Discovery Through Hindsight: When Communication Fails, an interactive training program, was released in beta version in October 2004.
This is a beta version of this training program. The Web and CD-ROM versions will not be produced in final form until all editing has been completed, and all necessary clearances, including copyright permission, have been obtained. Accordingly, if you identify any problems with text, grammar, or spelling, please relay this information to Varian Brandon at vfb0@cdc.gov or 404-639-7853.
Discovery Through Hindsight: When Communication Fails was developed to provide users with practice in appropriately assessing a crisis or emergency situation and choosing an appropriate communication response. The content is presented through the telling of a fictitious incident involving a viral outbreak and the communication sequence of events that followed. Learners interact with the public affairs communication team by asking questions and participating in activities.
Discovery Through Hindsight: When Communication Fails is an interactive, application-oriented training program and is most appropriate for users who have previously completed training in crisis and emergency risk communication. This training can be easily used on any personal computer and can serve as both initial training for new staff members as they come on board and as refresher training for experienced staff. The target audience includes individuals who are:
- Risk communication specialists from state/local levels/CDC
- Public health professionals with responsibility for emergency risk communication at the local, state, and federal levels.
After the development of the Emergency Risk Communication (ERC) CDCynergy, a need was identified for a practical, problem-solving type of learning, directed at helping users to overcome the three biggest barriers to effective risk communication:
- Failure to get management support for communication response
- Lack of coordination with other agencies
- Lack of sufficient planning
Discovery Through Hindsight: When Communication Fails was developed based on the objectives of three existing CDC courses:
- Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (classroom instruction)
- Facing the Media
- Direct Training for ERC CDCynergy
Course Goals
- Select pre-event planning and effective communication techniques for gaining management support for communication response.
- Use a tool to identify partners, stakeholders, and other organizations with whom a communication response must be coordinated.
- Use ERC CDCynergy and other resources to plan an appropriate communication response.
To set up your computer with the necessary settings and plug-ins, see the "Computer Settings Guide."
Several references on this training are also available online. Reference articles and documents that are available in PDF format can be printed through Adobe Acrobat Reader®. If you do not have Acrobat Reader® installed on your computer, you may install it by following the Computer Settings Guide.
A text-only version of this program is available.
This product was developed and produced by:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Office of Communication http://www.cdc.gov/
- Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) http://www.orau.gov/orise.htm
- Prospect Center of the American Institutes for Research (AIR), Health Programs http://www.air-dc.org/
Contributing Personnel:
CDCynergy Project Officer: Galen Cole, CDC
CDCynergy Product Manager: Varian Brandon, CDC
ORISE Project Manager: AM Lindsey, ORISEVideo/Audio Technical Services
Videographer: Todd Jordan, CDC
Field Audio: Bryon Skinner, CDC
Studio Audio: Cassandra Butler, CDC
Video Editor: Kyle Keyser, CDC
Video Editor: Jud Waters, ORISEOn Camera/Photographic Images
TV Reporter: Ron Edmond, ORISE
Native American Indian Culture Representative: Ramona Carrasco, ORISE
Hispanic Culture Representative: Igrid Gregory, ORISE
Asian Culture Representative: Charlene Moua, ORISE
Spokesperson: Lynn Sokler, AIR
Spokesperson Interviewer: Varian Brandon, CDCVoices
NARRATOR: Robin Bittman, www.robinbittman.com
GROUP LEADER: Morris Gaiter, CDC
SUSAN: Jodi Goldberger, CDC
ROSHANNA: Donna Garland, CDC
TONY: Alex Alverez, CDC
Man’s Voice: Todd Jordan, CDC
Man’s Voice: Gene Cox, CDC
Woman’s Voice: Ana Benson, CDCContent Development
Story Development: AM Lindsey, ORISE
Story Development: Eileen Sample, ORISE
Story Development: Christopher Giles, ORSIE
Story Development: Alicia Eberl-Lefko, AIR
Story Development: Lynn Stoker, AIR
Subject Matter Review: Alicia Eberl-Lefko, AIRTechnical Development
Graphics: Susan Jacques, ORISE
Programming: Jud Waters, ORISE
Design: Eileen Sample, ORISE
Send questions and comments about this application to:
Office of Communication
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Building 16, D-42
1600 Clifton Road, N.E.
Atlanta , GA 30333
Phone: (404) 639-7584
Fax: (404) 639-7391
E-mail: vfb0@cdc.gov
This training product was produced under contract number DE-AC05-00OR22750 between the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge Associated Universities. The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) is a U.S. Department of Energy facility focusing on scientific initiatives to research health risks from occupational hazards, assess environmental cleanup, respond to radiation medical emergencies, support national security and emergency preparedness, and educate the next generation of scientists. ORISE is managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities.
