestimation of the threat can be counterproductive, especially since other people who deny the lifestyle of a danger do so because they are even more afraid than those who recognize it. “When other people are in denial, you can’t talk by expanding fear, because denial increases. The more he puts pressure on fear, the more other people deny it, and the more they deny it, the more damaging it is,” Mordini said. .
This subconscious reaction would possibly partly explain why, even when other people believe a threat is high, they don’t make smart decisions about how to lessen that threat to themselves and others.
Rather than talking to other people about the pandemic itself, we want to talk about the effectiveness of threat relief behaviors, both their effectiveness and the belief in their effectiveness.
The Interdisciplinary Working Group on Risks and Social Policy interviewed more than 3000 people in six US states. But it’s not the first time In May and June 2020 about the likelihood that they would think they would become ill with COVID-19. the possibility of contracting the disease in the next 3 months and, if they maintained it, a 34% chance of getting seriously ill and 22% most likely to die. ‘This reflects an overestimation of the dangers of COVID-19,’ the team wrote in PDF.
The chances of contracting the virus, poor health and dying vary greatly depending on the threat points and behaviors, but as an indication, at the end of June in the United States, about 3% of the cases shown resulted in deaths. is tested or even has symptoms, the number of real cases can be 10 times higher than reported, which would mean that the case rate is 0. 3%.
Despite an overestimation of non-public risk, survey participants did not wear masks, stay at home, or practice social estating. Reported risk reduction behaviors differed greatly by location. In Massachusetts, for example, 85% of respondents said they still wear a mask in enclosed public spaces, compared to only 52% in Iowa. Some of these differences were similar to non-public political tastes or information resources. But messaging has also played a vital role.
“We see strong evidence that even if others understand a major threat, they are unlikely to interact in threat relief unless they get messages about effectiveness,” said Elizabeth Koebele, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nevada and a member of the Working Group on Risks and Social Policy, told me, “Instead of talking to others about the pandemic itself , we want to talk about the effectiveness of threat relief behaviors, be it their effectiveness and the belief of their effectiveness. “
Illustrations of mask effectiveness for users and those around them are smart tactics to show how other people can adopt a simple habit that helps ensure everyone’s safety.
It is more important to speculate when communicating about the risks, Koebele said. “Be transparent about what you know and when you know it. “Simple messages work best, such as red, green, and yellow-coded cards that indicate where the virus spreads temporarily or slowly. . Daily briefings help elected officials build trust, even if others don’t pay attention to each and every detail. “The act itself is important,” he said.
Horst Simon, founder of Risk Culture Building Advisory Services, a network of threat specialists, says it’s imperative not to forget the importance of data collection in threat communication, which means not only collecting data about the threats themselves, but also understanding the other people you want to talk to and the subconscious prejudices that could determine how they will react to the data you provide them. “How each user reacts depends on many things: their generation, their education, their existing monetary situation, their emotion,” he said.
It is imperative to safeguard threat messages through movements to avoid panic and fear. Companies that responded well to the pandemic acted temporarily in the face of panic, adding the distribution of disinfectants, masks and gloves to their workers and consumers on site. “other people perceive that you know there is a challenge and that you are solving it to make sure of its protection as much as possible,” Simon advised.
Although the disorders surrounding COVID-19 are complex, the principles for talking about the dangers it poses are simple: finding the right balance between concern and optimism; Be fair about what you know Focus on what works, read to your audience. And as we enter a long period in which the express dangers surrounding COVID-19 begin to decrease, it will be useful to apply those classes to communication about the other known and unknown dangers that we will inevitably face.
Michele Wucker is a Chicago-based lecturer and consultant. She is the 3-book one, adding the foreign bestseller The Grey Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the apparent risks we don’t know about. Follow her at http://www. thegrayrhino. com/ or on twitter @wucker.
Email Follow
Articles published in Strategy Business do not necessarily constitute the perspectives of PwC member firms. Criticisms and mentions of publications, products or do not constitute an approval or advice to purchase.
The business strategy is carried out through some member companies of the PwC network.
Sign up for your library.
The item has been stored. Click here to view the stored items or click the “X” to return to the article.