ISSUES MANAGEMENT

Crisis management, at its best, is crisis avoidance.
Crisis avoidance involves excellent issues management.
Introduction
Cigarette smoking, global warming, the future of the rain forest, obesity, healthcare costs, DNA, intensive farming, child labour; these are just a few of the subjects that have influenced the way in which business operates over the past 30 years.
Issues management practice is the “identification, monitoring, and analysis of trends in key publics’ opinions that can mature into public policy and regulatory or legislative constraint of the private sector”
We will argue that the successful issues manager recognises when an issue had changed or has the power to change the context in which business operates; is able to pinpoint a specific threat or opportunity to a specific industry, company or product, in a specific part of the world at a specific point in time; and can execute a series of actions to do something about it while remaining vigilant for any shifts in interpretation that need new thinking.
Issues Management: defining the field
What is an Issue?
It will come as no surprise to discover that there are many definitions of an issue.
Chase and Jones describe an issue as “an unsettled matter which is ready for decision.” Others suggest that, in its basic form, an issue can be defined as a point of conflict between an organization and one or more of its audiences.
A simple definition that we like to use is that an issue represents “ a gap between corporate practice and stakeholder expectations.”
Managing issues frequently involves dealing with change. The ultimate goal, according to Hainsworth and Meng (1988), is to shape public policy to the benefit of the organization through; * Early identification of the potential impact of the change * Organized activity, based on sound management principles and techniques, and allowing time for analysis and creative thinking to influence the evolution and, ultimately, the outcome of that change.
Origins of Issues Management
Writing from a US perspective, Heath (1997) observes that issues management arose from the need for private business to protect itself against public criticism and legislation. A possible turning point was the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, which highlighted the potential side effects of insecticides and herbicides on the food chain. Corporations, meanwhile, were widely critised for being untrustworthy, irresponsible and wasteful, giving rise to both consumer and environmental pressure groups. The US lawyer and politician Ralph Nader played a key role in championing the rights of consumers against manufacturers, following some landmark court cases against automobile makers in the 1960s.
Defining Issues Management
Issues management was an attempt to define the strategies that companies needed to use to counter the efforts of activist groups which were putting pressure on legislators for stricter controls of business activity. Issues management was first implemented as a way in which companies could deal with their critics.
Howard Chase (1982), first used the term in the mid- 1970s, describing it thus;
Issues management is a tool which companies could use to identify, analyse and manage emerging issues and respond to them before they became public knowledge.
Hainsworth, in a 1990 article, describes the importance of issues management;
It should be seen as a critical element in overall corporate planning and managing.
Organizations, in the United States, see issues management as an integral part of strategic planning and a basic ingredient for corporate survival.
Heath (1997) identifies four functions of issues management. These are to: * Anticipate and analyse issues * Develop organizational positions on issues * İdentify key publics whose support is vital to the public policy issue * İdentify desired behaviours of key publics.

