Effective Communication About Risk to People
Creator of the “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula for risk communication, Peter M. Sandman is one of the world's preeminent risk communication speakers and consultants.
A Rutgers University professor from 1977 to 1995, Dr. Sandman founded the Environmental Communication Research Program (ECRP) at Rutgers in 1986, and was its Director until 1992. During that time, ECRP published over 80 articles and books on various aspects of risk communication. In 1995 Dr. Sandman left the university and became a full-time consultant. He received his PhD in Communication from Stanford University in 1971.
“The engine of risk response is outrage,” Dr. Sandman argues. “Sometimes the problem is too little outrage; people are apathetic, and I help my client arouse more outrage so they protect themselves. Other times the problem is too much outrage; people are excessively angry or frightened – usually because of things my client has done wrong – and I help find ways to calm the situation. Still other times, the outrage is rightly high about a genuinely serious risk, and the job is to help people bear it, sustain it, and act on it.”
An AIHA CPAG initiative recently identified key content from Dr. Sandman that will help IH and OEHS professionals better communicate risk to people.
Audience: C-Suite
Ebola Risk Communication: Talking about Ebola in Dallas, West Africa, and the World (Article)
By Peter M. Sandman, PhD, and Jody Lanard, MD
October 6, 2014
Audience: C-Suite
In early October, I started getting media inquiries about Ebola risk communication. Three such inquiries led me to write emails (two of them jointly with my wife and colleague Jody Lanard) that collectively summarized most of our thinking about how U.S. sources and the U.S. media were handling Ebola – the first U.S. case in Dallas, the disastrous epidemic in West Africa, and the global pandemic risk. Included in this column are: (a) Our October 3 response to Sharon Begley of Reuters; (b) Our much shorter October 5 response to Kai Kupferschmidt of Science; and (c) My short October 6 response to Paul Farhi of the Washington Post. The articles that Sharon, Kai, and Paul wrote are referenced and linked at the very end of this column, or will be once they’re published. (Note that I had some follow-up communications with Kai, by phone and email, that he relied on in his article but are not included in the column.)
Empathic Communication in High-Stress Situations (Article)
by Peter M. Sandman
June 8, 2010
Audience: C-Suite
These are the notes I developed for a multinational management consulting firm that asked me to help give empathy training to its top consultant-managers. Though applied (as best I could) to a management consulting context, these notes are based largely on my 2007 column “Empathy in Risk Communication,” supplemented with such risk communication basics as the “donkey” game, the risk communication seesaw, and acknowledging uncertainty.
Empathy in Risk Communication (Article)
by Peter M. Sandman
with an Afterword by Jody Lanard
July 29, 2007
Audience: C-Suite
Everyone knows risk communicators need to be empathic, but all too often empathy gets operationalized as telling people you know how they feel – or, worse yet, telling them how they feel. This long column argues that the essence of empathy is “sort-of acknowledgment,” finding a middle ground between obliviousness and intrusiveness. The column goes on to discuss ten elements of empathic communication. Some are pretty obvious (listening and echoing, for example); some are easy-to-learn tactics (such as suggesting that “some people” might feel a particular way instead of accusing your stakeholders of feeling that way); some are complicated and counterintuitive. The most complicated and counterintuitive ones are grounded in the work of psychiatrist Leston Havens.
Managing Justified Outrage: Outrage Management When Your Opponents Are Substantively Right (Article)
by Peter M. Sandman
November 18, 2008
Audience: C-Suite
This long column tries to correct a serious oversimplification in my previous writing about risk communication. Outrage management isn’t just for calming people down when they mistakenly believe they have substantive reasons to oppose you. It is also for calming people down when they rightly believe they have substantive reasons to oppose you. Converting justified opposition that’s outraged into justified opposition that’s calm doesn’t (and shouldn’t) eliminate the opposition, but it does accomplish several things: It lowers the level of passion; it opens people up to the possibility of altruism; it gets them in a mood to negotiate; and it enables them to be more realistic in defeat or more generous in victory. While all the usual outrage management strategies apply, two strategies are particularly crucial when your critics are substantively right: acknowledging that they are right, and being candid about the distribution of power. The column also has an important “postscript” on the role of outrage management in a genuine high-hazard, high-outrage crisis.
“Speak with One Voice” – Why I Disagree
by Peter M. Sandman
July 27, 2006
Audience: C-Suite
Just about every list of guidelines I can find on risk communication or crisis communication includes an admonition to “speak with one voice” – except mine. My usual advice to clients is diametrically opposed. I urge them to “let opinion diversity show.”
Worst Case Scenarios
by Peter M. Sandman
August 28, 2004
Audience: C-Suite
Your doctor says you have a suspicious looking lump and she wants to run some tests. Your plumber says he’s not sure how much wall he’ll have to take down to find and fix that leak. Your boss says there may be more layoffs on the way.
Advice about Advisory Groups
by Peter M. Sandman
October 21, 2011
Audience: C-Suite
This is the 23rd in a series of risk communication columns I have been asked to write for The Synergist, the journal of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. The columns appear both in the journal and on this website. This one can be found (edited somewhat for length and copyediting details) in the October 2011 issue of The Synergist, pp. 21–23.
Audience: Public
Holding Your Volunteers
by Peter M. Sandman
November 10, 2001
Audience: Public
New Jersey Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze, Spring 1984
It is perhaps a sign of maturity that the freeze campaign now has alumni and alumnae, people who used to be involved. No movement can recruit thousands of volunteers and hold them all. But we do want to hold as many as we can.
Audience: Workers
Why Do Risk Communication When Nobody’s Endangered and Nobody’s Upset (Yet)?
by Peter M. Sandman
April 19, 2018
Audience: Workers
This is the 37th in a series of risk communication columns I have been asked to write for The Synergist, the journal of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. The columns appear both in the journal and on this website. This one can be found (cut substantially for length and with some minor copyediting changes) in the April 2018 issue of The Synergist, pp. 34–37.