Spokane Regional MarCom Association - Marketing and Communications in Spokane

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Freakonomics
A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

I was walking in downtown Philadelphia this past June when my eyes zeroed in on a man in a business suit, briskly walking and reading a book called Freakonomics. Slightly surprised to see a professional not only carrying, but reading a book with such a unique title, I was inspired to pop into the next Barnes and Noble that I came across. Sure enough, I quickly located the display of hardbacks and became even more amused as I read some of the chapter titles, "What Do School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have In Common" and "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?" These eccentric titles, combined with the 20% discount (more evidence that price cuts combined with intrigue do influence buying decisions), convinced me I needed to learn about the commonality between school teachers and sumo wrestlers.

On my flight back to Spokane, I was almost through discovering what makes a perfect parent, when I stumbled across a few pages on fear, and realized the profound connection between fear and crisis communication. The situations where people feel they have little or no control evoke feelings of fear. For example, a terrorist attack elicits fear immediately while dying from heart disease does not. According to risk communications consultant Peter Sandman, “risks that scare people and risks that kill people are different."He uses the equation: Risk is equal to hazard plus outrage (hazard + outrage = risk) to assess situations and determine people's reactions. The equation is quite simple, according to Sandman. "When hazard is high and outrage is low, people under-react and when hazard is low and outrage is high, they overreact."

As we are all communicating a variety of messages to our internal and external audiences on a daily basis, this simple equation can help predict the response of employees, investors and members of the community. We recently saw this equation in action with Hurricane Katrina. The risk was high but the outrage was low before the hurricane. However, after Katrina, people became enraged with the slow response. I'm certain the recent national disaster will have communications professionals reviewing their own crisis communication plans. Hopefully this is just one more tool you can add to your crisis communication belt. The best part however, is when your boss asks how you learned about this new thought provoking equation, you get to smile and say, "It's simple--it's Freakonomics."