Professional Standards
An issue exists when there is a gap between stakeholder expectations and an organization’s policies, performance, products or public commitments. * Issue management is …the process used to close that gap. * Issue management is …a formal management process to anticipate and take appropriate action on emerging trends, concerns, or issues likely to affect an organization and its stakeholders. * Issue management is … an outside-in cultural mindset and linkage between an organization and its stakeholder ecosystem. This linkage enhances responsiveness to change and acknowledges and attempts to balance the myriad expectations of affected entities and individuals. * Issue management is … genuine and ethical long-term commitment by the organization to a two-way, inclusive standard of corporate responsibility toward stakeholders
Issue management involves but does not solely focus on the following disciplines: * Public relations, lobbying or government relations * Futurism, trend tracking or media monitoring * Strategic or financial planning * Law
Issue management is not … * One-way control of public policy issues * Spin or damage control * Defensive delay and deflection activities to crush opponents * Reactive fire-fighting in a crisis mode * A superficial imposition of a set of values and way of doing business on an institutional culture that neither understands nor embraces it
Relationship with Crisis Management
Howard Chase also referred to issues management as the highest form of sound management when applied to institutional survival. This leads to a debate about its relationship to crisis management. There is clearly a connection, but the two specialisms are not the same.
Regester and Larkin (1997), in their issues lifecycle, suggest that issues increase in intensity through three phases (potential, emerging and current), reach maximum intensity in the fourth phase, crisis, and depressurise dramatically in the final phase, dormant, when they are finally resolved.
Issues management is not crisis management and the two terms should not be used interchangeably. Issues management is that it is less action-oriented and more anticipatory in nature than crisis management. Issues management is proactive in that it tries to identify the potential for change and influence decisions relating to that change before it has a negative effect a corporation. Crisis management tends to be a more reactive discipline dealing with a situation after it becomes public knowledge and affects the company.
Crisis management tends to be about the now and is largely tactical; issues management tends to be about the future and, as we have seen from earlier discussions, is largely strategic.

Context of Issues Management
The ‘Tipping Point’

Issues managers need to understand and manage the context in which destinies change, often due to forces beyond the immediate control of the organizations involved. Public health is probably the next big issue and appears to be echoing the way green issues began to make things happen three decades ago. For now, students of issues management should explore the history of environmental activism to search for the point at which “the reasonable person” was persuaded to care enough to do something and acted in a way that created enough momentum for others to follow.
This momentum is called the “tipping point” (Gladwell 2000: the moment when a debate that has been slowly evolving for many years among the scientific, medical, technical and/or academic communities enters the public domain via media, adopts a political and social agenda and prompts a fundamental shift in government thinking. Such a shift, in turn, leads to legislative and regulatory change that reshapes the business landscape.
It is important to recognise that the tipping point does not create the debate. It may simplify it, give it some meaning and apply an emotional charge that fires the public’s imagination, but it is not the trigger.
A simplified model for monitoring emerging issues is based on the idea that all issues tend to follow the same six-phase evolutionary sequence. 1. The initiation phase: Issues often begin with a study, prompted by the natural desire of scientists and academics to research areas of uncertainty. 2. The interpretation phase: As the research continues and findings are published, other experts, typically from industry groups, government and specialist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with a particular interest in the subject, study the data and add their own opinions. 3. The implication phase: If an NGO or a media commentator can articulate a clear actual or perceived threat, identify a victim and expose a possible culprit.
Negative news coverage and/or a public campaign becomes a high probability. The tripping point is reached. 4. The ignition phase: Public interest is fired. 5. The influencing phase: The lobbying of policy makers begins. 6. The imposition phase: Regulations are introduced.