Welcome to the emergency risk communication training program, Discovery Through Hindsight: When Communication Fails. This training is presented through storytelling, which is how people have shared and learned information since the beginning of human communication. You will watch a story about a communication disaster and listen in as the public health communication team explores the causes and effects. Before you begin, you should review the history and background to acquaint yourself with existing course materials on which this program was based. Depending on your connection, the initial loading time for this training may seem slow; however, once you are into the story, the program's operation will be faster.
NARRATOR: You are about to see and hear a meeting of state health department personnel. It is about four weeks after the peak of a public health crisis. In this meeting, you will hear employees from the Public Affairs Office discussing how the communication response was handled and why it failed. Listen in as the group is chatting before their meeting starts.
TONY: Like I said, getting e-mail was a complete joke. We were shut down for three days because of a backlog.”
ROSHANNA: My in box is still jammed. I have got so many messages from the system telling me that I am out of e-mail space that I can't get to the real messages. I don't think I will ever sort this out.
TONY: Tell me about it. I’m still finding messages from the governor’s press secretary from two weeks ago, wanting all sorts of information. It’s just going to cause a bigger problem when we are up and fully running.
SUSAN: and the restaurants are still closed. At least stores are finally reopening. For a while there, it was getting hard to find a place to buy groceries.”
JOHN: and I'm glad the schools are back in business. With the day care centers closed, we had people in our department who had to stay home because of their kids.”
SUSAN: I've heard there will be a press conference today at noon . The governor is going to declare a state of emergency."
JOHN: Well, I hope she’s done some practicing since her last press conference. Did you notice that she couldn’t answer a single question…and what she said to that question about quarantine."
VAL: Everything was in a mess. Did you see the news reports of the crowds demanding to be vaccinations in front of the closed clinics? They got scary.”
JANE: “They accused the governor of keeping all the vaccine for her family and campaign contributors.”
VAL: “yeah, and who wrote that statement denying it? What a mess..."
JANE: "She’s really angry that she wasn’t told earlier that this thing could be such a problem. I heard the director had to explain why we didn’t have a better communication plan in place."
VAL: “…well, the governor can conduct all the witch hunts she wants to; all I know is we did that we were told to do, and anybody who tries to say that we didn’t do our job they're a liar!”
GROUP LEADER: “Alright! That's enough. Let's settle down. Now that the immediate crisis is pretty much over, let’s all take a deep breath and try to figure out what happened and where we go from here."
NARRATOR: As you can hear, emotions are running high among these employees. Listen as the group’s leader starts the meeting by explaining it’s purpose and setting the stage for understanding how the communication response was perceived on the outside.
GROUP LEADER: I've called this meeting to talk about how we handled the last several weeks and what we need to do different in the future. As the lead Public Information Officer, I’ve been doing some research into the media and the public’s perspective on the past two weeks. I’ll share this with you in a minute, but first I want to go over our agenda for this meeting. After I show you some of the information I’ve been gathering, Susan, would you give us some ideas on overall communication effort. Then, Roshanna, can you address the issues surrounding coordination, both internal and external, and finally, Tony, will you get us up to date on the overall health education efforts. As I said earlier, I’ve been researching stories on the web and on television over the past two weeks. I've got a few clips so we can look how the situation looks from the public’s and the media’s perspective. The first story I want to look at is a news report from about two weeks ago.
(OPEN TV NEWS REPORT VIDEO TRANSCRIPT)
GROUP LEADER: That’s how the local media saw it. Next, let’s look at an international health web site from a few days later. It tells pretty much the same story. It’s clear the news media had the perception that things were out of control statewide.”
GROUP LEADER: We really don’t have time to spend looking at this web site. Please find time to check this out on your own. Next, the local and national papers. Newspaper headlines like this have been pretty common over the past two weeks. If you look at the story, you can see they are looking for someone to blame. It may not seem fair, but that’s how it looks to them. Take a look.”
NARRATOR: Now that every one has seen the perspective from outside, three Public Affairs Office employees who were involved in the communication response are going to give their perspective on why the communication response failed. You'll have a chance to ask each of them questions after they tell their stories.
GROUP LEADER: Okay, we've gotten some perspective from outside this room, now we need to talk about what we think the causes of this situation are. I know that Susan, Roshanna, and Tony have some pretty definite ideas on this. Susan, you served as lead health communications specialist, why don't you start off our discussion by sharing your ideas on how we got here.
SUSAN: Sure, I'll start. As you know, our communications staff is small; our budget is small. There always seems to be too many things that need funding and too little money. When I first heard that this virus was close, I knew we needed to start planning a communication response before anything actually showed up here. We had a basic plan, but it was pretty generic and had never been formally approved.
