History of Issue Thinking
Issue management as a strategy was introduced in the 1970s by the American PR professional Howard Chase, who saw issue management primarily as a communication strategy. His focus therefore turned to public relations and public affairs. His way of thinking quickly became commonplace in larger American organizations. In 1999, 83% of American companies indicated that they had incorporated issue management into their organizations in some way. It is not known how many Dutch companies were involved in issue management around that time and since then. In 1995 a book by Eliane Schoonman was published on the subject, Erasmus University conducted some research into issue management and in 2007 Ferdinand Helmann and Frank Körver published about it. However, the subject seems to have gained much less of a foothold in Dutch business and has mainly been introduced at large international companies.
The first known Dutch issue manager is probably Tim van Kooten of Shell. When the oil company wanted to sink the redundant oil platform Brent Spar to the bottom of the sea in 1995, it encountered resistance from environmental organization Greenpeace. Van Kooten, who had just been working as an issues manager for a year at the time, noted that until then Shell had hardly paid attention to the company's image. What the outside world thought hardly played a role internally. That has to change, Van Kooten noted. Because an organization can be right, but that does not mean it will be right. So the oil company entered into dialogue with social and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Issue manager Van Kooten thus emerged as a bridge builder between Shell and the outside world.
In the meantime, issue thinking has developed further in the United States. The American emeritus professor of communication RobertHeath brought the concept out of its communication isolation in 1997. He saw issue thinking as an organization-wide proactive approach.
We define - building on Robert Heath - issue thinking as designing policy on issues that arise within and outside the organization, in order to make optimal use of the opportunities and threats that these issues entail. In this way, an organization can prevent escalation, adapt the business model accordingly or allow the issue to grow, with the ultimate goal of making the impact on the organization as small or as large as is desired for the organization and society.
Why is issue thinking important
Impact occurs when companies provide solutions to social issues. For that reason, issue thinking is the must-have of the 21st century.
Why should organizations operate based on issues thinking?
Profiling
An organization or brand can profile itself socially by speaking out about a social issue. This gives an organization a social profile and shows what it stands for. An organization draws attention to a specific issue. She often takes a position herself and shows this position in a communication statement or via a press release. This often happens in a striking or playful way.
For example, a branch of the Edeka supermarket chain in Hamburg had had enough of racism. That is why all foreign products were removed from the shelves in August 2017. So no more Spanish tomatoes, Greek olives or olive oil from Italy. Without foreign products, the supermarket looked like a communist-era store.
Another example is ING, which showed its social side twice in a short time. She showed understanding for the struggle of employees who have to combine work and private life by taking a position in the discussion surrounding paternity leave and by organizing childcare during the primary school teachers' strike.
The plug-in campaigns that many organizations develop online are also good examples of this. Organizations participate en masse in major events such as Gay Pride, which make social statements or in social issue days. In this way they profile themselves as contemporary and socially aware.
When profiling around a specific issue, you can also take a path where you can no longer retrace your steps. If ING wants to position itself as an attractive employer for IT talent and is partly introducing paternity leave, it must also become a pioneer in other employment conditions.
Finally, you must be careful that the choice to profile yourself with a social issue becomes a matter of communication or marketing. That choice goes further than just communication or raising money for a good cause.
Positioning
When an organization structurally activates the social issue in its commercial communication, it uses this issue for its own sake position in society. The organization thus goes further than just profiling an issue. This is most clearly recognized in one-issue organizations that often carry the issue in their name, such as the Plastic Soup Foundation, Wakker Dier, Nederland Schoon or the Ouderenparty. But commercial organizations can also use a social issue for their positioning. Good examples are Jumbo with Healthy Food or Triodos with corporate social responsibility. The closer the issue is to your own brand values, the easier it is. For example, lingerie company Playtex is responding to the growing attention for curves (#playtexpositivity).
