Chapter 15 Face-to-face communication

To construct face-to-face messages, the following guidelines are mentioned; choose the appropriate spokesperson, give the audience something to take away, reinforce your message with visual aids, speak in the language of the audience, and don’t promise what you can’t deliver. In every communication effort, to know your audience is the first responsibility for crisis managers. It is significantly emphasized all the time in Lundgren and McMakin’s (2004) book. In face-to-face communication, communication manager should be more concerned about audience than any other communications because it is a direct relationship with audiences. In choosing appropriate spokesperson, credibility is the most important issue because only “credibility” can give the audience the trust. “If their concerns are largely technical, a scientist or engineer is best. If they have management concerns, a manager with accountability for decision-making is best” (Lundgren & McMakin, 2004, p. 251). Risk managers should have the insightful knowledge and views choosing the appropriate spokesperson in risk as a plan. Lundgren and McMakin’s (2004) indicated that one of the drawbacks of face-to-face communication is that audiences are possible to have nothing to take away from the presentation to help them to remember key points. They recommended the visual reinforcement to keep the audience remember key points. However, I believe if the audiences understand the objective of communication and are satisfied with the communication message, they absolutely remember the face-to-face communication as successful. In this sense, visual aids, themselves, are not the important matter to decide the face-to-face communication as successful. That is just one element of strategy in face-to-face communication. The most important role of risk managers is to have an eye to see the situation and to know how to approach to audiences. I believe in particularly face-to-face communication, risk managers should concern about the respectful and sincere attitude towards audiences.
As guidelines for specific types of face-to-face communication, speaking engagements, speakers bureaus, tours and demonstrations, video presentations, audience interviews, information fairs, and training were introduced in Lundgren and McMakin’s (2004). I regard Lundgren and McMakin’s guidelines are very practical and specific. Therefore, it would be helpful for risk managers in real world, not for researchers in academia. However, I’m doubtful how many or how widely risk managers get advice from this book. When I worked as a public relations professional in Seoul, Korea, the company and my boss never relied on academic book for acquiring useful information for their practice. They usually relied on their experience, their colleagues’ experience, and internet sources. If I have a chance to work as a professional in real world in the future, I’ll sometimes rely on academic books because I know that those guidelines can give the professional some new practical advices and new views as a bird eye. How can we make an effort for practitioners to adopt academic materials? The interactions between practitioners and researchers, and researchers’ practical advices are needed definitely.