Love steak? Try loving your stakeholders.

Get it? Oh man, I love a good cartoon. This is from Community Cultural Development in Australia.

I liked Emelo's photo idea and I like Turkish food a lot, even though I can’t find any microwave-friendly recipes ;). Thanks for sharing those examples of risk perceptions in Turkey! I hope you don’t mind me stealing your photo lead-in idea.

This chapter addressed many of my concerns in regards to getting the community involved in risk assessment and risk communication. The author addresses one issue in the very beginning that never crossed my mind: "Stakeholder participation is most effective when key choices have yet to be made. Once an organization is locked on a course of action, participation opportunities dwindle to those that will educate the audience" (p. 301). Stakeholder participation can be, like OT said, a buzzword. I imagine that for some organizations, SP (as I’ll fondly refer to it from here on out) is an afterthought, because it means relinquishing control of something that could adversely affect the organization’s credibility and sustainability. From my own control-freak perspective, putting something as important as risk analysis and communication into the hands of John Q. Public makes me balk at the seemingly noble idea of SP.

The authors offer advice on communicating compelling reasons for SP for decision-makers. I especially think that having a list of cases where effective SP make for more effective risk management decision (p. 303 lists some studies). Business-minded directors/managers usually want proof in numbers or in previous cases. However, I think the risk communications specialist would also need to be prepared to relate the cases to current issues facing the organization and point out the similarities between the organizations.

Once the powers-that-be in the organization are open to SP, the tricky part becomes identifying who, where, and how. And for the zealous risk communicators, also accepting that you can not be everything to everyone if your stakeholders are “widely distributed and encompass a number of diverse constituencies, each with its own perception of the risk and your organization” (p.304).

The bulk of the chapter (p. 306-328) focuses on guidelines for specific types of stakeholder participation activities and on p. 330-331 you will find Table17-1 and 17-2 which offer the gist of each of these activities. I would like to comment on a few:

Formal Hearings: Yep, we were right, these are pretty much useless except when the stakeholders are diverse and encompass many segments.

Self-help groups: I looked twice too when I read this one. I never thought of these as risk communication, but of course they are! They’re a type of “group interaction” that is typically very specific in order to reduce personal risky behaviors.

Focus groups: My personal favorite! These are appropriate for really listening to the stakeholders to discover their risk perceptions, preferred modes of communication, and much more. Most importantly, “make sure you act on what you hear” (p.313). I think that is also the key to building credibility, reducing hostility, and securing public participation in the future.

Workshops: These are more educational than participatory. This seems like an appropriate step to take after conducting focus groups since focus groups are essentially stakeholders communicating to the organization and workshops are the organization communicating to the stakeholders. The focus groups would provide the information the organization needs to conduct an effective workshop.