The tipping point in action: GM crops
The following outlines the history of European opposition to the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops. * Scientists initiate research on how to manipulate genes. * Agricultural specialists learn how to use genes to make plants pest resistant. * A US company develops a seed that is resistant to its brand-name pesticide which, they say, will allow farmers to be more efficient in their use of chemicals in the field. * Activists say the science is unproven and, in any case, consumers have the right to choose whether their food is from GM crops or not. * The public debate ignites around issues of choice and the environmental risks involved in crosspollinating GM and non-GM crops. * The EU applies the precautionary principle and decides it cannot allow the importation of GM crops until it has created an appropriate regulatory regime.
Key learning point: If the debate is scientific (genetic modification) and the tipping point is political (freedom to choose) then the issue may become emotive. Public concerns are legitimate and must be addressed as part of a long –term goal to create trust. A rational debate about the use of scientific or medical producer that makes people anxious can not take place until a climate of trust has been properly established.
The effect of context on issues development
This model tends to confirm what Howard Chase seems to imply in his use of the terms “institutional survival” and “institutional destiny”: issues management is more about the pace and extent of change than about the fact of change.
The first concerns the political, social, economic and cultural context; the second concerns who, or what, is the dominant power broker making something happen?
Context explains why some issues, such as the debate over whether mobile telephones affect the brain, have little impact on behaviour and sales, while others, such as the devate over genetically modified crops (GMO), are capable of polarising opinion.
It also explains why some issues, such as the use of animals in medical research, are primarily of interest to one country while others, such as those triggered by allegations of chemically induced risk, cross-national borders and continents within the space of a day. And it explains why, for example, the employment of children is attacked by the USA and some European commentators as child exploitation but condoned by some Asian countries as child protection. A simplified view is that the world is split into three natural, stable, self-regulating and largely introspective coalitions, each one of which is populated by stakeholders who share similar visions, beliefs and behaviours: * For-profit coalition (business, industry groups) * Not-for profit coalition (NGOs, voluntary sector, special interest groups, academia, independent experts, media commentators) * Government coalition (ministers, legislators, regulators)
Issues tend to emerge from players in one of these coalitions and will typically find “common cause” with players in a second coalition before players in the third coalition become intimately involved or even aware.
It was a relationship between the so-called “first estate” and the “second estate” that came under increasing criticism from trade unions and other groups on “outside”, most notably students whorioted in Paris in 1968. The not-for-profit coalition, often now seen as representing the “third estate”, was barely recognised.
Now, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Wheel seems to be turning again as the not-for-profit coalition and the government coalition unite to build a framework of regulations and legislation to control they regard as the excesses of some business.
Example of this partnership in action are the emerging rules on corporate governance, exemplified by the Sarbane-Oxley legislation in the USA (2002) and the EU’s 8th Directive on company lax (2005) and voluntary codes of business practice covering the treatment of workers by factories in Asia supplying western companies.
The ideal issue management programme will strive to create common cause among stakeholders in all three coalitions. The World Health Organization (WHO) is certainly attempting to do that in using a multi-stakeholder approach as part of its global strategy on diet, physical activity and health.

Planning an Issues Management Programme
Using this Issue Management Process, you can identify and resolve issues quickly, before they have an undesirable impact. Whether you experience staffing, supplier, equipment or other issues, this process will guide you through the steps towards their speedy resolution.

This Issue Management Process will help you to: * | * Identify and record issues clearly | * | * Use Issue Forms to document issues properly | * | * Determine the impact of each issue | * | * Prioritize issues and report on their status | * | * Review all issues and decide on a course of action | * | * Take the steps needed to resolve issues quickly |

By using this Issue Management Process, you'll also be able to: | * Assign actions to staff to resolve issues | | * Monitor the outcome of the actions taken | | * Assign roles and responsibilities for managing issues | | * Report on the status of issues to management |