Sometimes it is also a challenge. Procter & Gamble launched a new campaign 'The Talk' in the summer of 2017 with which the company hopes to stimulate discussion about racial prejudice in order to increase mutual understanding between different groups in the US. This campaign features mothers who discuss the consequences of racism with their daughters. Attention is drawn to this with various campaigns for different products: #WeSeeEqual, #MyBlackisBeautiful and #100%ofMe (Procter & Gamble Corporate) and, for example, #IsLaundryOnlyAWomensJob (Ariel). By positioning yourself with these types of issues, you will receive praise, but the consumer will also keep a close eye on how you activate this issue. Dove noticed this in October 2017 when the organization wanted to indicate in a campaign that its products were suitable for women of all skin colors. Because the campaign gave the impression that a black woman exchanged her color for white, Dove was showered with ridicule and accused of racism. This led to public apologies. In the summer of 2017, Heineken and Pepsi Cola had also faced critical reactions that questioned the social involvement of both brands in the field of stereotyping. With sensitive issues, it is wise to carefully consider whether you want to immediately put yourself forward as issue owner or whether it is better to first take cautious steps in an alliance together with other parties. A large number of advertisers, advertising agencies and the United Nations recently formed such an alliance on stereotyping (#unstereotype), agreeing
no more developing sexist campaigns.
Purpose thinking
Unilever CEO Paul Polman announced in 2011 that Unilever's brands should not only have value for the customer, but also value for society. This made him the forerunner of a new trend in marketing: purpose marketing. It is not about reducing the negative impact, but about increasing the positive impact and improving the world a little.
Companies that were created from a social purpose must remain alert to their own issue or other issues so as not to make mistakes or miss opportunities. For example, Tony's Chocolonely had to abandon its initial choice for slave-free chocolate. Initially it said '100% slave free', but when it turned out that this no-slave guarantee issued by Max Havelaar was worth little, Tony's Chocolonely replaced it with 'On the way to 100% slave free'.
Resolving problems
The ultimate form of issue making is linking a social issue to a business concept. Social enterprises, united in the Netherlands in Social Enterprise NL, are a very clear example of this. In these types of organizations, an issue is the basis of the company; After all, they started from the drive to solve a social problem
unload. Plastic Whale was created because the founder wanted to do something about the large amount of plastic waste in the Amsterdam canals. Ultimately, a company was built around this, which focuses on fishing for plastic and reusing it. Another example is Instock, a restaurant founded to combat food waste. In this restaurant, food is cooked every day with surpluses from Albert Heijn and other producers.
IKEA and G-Star also often base their business practices on a social issue that needs to be solved. For example, think of G-Star as Raw for the Ocean, where together with Pharrell Williams they have developed sustainable clothing based on plastic bottles from the ocean. IKEA, in turn, has only sold LED lighting since 2016. Another good example is Mattel, which has started selling Barbies with a different ethnicity and figure and will also sell Barbies with a headscarf from the end of 2018. This is the best way to create social impact, because it ensures that attention to a social issue is actually anchored in people's behavior or company policy.
It seems easier for small and new companies to solve social problems, but large companies in particular can play an important role. After all, they are uniquely able to scale up and therefore realize changes or enforce them through their network. For example, you can invite your own employees or experts from your network to think about solutions for the issue and help make these solutions possible. Or challenge young, ambitious people to come up with innovative solutions for an issue that seems unsolvable, as happens at the American XPrize. Or set up a foundation that can help solve an issue, or develop a product for this. For example, the IKEA Foundation had temporary shelters developed so that refugees can live more comfortably.
Finally, you can give your product away for free to groups of people for whom your product is super relevant, but who are not (yet) commercially interesting for your company. Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, for example, does this with medicines in developing countries.
Which organizations are thinking in terms of issues?
One-issue organizations
With NGOs and one-issue organizations it is easy to understand that they benefit from a lot of attention for an issue. After all, these are organizations that focus on one or more issues and are happy to appropriate an issue. Proactively putting their social issues on the agenda and activating them is their core business. Consider action groups, NGOs and interest groups such as the Heart Foundation, Wakker Dier, WomenInc and the Responsible Alcohol Use Foundation (STIVA). But you can also count the Ideele Reclame Foundation (SIRE), which has been active in the Netherlands for fifty years, among these.
