The multiplicity of responses and differences in outcomes to Coivid-19 illustrates that even when there are established change management and public communications theories, Politicians can just make things up as they go along.
It’s sometimes difficult to learn when in the middle of a crisis but successful Governments were those that knew and applied the theory in a way that reinforced trust.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia, Canada, have completed an interim review of how various Government’s have successfully and unsuccessfully dealt with Covid-19.
Here’s my summary of the essential lessons for business and public service from their research.
The first is government’s need to identify a clear uncomplicated goal around which their Covid-19 action can be built. New Zealand and Australia settled on elimination, Sweden chose herd-immunity. Around those clear goals successful strategies could be planned.
Where Government’s goals were ambiguous, or contradictory goals or absent … failure crystallised.
Secondly, the use of officials in healthcare to create a strategy was universal- but whether this strategy was sufficiently robust and principle based to provide sufficient guidance for the people to implement with some autonomy, set apart successful approaches. Rigid rules do not work well in a chaotic environments and an overly detailed approaches need constantly changing updating can become a recipe for failure: especially where debate is essentially meaningless. British Columbia set out guidelines for social distancing in eateries then requested a specific plan from each outlet on how they would apply the principles. This obviated the debate over details and enabled easy implementation and compliance within guidelines. The UK is now in the middle of a debate over the “rule of 6” an overly prescriptive detail in the later stages of the pandemic.
A critical areas the Researchers highlight is the need for Government to continue to build and deserve the people’s trust. This is exemplified by Norway’s leaders admitting they made mistakes in being overly rigid in early stage rules. South Koreas and New Zealand’s high profile, consistent and education focussed communications maintained high levels of trust. Thus contrasts with the appalling approach of UK and USA where incompetent leadership avoided responsibility deliberately downplayed dangers and generally displayed irresponsible behaviour, the result was a steady diminution of trust in their approach.
There was also a difference in application of various “behaviour incentives”. Theory suggests these should play a part in sustaining changed behaviour rather than in creating such behaviour- use awareness generation, interest creation and public trials to build support for behaviour then sustain this with (dis)incentives. The research contrasted British Columbia which had a raft of Communications around masks well before disincentives for non-compliance were put in place, with Ontario which started punishing non-compliance immediately to a negative response and wide spread mask-avoidance.
One area the researches don’t focus on is layers of control… but by selecting unitary governments (Sweden, New Zealand, British Columbia) as models of success and identifying federal governments (USA, UK, etc) as failures identifies a critical difference in implementation. The fewer the layers between section maker and decision taker is critical. Only in the Germany did a “Federal” approach work and only because the EU was conspicuously absent and the Federal government took a back seat to the Lander (states) who co-ordinates approaches amongst themselves. A perfect example of federal disunity is the infighting in Australia between point scoring federal, state and city Politicians over quarantines and closed border. Where your business has many management layers, learn how to manage across layers to keep consistent messaging and principle based decisions for front liners to implement with some autonomy.
Effective communications are essential in the short-term for uptake of public health measures like face coverings. But they matter more over a longer time horizon, whether to forestall compliance fatigue, lay the groundwork for vaccine uptake, or encourage the public to engage proactively with the healthcare system for concerns unrelated to Covid. They also matter for cultivating trust among citizens and their governments—trust that is critical for the future stability of democratic institutions.
Please read the report as it is very instructive about how widespread change programs succeed and fail.
From the report, the authors mention that many democracies were already struggling with distrust before the pandemic: anti-vaccination activism, conspiracy theories, sinking faith in institutions, populism, rising inequality, the erosion of local journalism, and so on.
This rolling democratic crisis now interacted with the pandemic. The report lays out a framework for how to communicate—even or especially during a public health emergency—in ways that strengthen democratic norms and processes rather than undermining them.
We draw our recommendations from in-depth studies of nine jurisdictions and two provinces on five continents: Senegal, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, and Canada (for which we also studied two provinces, British Columbia and Ontario). Each of these cases managed relatively effective responses on their own terms; each of them also took democratic communications seriously. Where appropriate, we compare with democracies that struggled to communicate around Covid-19, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States.