SUSAN: At our staff meeting, I tried to convince our management of the need for early planning. I figured that by gaining their support, I could get the necessary resources, but I couldn’t get any commitment. When the crisis hit, we scrambled to develop information and messages quickly; it was like pulling teeth. There was no subject matter expert and no management staff in place designated to approve them. By the time we finally got experts approved and in place, it was too late. Everyone thought we were out of control …along with the virus! The bottom line: management failed to support us early in the process.
1. What happened at the staff meeting; did management really say no?
Susan's Answer: I was really caught off guard when they started asking for specifics on my resource needs, like how many people would be needed for how long, what the specific tasks were, and what training and supplies would be needed. I had an overall idea, but I couldn’t give details or produce any documentation to back up my request.
2. Couldn't you have planned regardless of whether you had management's support or not?.
Susan's Answer: I did try to set up a few things in advance; for example, I had informal understandings with other staff. The idea was that they would help if we couldn’t handle the communication response ourselves. But when the crisis really hit, their managers refused to let them help because they had too much to do in their own departments. So it’s true that when the crisis did hit, we didn’t really have a detailed plan; but then we didn’t have the money or staff to carry out one anyway.
3. Was this really all management's fault?
Susan's Answer: Well...Looking back, I guess there were some things we could have done to get management's buy in; like coming up with details on what we needed. But how on earth can you figure that out in advance of a crisis?
NARRATOR:
Help in answering these questions can be found under "Learn More About". After you've explored these resources, you can practice using them under "Try Your Hand At"
Each "Try Your Hand At" activity is based on the preceding activity. You should complete them in the order shown on the menu.
Activity 1.1: Just How Bad Is It? (Assessing the Level of Crisis)
Activity 1.2: Whose Job Is It, Anyway? (Staffing for a Crisis)
Activity 1.3: How Do I Convince Them? (Making The Case Before Management)
NARRATOR: Now it’s time to hear from the second Public Affairs Office employee, Roshanna Harris. As you listen to Roshanna, keep in mind that there may be a relationship between the problem that Susan described and Roshanna’s take on it.
GROUP LEADER: So, from Susan’s perspective, failure to get management’s buy-in was the cause of the difficulties. Next, let’s move on to Roshanna. Roshanna, you and I spoke a bit yesterday and I know that you have some ideas.
ROSHANNA: Yeah…..okay….right As you know, our office was really busy; our e-mail system went down due to a backlog of messages, and some big coordination needs fell through the cracks. Let's start with the governor’s office. She announced a much lower number of confirmed cases than we had given to the media. When the higher number proved right, the governor lost credibility and the media had a field day.
ROSHANNA: The second incident was Dr. Brown’s interview. He is the state medical officer, but we had no idea that he was going to give an interview to the local newspaper. In all fairness, we had no formal procedures in place for pre-interview coordination. So Dr. Brown didn’t realize that he should coordinate with us before he did the interview. He advised people to get vaccinated, especially small children and the elderly. This advice was given big coverage by the local media and lots of people came to the health clinics to get vaccinated. It wasn't that this was bad medical advice, but we just ran out of vaccine because of the increased demand. People had to be turned away. The media showed lots of footage of frantic clinic workers and angry people demanding to be vaccinated. Dr. Brown also advised people to avoid crowded public places. Again, not bad advice, but then the reporter asked about measures that would be taken if things got worse. Dr. Brown said that there might have to be closings of some public businesses, such as the movies or restaurants. Nobody here had even mentioned the possibility to the local business community and let's just say that they were not too happy. Then the Chamber made it clear that they thought we had handled things very, very poorly.
ROSHANNA: The third problem was that no one talked to our neighbors. As things got worse, other governors advised their citizens to stay away from us. We have several major tourist attractions and the large convention center at our state capitol has lots of events scheduled. Needless to say, the business community became even angrier about the prospect of losing revenue. So we had a political and an economic crisis on top of the health crisis. If you ask me, this was a major coordination snafu.
1. How did the governor's office get one set of facts and the media another?
Roshanna's Answer: …poor information coordination. Our disease investigation staff gave two different case counts to two different Public Information Officers, one in the governor’s office and one in the health department.
2. So what was wrong with Dr. Brown's interview?
Roshanna's Answer: From a scientific standpoint, nothing. From a coordination standpoint, plenty! His interview caused an overwhelming demand for vaccinations. Since we hadn’t talked with him ahead of time about the potential impact of his remarks, the clinics really caught the brunt of the public’s anger There also was a downstream effect: when the clinics closed, people went to hospitals to get vaccinated, filling up emergency rooms and causing delays in treating emergencies, including people with the virus. And let’s not forget how blindsided the business community felt, either.
