What is Issues Management?
The textbook definition of an issue is a topic or subject that people are discussing or arguing about either in a social, political, environment, financial, business, community or organizational context. Anything that sparks debate and tends to whip up sentiments to the point that there is a rising call to action to do something to stop, mitigate, resolve, transform or repair a situation – is likely to be classified as an issue.
A PR issue is therefore a situation that whips up negative sentiment, actions and conversations against a company or organization’s operations, activities or actions. The issue may originate from internal situations/events or occurences or may arise from the external environment. But anything that draws the company or organization into being discussed as a topic of interest in a negative sense – is an issue.
Business Vs Reputation Issue
Generally speaking – every business has its own issues that are operational, commercial, regulatory or just part of every day routine activities being managed directly by the line. And this should not be a problem. However, there are some issues that impact so negatively on people, the environment and the assets of the company that are no longer just business issues but are becoming a reputation issue for the company.
A business issue can transform into becoming a reputation issue when the conversation moves from the directly impacted stakeholder group to another less impacted group that is drawn into the fray by the direction of conversation around the issue. By the time, the conversation begins to crystallize around the brand and becomes associated with the brand either via social media conversation, media reporting or general public discourse in homes or within the company or amongst suppliers etc – then it has become a reputation issue.
Why is this important?
This issues trajectory is very important because an issue unchecked can quickly transform into becoming a crisis. The practise of issues management came into being as a way to help organizations be better prepared to identify emerging issues that could escalate into becoming something bigger and more harmful for the organization.
There are several ways in which a crisis could happen.
- Sudden Crisis: One is that a sudden event just occurred that led to a crisis e.g. a pandemic, natural disaster, a major accident or incident etc.
- Slow Burn Crisis: Other are issues that develop over time and begin to grow and evolve into what becomes a major crisis. These are the most difficult to recognise as they could exist as slow burning issues that are relatively manageable for a period of time but then get out of control when some event occur to amplify or light up the situation into a crisis situation.
It is therefore important for communications leaders to have a system in place for identifying and monitoring these issues in terms of the external conversation and relaying that feedback to organizational leadership and ensuring that the right actions are being taken on the ground to manage reputation and ensure that stakeholder relationships are effectively managed.
What Kind of Issues?
It is also important to note that these issues could originate from any source – they could be internally originated or externally.
Internal Issues – Employee, customer relations, operations, business, commercial, governance, leadership issues may arise from internal actions or inactions.
External Issues – Customer Complaints, Supplier grievances or misconduct, regulatory, legal and litigation, community, stakeholder or NGO agitation, anti-competition practises, security etc.
Issues could arise from any source but they become a concern for the Communications team when they begin to attract negative sentiment and conversation in the public domain (media or social media).
It is helpful to have a checklist for knowing when something is evolving to becoming a reputation issue and it could be one or more of the following:
- Attracting negative conversation on social media
- Negative reporting in the media
- Stakeholders are getting agitated i.e. investors, customers, suppliers, shareholders, lenders, regulators
- Threat of sanctions or punitive action against the company’s operations or activities
- Legal/Litigation or Regulatory action against the company made public or even if undisclosed would be considered a significant news item if breaks in the media.
*Any or all of the above would make the case for the Communications Team to get involved in managing the stakeholder communications and relationship management around this issue to prevent it from escalating into becoming a crisis.
Sola Abulu & Associates (SA&A) is a strategy and communications consulting and training firm focused on enabling businesses, brands and organizations to achieve their desired objectives through strategic communications, organizational effectiveness and reputation risk management. Join us in class on October 30, 2025 for the SA&A CPDSO-Accredited Issues, Crisis & Reputation Management Course scheduled to hold online via ZOOM from 9am – 4pm WAT.
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If you prefer to learn at pace and on your own time – you may wish to enrol for the same course available on our e-learning platform learn.