At NGOs and one-issue organizations, the issues are the reason for their existence and the reason why employees work there. The bigger the issue they are committed to, the greater their right to exist. And the more visible their organization is in activities surrounding their own issues, the easier it is for them to generate support, members, sponsors, fans or funds for their organization. Some one-issue organizations mainly focus on putting an issue on the agenda, others are also concerned with solving it. Consider, for example, Nederland Schoon, which wants to make the Netherlands litter-free and has developed the Supporter of Clean campaign for this purpose. Or to the Dutch Smoke Free Alliance!, which wants to ensure that children can grow up in a smoke-free environment in the hope that this will prevent them from smoking during puberty. Or the Plastic Soup Foundation, which wants to reduce the use of plastic packaging. Solving issues and changing behavior take a long time. These types of campaigns therefore often run for years.
SIRE limits itself to putting issues on the agenda. Because media operators make media space available to SIRE for free for a short period of time, it cannot afford long-term campaigns. As a result, they only focus on putting an issue on the agenda and never on changing behavior. Campaigns often address topics that touch a raw nerve in society. Because SIRE seeks out the sharp edges, this can even be counterproductive in stimulating behavioral change. Behavioral psychologists in particular sometimes blame them for this. It is therefore important that SIRE's issues are taken over by another organization that can work on long-term behavioral change. This happened, for example, with the campaign 'Give children their play back', which was continued in an adapted form by NOC*NSF and the fireworks campaign that was taken over by VeiligheidNL. The free publicity that this produces easily represents a value of 2 to 3 million euros. If an NGO or a one-issue organization focuses more on solving the issue, they also become more involved in the force field surrounding it and co-responsible for the solutions. Interest groups sometimes consciously choose to do this, while organizations such as Wakker Dier prefer not to become too involved in the solution. This way they have room to seek confrontation and put pressure on other parties. Yet sometimes they also struggle with that. Look at the role of Greenpeace within the Energy Agreement: they used to be only the party that put issues on the agenda and sought confrontation, but now they are also partly responsible for the solutions and the final result.
Social enterprises
Social enterprises, also called social entrepreneurs, are founded purely and solely to achieve a social goal. For them, money is mainly a means, not an end. The social mission is in the DNA. Doing business based on a social mission is becoming increasingly popular. Employees enjoy working at such social enterprises and more and more municipalities are setting up programs to support these enterprises. Tony's Chocolonely is a good example of such a social company. Classic NGOs are also increasingly seeing the benefits of social entrepreneurship: if you can earn money with your activities, you can invest again and therefore actually make a double impact. The question is whether a company dares to take ownership of an issue and actively address it. After all, drawing attention to yourself also opens the door to criticism. And you have to be able to counter that. Creativity, authenticity, integrity, reliability, credibility: all conditions that you must meet to make a self-chosen issue a success. Issues mainly concern ethics. In a number of situations it is extra relevant to create an issue. For example, when an organization is under a lot of pressure due to all kinds of negative issues. By highlighting a positive issue at that moment, you shift attention and get the opportunity to receive positive publicity. By paying attention to an issue, you can also create a breeding ground for the better functioning of your organization. For example, because you can attract better employees or because consumers choose your company over that of your competitor.
If you use an issue solely to make money from it, you will inevitably run into problems at a later stage – with all the damage to your reputation that entails. The audience simply senses exactly how clean you are. Therefore, show that you are sincerely involved in a subject that your target group also believes in and that the outside world therefore also favors you. By the way, there is no point in making money with an issue. Gladly even. That is precisely the power of business: coming up with solutions for social problems and developing a business model for this, which also makes money. After all, it takes you on new paths. However, generating revenue with an issue is not an obligation and it should not be your primary goal.
Large corporates
For companies, creating issues themselves is an opportunity that they cannot pass up. For example, to show that they feel responsible for the society in which they operate and that they understand what is going on. And thus to confirm their right to exist and relevance. Or to create an advantage over a major competitor, to position themselves socially, expand their work area or increase employee involvement. Still other organizations do it to increase their social value, build new contacts, broaden their network or to maintain control. Issue making also generates political attention. It sets them apart from their competitors and offers business opportunities. And it can serve as a counterweight for annoying issues. Finally, it can create a breeding ground for future activities and help you build goodwill that you can use at a later stage.
