Strategically Communicating

My project will explore the history of crisis management, the possible motivations of the various players involved, and case studies of crisis management examples. The intended result will be a crisis management best practices guide.

1. Identifying problems and explaining data. To identify potential problems and explain the data, a puzzle-explication strategy may be the best approach. In order to engage the reader and explain the problems and data, it would be smart to present conflicting data points. For example, I might include a statistic about how consumers feel versus how they act, and why this supports mistreatment by businesses. Once the stage is set with a question of contradictory behavior, it is easy to transition to why the problem actually exists and explanation of what the data says about why the problem exists.
2. Connecting with key readers/audiences. To best connect with key readers, a convergence or braided narrative would be most effective. Weaving together the story of the subject crisis from different perspectives will give key readers a way to identify with the story, even if each reader plays a different role in real life. For example, Joe the Plumber will probably not connect to Oscar Munoz of United Airlines issuing an email to justify United’s violent passenger removal on an overbooked flight. Vice versa, Mr. Munoz (or other CEOs) will not immediately connect with the plight of the average airline passenger/consumer. Braided narrative would allow me to tell the story of the crisis from both people’s viewpoints. In this way, CEOs might connect with Oscar Munoz and Joe Blow might connect with the passenger. After reading both perspectives when mixed with data and appropriate analysis, perhaps the CEO and the layperson might come to understand or even identify with each other.
3. Most comfortable with/excited about. The themes/topics strategy is the one with which I am most comfortable. Though I can’t say I’m excited about it. This method is logical and straightforward. It is easiest for me to organize a paper into categories or themes/topics. I would, however, like to stretch my writing skills and perhaps attempt the convergence or braided narrative. Especially in the present world, the power of storytelling has proven to be colossal. Stories are moving, they are powerful, and they are persuasive. As mentioned above, stories help readers to connect to the data presented. It is a great gift to be able to tell a story well. I would welcome the chance (and the challenge) to flex my writing muscles and attempt to package the data and analysis into a convincing and meaningful story. People will be able to connect to it, and they might not feel the scientific distance that is so often imposed by academic works.
4. Most potential for achieving study’s goals. The method with the most potential for achieving the study’s goals is the chronology/life story style. To understand why trust is so low between consumers and business, it is first important to understand the trajectory that led society to this current low point. The chronology leading to the shareholder-first mentality would be enormously helpful for understanding the state of the business-consumer relationship. Tracking the chronology of social mores about business over time and studying the corresponding crisis issues between business and the consumer would provide eye-opening insight into topics such as: who are the players, what happened, and why did it happen? Subsequent iterative analysis could lead to several conclusions about preventing these types of crisis issues in the future.