Roshanna mentioned a number of problems with coordination of communication and messages during the crisis, both with internal and external partners and stakeholders. Partners play a role in crisis response while stakeholders are special interest audiences. They can occupy one of three positions with respect to an event: adversary, ambivalent, or advocate (see Step 2 Conduct Notifications, Event Phase of Emergency Risk Communication (from ERC CDCynergy).

Now that the crisis is less acute, Roshanna and the rest of the team are considering the post-event activities that need to be carried out (see Post-Event Phase of ERC CDCynergy). These include working to change negative perceptions created during the recent crisis and improving coordination and communication for the next crisis. To do this, the team has been assessing the issues that affected some of the important partners and stakeholders in this crisis:

• The healthcare community
• The business community
• The media
• Other state health department personnel or partners (state agencies, police, volunteer agencies, etc.)

All of these groups occupied either a neutral or supportive position (an ambivalent or advocacy position) prior to the beginning of the crisis. However, during the acute phase of the crisis there were turning points that moved the groups to less supportive (more adversarial) roles.

Instructions

This is a two part activity. In Part 1, observe the turning points that moved groups from ambivalent or advocate to a less supportive or adversarial position.

In Part 2, you will select the counter strategies that would move each partner or stakeholder back to either an ambivalent position or an advocate position.

After you have finished, click on the "How Did I Do?" icon to see the turning points and counter strategies selected by Roshanna’s team.

The objective for this exercise was to give you practice in thinking through the potential consequences of strategy decisions and to see that there needs to be a balance between the strategy, cost, and time. Whatever combination of decisions you make will result in different effects on the stakeholders and partners. The point of this activity is not to endorse any specific strategy or imply that your actual cost will be similar to what you saw here - your situation will have its own unique factors.

The take-away messages from this activity are:

(1) you must consider in advance the possible effects that your decisions will have on your stakeholders and partners by getting their input prior to taking action; and

(2) sometimes the best you can do is make decisions that will keep your partners and stakeholders groups in an ambivalent, or neutral, position.

There were several combinations of strategies that would move the partners and stakeholders in this activity to this desired, or better, position within the constraints given. One solution is:

E. Provide standardized information via a Web site.
B. Hold a meeting with the healthcare community and health department.
A. Train and prepare a spokesperson.
G. Meet with internal staff.
D. Provide fact sheets.

Summary

When strategy decisions are made without coordination with partners or consideration of impacts on partners and stakeholders, strategies can backfire. That's why it is important to assess partner and stakeholder positions early on.

Ideally, assessment of stakeholders and partners should be done during preplanning for a crisis. The Stakeholder Reaction Assessment Worksheet can help you assess known stakeholders in advance of an event and newly discovered stakeholders during an event.