Minerals Council of Australia:
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If you make a list of environmental health risks in order of how many people they kill each year, then list them again in order of how alarming they are to the general public, the two lists will be very different. Risk managers in industry and government often deduce from this that public perception of risk is ignorant or irrational. But a better way to see the problem is that the public defines “risk” more broadly than the risk assessment profession. It helps to stipulate new definitions. Call the death rate “hazard”; call everything else that the public considers part of risk, collectively, “outrage.” Risk, properly conceived, includes both hazard and outrage.
Among the components of outrage are: voluntary/coerced; familiar/exotic; not memorable/memorable; controlled by the individual/controlled by others; fair/unfair; and imposed by institutions that are trustworthy/untrustworthy. Risks that are high in these factors are high risks, even if they are not especially hazardous. To decrease public concern about small hazards, therefore, risk managers must work to diminish the outrage.
The presentation focuses especially on six key strategies for managing outrage in the minerals industry: stake out the middle, not the extreme; acknowledge prior misbehavior; acknowledge current problems; give others credit for achievements; share control or be accountable; and bring unacknowledged concerns to the surface. All six are demonstrably effective in managing stakeholder outrage. But they are difficult to implement because they run counter to corporate culture, corporate self-esteem, and corporate outrage.
Creator of the “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula for risk communication, Peter M. Sandman is one of the preeminent risk communication speakers and consultants in the United States today, and has also worked extensively in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. His unique and effective approach to managing risk controversies has made him much in demand for other sorts of reputation management as well.
Dr. Sandman has helped his clients through a wide range of public controversies that threatened corporate or government reputation -- from oil spills to labor-management battles; from E. coli contamination to the siting of hazardous waste facilities. In the terms first popularized by Dr. Sandman, these are situations where the “hazard” is low, the “outrage” is high, and the core task is outrage management.
For more information on Dr Sandman visit www.psandman.com
Dr Sandaman appears with the support of Newmont Australia
Workshop Two: 9.00am - 5.00pm
The benefits Cross Cultural Awareness Training at an organisational level are tangible and very real; in financial terms; as a result of the better and more harmonious workplace relations and mutual understanding that results; and in overcoming misguided perceptions and prejudices that so often apply to Aboriginal social and workplace practices. Teamwork improves, happier workplaces result, and in many situations workplace performance and output lifts significantly.
This one-day Cross Cultural Awareness Workshop places importance on barriers to Cross Cultural Awareness, while building a self awareness of the participants’ own Cross Cultural Awareness style, skill and effectiveness. The Cross Cultural Awareness Workshop also explores complex issues related to attitudes and behaviours and the inter-relationship between cultural perspectives and communication barriers.
At the completion of the workshop participants should have attained:
Gail Reynolds-Adamson is a descendant from the Nudju people, who are from the Norseman/Balladonia area, Mirrnning people (“Whale people”), who stretch along the coast between Western Australia and South Australia and the Noongar people who are from the South East Coast of Western Australia.
Gail was, until very recently, the Manager of the Indigenous Relations Department for Newmont Australia. In this role she has been responsible for the training and employment of Indigenous peoples across nine mine sites, as well as for the development and delivery of a Cross Cultural Awareness program across the same sites and head office.
Gail has experience and knowledge that has been developed from undergraduate and post graduate studies, a decade of Mining Industry work experience and many years of developing and implementing these workshops. She has developed a range of strategies to deal with cultural difference. She has learned from experience about the most appropriate, effective and efficient ways to develop, adapt, deliver and assess the outcomes of information of this nature among adult audiences of both cultures. She has developed a style and content structure that are both non-confrontational and at the same time, challenging of the paradigms, attitudes and views of different cultures.
