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arousal is closely linked to what Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman called System 1 Thinking.²² System 1 thinking is heavily influenced by activation of the amygdala and the fight‐freeze‐flight response. It is fast, automatic, intuitive, and relies heavily on emotions. Kahneman contrasts System 1 thinking with System 2 Thinking. System 2 Thinking is heavily influenced by activation of the frontal lobes of the brain. It is slow, analytical, and relies on reasoning and logic. In high concern situations, System 1 thinking often dominates and can cause biased decision‐making and dysfunctional communications.

      Based on these observations, high concern communications can be defined as the transfer and exchange of information in emotionally charged situations where people are worried, upset, angry, stressed, or anxious. High concern communication encompasses virtually any situation involving risk or threat to the things people value. The goals of high concern communication are the same as the goals of risk communication: to build trust, promote knowledge, and encourage supportive relationships and constructive dialog.

      At the personal level, individuals may use high concern communication practices to transfer and exchange information about rejections, discrimination, failures, major life changes (e.g., job changes, locational changes, divorce, sickness, scandals, arrests, births, deaths), and worries about health, children, and other family members. Individual high concern communications may be as basic as the exchange of information by a person communicating why they are late for a meeting or why they missed a deadline.

      For groups and organizations, high concern communications may involve the exchange of information about mergers, restructuring, re‐organization, budget cuts, cost overruns, missed deadlines, facility closures, performance failures, performance reviews, job interviews, reputational attacks, protests, and employee complaints. For organizations or business units (e.g., Customer Service Departments) that serve people who are worried or anxious or have an issue to resolve, high concern communications should begin at the front door. For example, at a hospital, high concern communications should begin with exchanges of information between a patient or visitor and the hospital parking lot attendant, security guard, information desk, reception desk, and nurse’s desk.

      For organizations, one of the major precipitators of high concern is organizational change. For example, proposed changes to the organizational structure typically lead to high levels of concerns about job security, mission, services, budget, workplace relationships, and job assignments. It may lead to any or all of the following questions: Why do we need the proposed change? Why now? Who decided these changes are needed? What is the full extent of the proposed change? What are the imperatives driving the proposed change? Why are existing procedures and strategies no longer good enough? Are you sure the proposed change will improve the situation?

The organizational change also often leads to questions of a more personal nature. For example: What will happen to my job because of the change? Will this affect my pay? Will I lose my benefits package? Will I lose my seniority? Will I need to master new skills? Will I have the same team and coworkers? Will I have to relocate? If I have to relocate, will the organization pay my relocating expenses? What will happen to me if I don’t want to relocate? Who will be my supervisor? Will I have to travel more?

Equivocal answers to these questions introduce uncertainty about the future. The concept of uncertainty is central to the definition of the term high concern. For employees, organizational change threatens and risks many of the things they value, including the five key domains identified in the neuroscience‐based SCARF model: ²³

       Status – perceptions regarding their importance to others

       Certainty – perceptions regarding their ability to predict the future

       Autonomy – perceptions regarding their ability to control events

       Relatedness – perceptions regarding how they relate to others and how safe they feel in these relationships

       Fairness – perceptions regarding their being treated fairly and equitably

      Neuroscience research underlying the SCARF model shows that negative perceptions regarding any of the SCARF domains can activate the same threat and reward responses in the brain as does a physical threat. Negative perceptions of the SCARF domains can also produce a strong emotional reaction and the body’s release of cortisol, adrenaline, and epinephrine – chemicals associated with the flight‐freeze‐fight response. These chemical releases can severely affect the ability of a person to focus, solve problems, communicate, cooperate, and think rationally and logically – functions performed largely by the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

      From a psychological and neurological perspective, whether and to what degree a person, group, or organization experiences high arousal, the fight‐freeze‐flight response, or stress from a situation is determined in part by what an individual, group, or organization defines as high concern. Based on cultural factors, people, groups, and organizations have different tendencies toward fight‐freeze‐flight. People, groups, and organizations use different lenses to determine what is of high concern. The level of concern felt and assigned to a situation depends on personalities, worldview, beliefs, and culture. What is defined as high concern matters to a specific individual, group, organization, culture, or society.

      High concern, as in stress, is often seen as a negative. However, high concern and stress can have positive and helpful effects, such as when it motivates people to accomplish more. It is when high concern and stress become excessive and overload the capacity of a person or group to cope that it becomes mentally and physically dangerous. What makes high concern and stress excessive is often fear. It is therefore not enough to give the facts about a risk or threat. Fear is real and can keep individuals and communities from making informed decisions. However, through effective communication, fear can be channeled into productive behaviors. For example, if not excessive, fear can lead to information‐seeking. People are often more accepting of fear when it is acknowledged.

2.6 Defining the Concept and Term Crisis

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a crisis is “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.” A crisis typically represents a decisive turning point and an unstable situation where difficult and crucial decisions must be made. The origin of the word crisis is revealing. The word has origins in the Latin word crisis (decisive moment), which comes from the Greek word krisis (decision, judgment) and from the Greek word krinein (decide, judge). It also has origins in the Old French word crise and the Middle English medical word crisis, denoting “the turning point in a disease; a sudden change for better or worse.” Based on the origin of the word, a crisis is an event or turning point that brings, or has the potential to bring, great reputational, financial, psychological, and/or physical harm to an individual, group, population, organization, or institution. Examples of a crisis include a major industrial accident, a major spill of toxic materials, a major storm, or a pandemic. Crises can human‐made or natural. The cause will influence how others view the situation and the response.

Coombs and Holloday offer a more complex definition of crisis. ²⁴ They offer four defining attributes of a crisis: (1) unpredictability, (2) threat to stakeholder expectations, (3) impact on organizational performance, and (4) potential for negative outcomes. A similar definition comes from Ulmer, Sellnow, and Seeger, who also define crisis with four attributes: (1) the unexpected nature of the event, (2) the nonroutine demands on the organization, (3) the production of uncertainty, and (4) the threat to achieving organizational goals.²⁵

By combining aspects from these various definitions, for purposes of this book, I offer a shorter and a longer definition of the word crisis.

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