Although companies mainly work from commercial motives, they are increasingly taking idealistic motives into account in their way of doing business. Sometimes from a personal drive, sometimes because they are forced to do so by the market and the consumer. An issue often means positive publicity. The Dutch Railways, for example, are happy to contrast the issue of reading promotion with the recurring news about serious delays. And Rabobank's local initiatives at sports clubs and cultural institutions may make consumers a little less angry when it comes to extortionate policies. It is therefore a missed opportunity if companies do not engage in issue creation.
As previously indicated, a withdrawing government means that social innovation increasingly has to come from within society. The business community in particular can play an important role in this. After all, it is decisive, has something to spend and can make solutions large and visible. It can provide direct assistance itself or request help from consumers. For example, Pampers donated a euro from the proceeds of every pack of diapers sold to children in developing countries. However, companies can still learn a lot from social enterprises, where the social mission is in the DNA.
How do you choose an issue?
Working from issues requires a long-term approach. Therefore, choose an issue that matches the values of your company and look for it close to home. After all, the outside world must think: of course this organization is interfering in this. It fits their core values, a logical match. The fact that Unilever draws attention to hand hygiene in developing countries suits the company. It is true that the IKEA Foundation builds houses for refugees. And the fact that Dove conveys that everyone is beautiful sounds so logical. With a logical choice you can easily gain support for your issue. Outside the company and within it. Because you not only need support in the communications department, but also at the top and on the work floor. First take a look at your products or services. Do they provide starting points? Do they differentiate themselves from competitors' products and services? Do they contribute to a better society? Can your company claim that positive effect and if so, how? Can such a claim be used long-term and in all kinds of creative ways?
Studying your own company is also worthwhile. Start with the problems you encounter every day. For example, if you are bothered by import restrictions, it is logical that you take a position on the free market. But the existing social policy is also worth a closer look. Perhaps this will give you ideas for a new issue that is worth committing to on a structural basis. Can your knowledge, innovative strength or products solve social problems? Are there issues in the countries where you manufacture or sell products? Another option is to align with the UN's seventeen global goals for sustainable growth: sustainable development goals. The ambition is to end extreme poverty, inequality, injustice and climate change before 2030. Companies can use their innovative power and their personnel to do this. It can also provide guidance and stimulation in developing new ideas.
Also make sure you don't make an issue too big. Just as Albert Heijn cannot change the meat industry, Nuon cannot stop climate change. These kinds of stubborn issues are in any case unsolvable. It is therefore not wise to commit yourself to this as a company. After all, you want to deliver on what you promise. Therefore, peel back an issue as far as possible until you have something that is manageable for you. That means: an issue that you can solve and that reflects positively on your organization. Such as broadcaster RTL, which has decided to ban advertisements that include Zwarte Piet from 2017 onwards. An advantage of small issues is that they are easier to make newsworthy. It is also better to come up with an appealing frame for it. Major issues often use distant, abstract policy language. Not really attractive to join. And also difficult to activate again and again.
Criteria for choosing a good issue
Considerations for choosing a good issue:
- Does the issue match the value of your organization?
- Is your involvement credible? Do your stakeholders understand this commitment?
- Does it help your organization to position and profile itself?
- Is there internal support for the issue? Both at the top and among the employees?
- Is there a risk of failure if you commit to the issue?
- Do you want to commit to it for a long time? Do you get the time for that?
- Does the issue mainly benefit you and not your competitor or other market party?
- Is there sufficient manpower and budget to activate the issue?
- Are there no bodies in the closet surrounding the issue?
- Are there partners with whom you can make the issue bigger together?
Issue organization
How do you organize issue thinking internally?
To implement issue thinking, you have to mobilize all your troops. You need an issue team for every issue. In addition to policymakers and communications specialists, this also includes all other employees who are internally involved in the issue. An issue team can be set up based on a specific issue. In practice, however, this often concerns a group of issues and/or themes.
Different roles/departments involved
- Issue owner: He preferably comes from the department that formulates the policy surrounding this issue, so that he is well informed of all the ins and outs. He is also the one who feels the pain when the issue goes off the rails. This could be the person within management who is ultimately responsible for this issue or someone designated for this purpose. The issue owner is responsible for all substantive input into the team.
