In this section, we will gain a better understanding of outrage and how it can affect our ability to communicate effectively with stakeholders. This section takes about six minutes to read.
Everything we do involves some level of risk. Walking across a street. Chewing a stick of gum. Eating food with a spork. There is no such thing as zero risk. So, to better understand outrage, we require a deeper understanding of how humans perceive risk, how that perception changes with new information, and how that can quickly move stakeholders from anxiety to anger.
In its training programs on risk communication, the Food Protection and Defense Institute at the University of Minnesota uses the example of a fictional new drug it calls “U-phoria” (2007)
Imagine you are in the training class. First, the trainer gives you some background on the drug:
- A leading research university created U-phoria.
- It took sixteen years to develop the drug.
- U-phoria provides the user with a boost in short-term memory.
- It also provides a “pleasant feeling” during times of stress; the feeling lasts for twenty-four to thirty-six hours.
- The drug has undergone multiple trials that suggest potential side effects that are both short-term and long-term.
Next, the trainer allows you and your classmates to ask any question you desire. Every question receives a positive answer. The cost is low. The pill is readily available. The FDA has approved it.
The only question that draws a negative response is, “What are the side effects?” And the answer to that question is: “Severe diarrhea lasting up to 24 hours.”
Finally, the trainer asks you and the rest of your class to stand. The trainer says: Remain standing if you would be willing to take the U-phoria pill even if the odds of developing severe diarrhea are:
- 1 in a billion?
- 1 in a million?
- 1 in a hundred thousand?
- 1 in a thousand?
- 1 in 10?
- An absolute certainty; every dose results in severe diarrhea?
The point is: The perception of risk varies with the individual who is considering the risk.
At what point would you sit down?
Peter Sandman (1993) offers another excellent example of risk perception, but this one is tied more closely to the concept of public outrage: Would you send your child to a dentist that you know is HIV-positive?
The probability of contracting HIV from your dentist is less than one in 400,000, Sandman says. Those odds could obviously worsen if your dentist actually has HIV. But if an infected dentist takes proper precautions, the odds remain about the same.
Still not interested in sending your child to see the infected dentist?
What if I told you that the odds of your child contracting HIV from an infected dentist (using proper precautions) are significantly less than their odds of dying from (National Safety Council, 2017):
- Heart disease or cancer (one in seven).
- A motor vehicle accident (one in 114).
- An assault with a firearm (one in 370).
- Firearms discharge (one in 6,905).
- Contact with a sharp object (one in 38,174).
- Cataclysmic storm (one in 66,335).
- Dog attack (one in 147,717).
- Legal execution (one in 119,912).
Understand what this means: Your children are far more likely to die by legal execution than they are to contract HIV from an HIV-infected dentist who takes reasonable precautions. And given that a dentist who is known to have HIV is likely to charge fees that are far less than those of other dentists, you’re ready to make that appointment for your kid. Right?
No? Why is that?
The answer is that your personal perception of risk has less to do with the actual hazard (one in 400,000) than with your outrage.
Instead of making your decision based purely on the odds (which is how most organizations decide whether risk is high or low), you are likely making your choice based on one or more of these factors:
- Your dread of AIDS.
- Your distrust of the dentist.
- The loss of control you feel when you send your child to sit in the dentist’s chair.
- The horror that a simple dental procedure could cost your child’s health.
- Your abhorrence of the lifestyle that may have led the dentist to contract HIV.
When it comes to the personal perception of any risk, the hazard data is simply not enough. Until you accept this, your odds of making the right choice for your company’s primary strategy during an outbreak of a foodborne illness are approximately zero.
What forms our risk perception?
There are four factors that shape our perception of risk, according to the Food Protection and Defense Institute (2007):
- Threat: What is the thing that can go wrong?
- Probability: What is the likelihood of the hazard actually happening?
- Consequence: What are the implications of the hazards to the individual as well as the community?
- Value: What do we lose if we fail to take the chance, and how important is that thing to us?
To illustrate this, let’s go back to the example of the imaginary drug U-phoria:
- Threat: Severe diarrhea.
- Probability: 1 in 100.
- Consequence: Dehydration, embarrassment, lack of mobility.
- Value: Memory boost and a feeling of well-being.
Now let’s consider these factors in light of Sandman’s model: Risk = Hazard + Outrage.
Threat and probability fall on the hazard side of this equation. This is also known as the “thinking” or “logic” side. It focuses on the danger and the likelihood of the danger occurring. This is where the scientists, the engineers, and the other subject-matter experts tend to dwell.
Consequence and value fall on the outrage side of the equation. This is also known as the “feeling” or “emotion” side. It focuses on anger, fear, anxiety, revulsion, and other high-impact emotions. During an outbreak of foodborne illness, this is where stakeholders tend to dwell.
All of this information fits neatly into this table (Fig. 3):
(Fig. 3) Source: Food Protection and Defense Institute (2007)
Your experts are interested in the logic-based factors of threat and probability on the left side of the table. They “know.” They “think.” But stakeholders are interested in the emotion-based factors of consequence and value. This is the right side of the table. They “feel.” They “believe.” And this is exactly how companies get crossways with stakeholders during outbreaks of foodborne illness. They talk about facts when stakeholders want to feel emotions. They speak of threat and probability when they should speak of consequence and value.
The result is that stakeholders become more and more outraged, and the experts become more and more frustrated. Now here are two very important points. First, neither the experts nor the stakeholders are wrong. They are simply speaking different languages. Second, the experts are the authorities on hazard. But stakeholders are always the authority on outrage. If they are outraged, there is a good reason, and that reason has almost nothing to do with the hazard.
Savvy practitioners of outrage management understand these points; they learn to convey the experts’ facts in ways that acknowledge and address stakeholder outrage. When they do, two amazing things generally occur. First, stakeholder outrage will tend to decrease. Second, the ability among stakeholders to absorb useful information and respond to the hazard will tend to improve. When that happens, actual communication can begin between your company and your stakeholders.
