The Issues Stage

If an organization has had effective public relations at each of the previ­ous two stages of the process of strategic management, it will have re­solved most of the problems with publics before they become issues. A public perceives a problem when something is missing that it would like to occur—such as clean air, a good community, or a successful organiza­tion. Publics make issues out of problems that have not been resolved.

When publics make issues out of problems, they typically use the mass media to bring attention to their cause. They do this by staging events such as protests, marches, strikes, and sometimes even hunger fasts and violent demonstrations.

When organizations delay public relations programs until the issue stage, they usually are forced to develop programs of crisis communica­tion. In addition, they begin to campaign against the activists asym­metrically, the activists do likewise, and the conflict degenerates into a shouting match and campaigns to convince passive publics to support each position. Passive publics seldom are involved enough to take a po­sition on the issue, however, although they may form weak, negative at­titudes toward your organization.

Sometimes, one side can declare a short-term victory—by defeating legislation or winning a lawsuit, for example—but seldom does the other side give up. The only means of resolving issues at this stage is through negotiation and "horse-trading" with the activist group.

Ideally, however, organizations do not wait until the issues stage to deal with problems. Instead, they set up a program of "issues manage­ment" to identify issues while they are still problems and to manage the organization's response to the problems and issues. Issues manage­ment programs should be managed by the public relations department in cooperation with a corporate or organizational planning department.