Issues Lifecyle
Stage-1 origin: potential issue
An issue arises when an organization or group attaches significance to a perceived problem that is a consequence of a developing political/regulatory, economic or social trend. (Crable and Vibbert, 1985)
An issue begins to gain definition when an organization or group plans to do something that has a consequence for another organization or group. (Grunig and Hunt, 1984) Awareness and concern on the part of a group brings about a resolve to ‘do something.’ Lines become drawn and conflict emerges. (Crables and Vibbert, 1985)
So, what we see in the early potential stage is a defined condition or event which has the potential to develop into something of importance. The types of issues which exist in this phase, however, have not yet captured significant expert or public attention, although some specialists will begin to be aware of them.
In Stage 1, groups or individuals generally begin to establish a certain level of credibility in areas of concern and seek out support from other influencers and opinion leaders.
Stage 2- mediation and amplification: emerging issue
As momentum builds within the mass media, the issue becomes amplified into a public issue that may become part of the public policy process.
The emerging issue stage indicates a gradual increase in the level of pressure on the organization to accept the issue. In most cases, this increase is the result of activities by one or more groups as they try to push or legitimize the issue. (Meng, 1987)
At this stage in the issue’s development it is stil relativaly easy for the organization to intervene and play a proactive role in preventing or exploiting the evolution of the issue.
A dominant factor in the development of the issue in this phase is media coverage. Before the issue reaches the next stage, those involved usually try to attract media attention as a means of progressing the issue.
The process of mediation is critical and has the effect of accelerating the full development of the issue. It is therefore essential that companies which are targeted conduct regular and effective monitoring of the commercial, regulatory and social environment in order to identify Stage 2 issues and begin to formulate action plans to deal with them.
Stage 3- organization: current and crisis issue
In the current phase, the issue has matured and is displaying its full potential upon those involved. It becomes very difficult to affect the issue as it has now become enduring, pervasive and increasing in its intensity.
As the issue lifecycle diagram illustrates, in no time at all the issue ramps up from current to crisis status to reach a formal institution such as a regulatory authority which has the power to intervene and impose constraints on the organization or industry as a way to resolve the situation.
Stage 4- resolution: dormant issue
Once issues receive the attention of public officials and enter the policy process, either through changes to legislation or regulation, efforts to resolve the conflict become protracted and costly, as illustrated by the tobacco industry.
So, once an issue has run the full course of its lifecycle, it will reach a height of pressure that forces an organization to accept it unconditionally. The pervasiveness of anti-smoking legislation in the United States can be viewed as an example of this stage.

Step-by-step Issues Management Framework
The management framework outline is not the complete answer, but it provides a useful template for a more detailed examination of issues that are already is the public domain.
The framework is broken down into two sections. The first section covers Steps 1 to 5, which are primarily concerned with thinking and planning; the second section covers Steps 6 to 10, which are centred on activity.
Framework section 1: thinking and planning 1. Get focused. 2. List key players. 3. Assess momentum. 4. Check reality. 5. Assess pace.
Framework section 2: action 6. Clarify the part you want to play. 7. Be realistic. 8. Build case. 9. Commit action. 10. Make it make sense.
Framework section 1: thinking and planning
Step 1. Get Focused
The issue as defined by the outside world is the issue that needs to be managed. Clarity can be achieved by the answers to two key questions: who, or what, put it on the public agenda? What are the best-case and worst-case outcomes of the issue as currently defined?
The key learning point here is that best-case and worst-case planning is not about the issue, but about the impact.
If the US surgeon-General says obesity is an issue that needs to be addressed, it will be addressed.
The symbol has been identified and all that matters from this point on is who, or what, is seen as part of the problem and part of the solution; that is, where the issue manifests itself and where it has a direct impact.
Step 2. List key players
Identify people and organizations who are likely to have an informed view on the issue as currently defined. They should be clustered on the basis of their “membership” of the three natural coalitions summarised earlier, and of the extent to which the definition of the issue makes it directly relevent to their day-to-day interests or responsibilities.
Locating opinion leaders and decision makers; making some assumptions about their motivation and therefore, their likely behaviours; and deciding where they fit in relation to the tipping point and six-phase evolutionary sequence.
While a list such as this is necessarily based on generalisations, it is important for issues managers to distinguish between a person and an institution with a broad agenda (e.g. a doctor in general practice, a consumer organization or a prime minister) and a person and an institution with a narrow agenda (e.g. a heart surgeon, an environmental activist group or a government minister with specific responsibilities). Their interest, knowledge, experience, credibility and motivations- and, as result, their impact- will be different. The obesity debate for example, could produce initial assessment.
Step 3. Assess momentum
Be aware of what makes a good target. Three questions can help organizations assess wherther an issue that is in the public domain, or is about to enter the public domain, is heading in their deriction: * Is the business a symbol (e.g. of junk food) or is actual activity under threat? * Does the issue as currently defined resonate with other debates? (e.g. obesity-junk food-physical activity-cosmetic surgery) * Do the forces that drive the issue have the authority to engage and maintain the public interest?
Brent Spar is probably one of the best examples of how a single decision can give an issue momentum. The Brant Spar case study demonstrates how the pace of an issue is often set by the way in which it is defined- and, therefore, what it symbolises- as it enters the public domain.
Step 4. Check reality
Make sure there is a real and measurabşe threat or opportunity. Again, three questions can be used to help organizations to make a decision: * Is the issue as defined favourable or unfavourable to our business plan? * Why should we become directly involved? * Can the issue be redefined or reframed?
Is genetic manipulation about playing God or, in the case of GM seed, feding the world?
Is driving a car about convenience and enjoyment or damaging the environment?
Step 5. Assess pace
Be aware that not every issue in the public domain is in motion or is capable of moving. Issues managers will know they are at, or near, the tipping point if the answer to all of the following questions is yes: * Would a “reasonable person” be able easily to identify a section, or sections, of the population who could be affected by the issue as currently defined? * Can the issue be visualised? * How strong is the driving force behind the issue?
The “reasonable person” test is the litmus test for public issues. If the ordinary mano r woman in the street cannot see, hear or feel a connection to an issue, it will remain static. It will be debated, but nothing much will happen and companies need to be beware of adding pace to an issue that has no recognisable shape.
Take the issue of mobile telephones and the link to brain damage, mentioned earlier. Some of us will never know anyone with brain damage and even if we did, we could think of many likely causes that have nothing to do with making telephone calls. The mobile phone example illustrates how some issue, despite being in the public domain, seem to be contained at the initiation phase of the issues evolutionary sequence. However, if the debate ever gains momentum, the pace will accelerate, probably triggered by a reputable scientific and medical source with unimpeachable credentials. If this happens, it will provide an interesting study into the way a market and an industry react to a changing context for such a widely used product.
The issue of ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun which are reaching earth unfiltered by high-altitude ozone, and the consequential rise in the likelihood of skin canceri brings its own expectations of what a responsible government and industry can do. The issue began to attract broad public interest in the 1990s and has triggered a number of public information campaigns and evalution studies. (e.g. Sinclair et. Al. 1994; Dickson et. Al. 1997)
One of the first major campaigns was in Australia, a country synonymous with beach life and surfing, where sunbathing became a questionable activity. Suntan lotions were reinvented as sun-block lotions; beach holidays, and everything associated with them, came under scrutiny. Skin, and how to protect it, gave the medical profession a new cause and a welcome boost in some parts of the world to the emerging science of cosmeceuticals. Australi’s “slip, slop, slap” slogan encouraged people to slip on a T-shirt, slop on a hat and slap on some sunscreen.