- Issue manager: The issue manager is another permanent role in the issue team. He is responsible for introducing environmental sensitivity, the social antenna of the issue team that knows exactly what questions and sensitivities the issue entails. He asks questions that outsiders can also come up with. The issue manager preferably sits in the communications department. The team also consists of specialists, such as product developers, risk managers or marketers. Which specialisms join at what time varies per issue and per issue phase. Formally, the issue manager is responsible for progress together with the issue owner. In practice, the issue manager is usually the one who leads the project due to his background.
- Issue director: Large organizations sometimes want to appoint a special issue director, usually the communications director. The advantage is that an issue director has direct access to the management or board of directors. If necessary, decisions can be made quickly.
- Issue teams: Issue teams work autonomously, but are of course accountable
at the top of the organization. They regularly report on the status of the issue, policy and communication. Regular means: as often as necessary, but at least once a month. Under pressure from current events, daily reporting may be necessary. The issues team regularly reports on the most pressing developments within the issue to the CEO. This is done directly or via the issue owner. In this report, the team provides insight into the issue: which issue it concerns, what exactly it is about, who is involved and when the organization must take action.
8 steps to implement issue thinking in the organization
Step 1
Lay the foundation for the work by creating an issue file. You collect all available information about the issue: research, new developments, business cases, etc. You also make an inventory of what information is still missing and who you may need to speak to to obtain all relevant information. You continue to add to the file continuously. Create an issue trap to discover which main and sub-issues are involved and how they relate to each other. In smaller and/or medium-sized organizations, three or four groups of issues can usually be detected. If the word 'issue' causes a lot of resistance, you can also speak of a theme stage instead of an issue stage. You then create a heat map for each main and sub-issue. This way you discover which issues are most relevant and urgent for the organization. Hatch these issues in the issue trap. They have priority.
Step 2
Analyze the issue. To do this, you determine which phase of life the issue is in. Is it a new issue that has not yet been placed on the agenda? Or has it already been framed and are there supporters and opponents? Is there already a definition of the issue available, is the issue growing, are there many hypes, have governments or businesses already developed policy on it, etc.?
Step 3
Determine whether the organization itself wants to be an issue owner. And if so, why she wants that. What are the drivers? Does the issue fit with the mission and vision of the organization? Does the outside world accept that you claim the issue? Are there other organizations that claim the issue or want to do so? Do you want to collaborate with them? Furthermore, make an inventory of whether there is an issue owner within your own organization and whether there is internal support for the issue.
Step 4
Map the opportunities and threats of the issue. What is the possible impact? What could happen in the worst case? And in the best case? What are possible sore points of this issue for policy? Can these pain points be solved and if so by whom? Which pain points can your own organization solve? What are the chances that other organizations will actually solve the pain points that they can or should solve? What needs to happen in terms of policy and what needs to happen in terms of communication? Finally: what are possible scenarios surrounding the policy and are there perspectives for action for all those involved? When considering policy, think not only of your own organization, but also of government policy or policy of other organizations. You also continuously monitor the issue at this stage. You closely follow the news and other developments and incorporate them into your reports. Based on this, you interpret relevant information and share it with everyone involved on a daily or weekly basis. You create a calendar for the issue based on the news agenda, the parliamentary agenda and relevant sector agendas. You can use the Issue Calendar that is published annually, showing the fixed issue days of organizations. Other sources are the ANP agenda or the BuzzCapture and OBI4wan plug-in calendar.
Step 5
Determine the position of stakeholders in the issue. Who are they? What does the issue mean to them? Who is important, who is less important? What position do they take? What is the best way to approach them?
Step 6
Find out what the organization wants to achieve with the issue and what strategy goes with it. Do you seek confrontation or do you gradually try to gain support? Do you play it through publicity or do you just use your network? How can you create news around a sub-issue? What do you need for that? Do you do it on your own or do you want to work together? Are there coalitions already or do they still need to be created?
Step 7
Formulate your organization's message. Confrontation requires a sharp message. If you want to gradually create support, you choose a message that no one can be against. If the issue already has a frame, this is the time to see whether you can and want to provide it with a new frame.
Step 8
Make a plan for implementation. What are you going to do? For whom, which target groups? When? Which means of communication do you use? Do you have everything you need for this or do you still need to develop something? What is the timing, can you tie in with existing moments on the social or political agenda? Summarize all this in a content calendar per issue.