This report proposes five broad principles that can underpin any democratic public health communications strategy. Our principles draw upon research from a range of disciplines, including political science, social epidemiology and public health, behavioural science, sociology, media and communications studies, history, and political theory. We call them the RAPID principles, because rapidity is an essential element of an effective response:
Rely on Autonomy, Not Orders
Pandemic responses should emphasize autonomy where possible, in alignment with national traditions and local political cultures, supported by thoughtful and clear communications. We identify two particularly salient forms of autonomy: personal and institutional. This means developing and repeatedly communicating a set of universal principles for making responsible and safe decisions during a pandemic. Autonomy is not anarchy, but rather a policy that includes stakeholders, assumes good faith, and reinforces democratic self-understanding.
Attend to Emotions, Values, and Stories
To complement autonomy, the most effective democratic health communications sustain and build community by incorporating societal values, emotions, and stories. Facts alone are insufficient. Emotions, shared values, and narratives build trust and make health information reliable. There is no single best practice for how to do the work of values-framing, or who should be responsible. What is important,however, is that someone repeatedly and carefully communicates how pandemic measures relate to existing social and political values. Effective communicators considered the diversity of the population and found strategies that avoided stigmatization; they relied on pro-social hygiene and behavioural messaging; they articulated positive emotions like gratitude and acknowledged mental health struggles; they sought to build rapport with citizens.
Pull in Citizens and Civil Society
While officials play an essential role, citizen participation and civil society are also essential. Too often, public health engagement occurs based on what officials think the public looks like, rather than trying to understand citizens as many overlapping groups of individuals with different ideas, beliefs, or capacities. It is essential to establishing feedback loops through techniques like surveys or text mining to understand a population’s diverse experiences, their feelings about the response, and their needs from government. Officials should also consider finding trusted local validators to share health information with friends, families, and followers (e.g. young people, social media influencers, celebrities, religious leaders). Encouraging participation and collaboration, especially on issues like public health, also reduces burdens on public-sector actors. Collaborating with citizens and civil society may create a more robust response; in turn, listening and responding to citizens’ concerns strengthens democratic values such as solidarity and collective responsibility.
Institutionalize Communications
A rapid response, paradoxically, requires structures built far in advance. Countries without communications units have sometimes struggled to deliver consistent information over time or to update citizens swiftly on how pandemic guidelines are changing. On the other hand, jurisdictions with institutional strategies for pandemic communications had the capacity to produce differentiated government messaging that embraced openness and transparency. An institution enables a swift response. A pandemic communications unit could also lay the groundwork for communicating quickly during future epidemics, follow the latest research on effective communications, and establish liaisons with large social media companies to combat misinformation. Finally, a specific unit indicates that communications are seen as an integral part of public health rather than ancillary.
Describe It Democratically
The most obvious way to keep democracies healthy during an emergency is to maintain the business of institutions like parliaments. But if democracy is not reducible to formal institutions, neither are effective democratic health communications. Communicators should describe the pandemic response democratically. This means avoiding militaristic metaphors that are hierarchical and limit space for agency. Instead, pandemic messaging should rely on more democratically-aligned metaphors. Just as citizens need repeated messaging on handwashing or physical distancing, they need repeated messaging on compassion or their democratic duties during times of emergency. Framing the Covid-19 response as a democratic challenge matters not only for the present; it could shape how citizens will remember it in the future. Like institutionalization, democratic framing better prepares us for the next pandemic even as it gives citizens new tools for addressing this one.
The five principles for effective democratic health communications in this report are a toolbox for sustaining democratic trust, practice, and self-understanding in an age of great uncertainty. They enable policymakers to recognize and frame this crisis not only as a threat to democracy—but as an opportunity for citizens to feel more trust than they did before, more resilient than they did before, and more sovereign than they did before Covid-19 emerged. It’s important that policymakers, elected officials, and citizens alike recognize the importance of clear, consistent, compassionate, and contextual communications during a time of crisis. Public health depends on it. The health of democracy does, too.