Framework section 2:action
Step 6. Clarfiy the part you want to play
From the evidence available, decide how the outside world views your role. Two questions to prompt a discussion and a decision: * How likely is it that you will be seen to be responsible for creating the problem, resolving short-term concerns or building long-term solutions? * How do you react?
Manufacturers of electronic equipment operating in countries where issues surrounding the effect on humans of radio waves, microwaves and electromagnetic fields have surfaced are focused on resolving anxieties that their industries have raised. They do not believe scientific evidence proves the existence of a real problem requiring a long-term solution, but it is clear that a perception of risk has to power to impact their business. They understand that legitimate concerns exist, recognise the degree of emotion involved and have activsted programmes of reassurance to address them. That is what their customers expect.
Step 7. Be realistic
Focus on what can be achieved: * If a company is involved, what is its position and what can it make happen? * Is it possible for a company to change fact or change perception, or both? * Are the company’s business interests beter served by changing fact or changing perception?
Step 8. Build case
Create your own circle of influence by informing and educating natural supporters and by identifying and gaining the support of potential supporters.
Step 9. Commit to action
Set milestones. Be clear about what you are trying to achieve, establish a measurable objective and be realistic about the time and the resources it is likely to take.
Step 10. Make it make sense
Public advocacy and “case making” is not the same as legal argument. Logic, not law, counts.