3. Could these problems have been prevented?
Roshanna's Answer: Alright. In hindsight, I think they could have. If we had coordinated better both internally and externally, then we might have anticipated the effect of what we said on the business community and the health care system. If we could have connected with the governor’s office and the tourism boards in other states, we might have been able to head off the political situation, too.
Narrator
Help in answering these questions can be found under Learn More About…After you’ve explored these resources, you can practice using them under Try Your Hand At.
Each "Try Your Hand At" activity is based on the preceding activity. You should complete them in the order shown on the menu.
Activity 2.1 - Who Ya Gonna Call? (Completion of Notification Coordination Roster)
Activity 2.2 - Can We Talk? (Best Ways to Communicate)
Activity 2.3 - What's Their Problem, Anyway? (How Events Become Turning Points to Stakeholders)
GROUP LEADER: So, from Roshanna’s point of view, failure to coordinate with others was the problem. Tony, in your role as Community Health Education Specialist, do you have any thoughts?
TONY: Well, the first of all, the only experienced spokesperson was out sick with the virus, so we had to use the available technical staff at press conferences or for talking at public meetings. What made it worse still was that the state has many communities with significant racial and ethnic diversity. Most of our technical folks are only used to talking to other technical folks--not all of these different groups! They just aren't trained.
TONY: The next problem was that in the beginning we were only able to produce one set of health information. Unfortunately, it was aimed at an English-speaking audience. We worked as quickly as we could to get the materials translated into other languages and get them out to those who needed them. But I'm the only staff person who is bilingual. By the time we had the materials duplicated and then figure out how to get them to the people who needed them, they were already sick because of misinformation or no information at all. Bottom line? No one anticipated what a huge communication effort was needed.
QUESTION TO ASK TONY:
1. Couldn't you have first made sure that the materials that were translated really worked in the different communities?
Tony's Answer: Well, I was able to do some of the translations for the Latino American audience, but we didn’t have access to experts who could translate for the other audiences. We did the best we could, but we had an awful lot of calls from people who just didn’t understand what we meant. I think some of our messages were translated literally word for word without checking to see if they made sense. There's a big difference between just translating the words and translating the meaning. We really need bilingual experts in public health and not just language teachers who can't translate the words. Unfortunately, testing the translated messages would have taken time that we really didn't have. So we just sent them out; it cost a lot of confusion in some cases.
QUESTION TO ASK TONY:
2. Did you consider training the technical folks in effective communication techniques?
Tony's Answer: We really didn’t have any training program available for the technical folks, and there was no way to get one organized. We were just way too busy. The time to do that would have been before the crisis, but we never thought they’d need it.
QUESTION TO ASK TONY:
3. Were there other channels you could have used to reach the diverse communities?
Tony's Answer: Yeah, I'm sure, it’s easy to think through it now, but in the middle of it all, there was no way. What I would have liked to have had was a list of the radio and television channels that the different groups listen to. Also, what I should have done was gotten a list of contacts together –respected people in the community like pastors, clubs leaders, you know, people who are looked up to…maybe even people who work in the community clinics or in the schools. After listening to Roshanna, I think we may already have these people out there, but I didn’t know about them.
Narrator
Help in answering these questions can be found under Learn More About…After you’ve explored these resources you can practice using them, under “Try Your Hand At.”
Each "Try Your Hand At" activity is based on the preceding activity. You should complete them in the order shown on the menu.
Activity 3.1 - Uh-Oh, Now What Do I Say? (Effective Question and Answer Techniques)
Activity 3.2 - Who's That in the Picture? (Communicating with Different Target Audiences)
Activity 3.3 - What Wavelength Are You On? (Surfing for the Best Communication Channels)
GROUP LEADER: Ok, we’ve heard from everyone, now it’s time to come up with some action items . . . .
NARRATOR: Now that you’ve had a chance to hear each individual’s perspective on the problem, do some independent study, and try your hand at various activities, it’s time to wrap up with a concluding question. Just what was the cause of the problem experienced by this health department?
SUSAN: The real problem was: we failed to get management support early in the process.
ROSHANNA: The real problem was a coordination failure…the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.
TONY: The real problem was that we failed to plan sufficiently for the communication effort that was needed.
NARRATOR: Actually, they are all correct. All three of these contributed to the problem. You’ve just seen the three chief causes of negative results in emergency risk communication:
NARRATOR:
NARRATOR: This training has focused on three common causes of emergency risk communication failure. But don’t forget to consider other possible issues that may apply to your situation. Although you may have ensured that these three areas are well under control, you must still think about other potential problems and how you will deal with them.
NARRATOR: You have completed this training. You may revisit the materials for any section by accessing items from this Review Page. Before you leave, be sure to give your feedback on the start up page; your comments and suggestions are extremely helpful for future training programs like this.