Stakeholder Trust in BCM Programs

Most new BCM managers are taught the same unspoken rule: “Do the work quietly.” Don’t disrupt teams. Don’t slow operations down. Don’t be a burden. Just build the plans, run the exercises, and stay out of the way. I followed that rule early in my career. And it almost guaranteed my program would never truly matter. Because here’s the truth I learned much later: BCM doesn’t fail because it’s intrusive. It fails because it’s invisible. Early on, I tried to be “easy to work with.” I minimized meetings. I accepted partial inputs. I avoided pushing back on unrealistic timelines. I softened findings so they wouldn’t make waves. On paper, the program looked healthy. In reality? Very few people could explain what BCM actually did. Even fewer felt accountable to it. And when disruptions occurred, the function had no gravitational pull. That’s when I realized something uncomfortable: If BCM isn’t occasionally inconvenient, it isn’t doing its job. 1️⃣ Resilience requires interruption Every meaningful BCM activity interrupts something: • Normal workflows • Comfortable assumptions • Optimistic timelines • Informal decision-making If your program never disrupts the status quo, it’s probably operating at the edges instead of the core. 2️⃣ Engagement doesn’t come from being “low friction” I used to think reducing friction would increase participation. What actually increases engagement is relevance. When BCM asks hard questions— When it forces tradeoffs— When it challenges how work is really done— People lean in, not away. Respect grows when the work feels consequential. 3️⃣ Visibility creates accountability The programs that gained traction weren’t the quietest ones. They were the ones where: • Leaders understood the risks • Teams saw how decisions affected others • Gaps were discussed openly • Ownership was explicit Visibility isn’t ego. It’s governance. 4️⃣ BCM should be felt before it’s needed The worst time for BCM to become visible is during a crisis. If leaders only notice the function when something breaks, it’s already too late. Strong programs create a steady presence— Not loud. Not performative. But unmistakable. The real lesson Trying to make BCM invisible doesn’t make it easier to adopt. It makes it easier to ignore. If I were starting over, I wouldn’t aim to be the least disruptive function in the room. I’d aim to be the one that asks the questions no one else is responsible for asking. Because resilience isn’t built quietly. It’s built deliberately—often uncomfortably—long before it’s tested. ------- For anyone finding this post first: I’m sharing the lessons I learned—specifically what I’d do differently if I were starting over as a BCM Manager today.

You can build a strong program but if people don’t trust you, it won’t scale. Recently, Will Snider and I visited Lafiya, a D-Prize grantee working in Sokoto, Nigeria, to see their program in action. On paper, their results are already remarkable: 330,000+ women reached with contraceptives, a cost-sharing partnership with the state government, and a steady program scale. But on the ground, one thing became even clearer: Their success is partly built on trust. In an outreach with Lafiya sisters (community health workers distributing Sayana Press contraceptives), the room felt open. Women asked questions freely. The team answered them with patience, context, and care - and already had their next visit scheduled. Later, a government official described Lafiya the same way: communicative, responsive, and aligned with real needs. That’s the lesson! Programs don’t scale on results alone. They scale when stakeholders trust the people running them. How do strong teams sustain that trust? • Keeping stakeholders informed (eg. Quarterly newsletter updates including past and present funders). • Maintaining warm, consistent communication and engagement with participants. • Staying active in relevant sector spaces - locally and globally. • Building relationships with the government and similar organizations as collaborators. Trust is infrastructure, and it can be the difference between scaling up or winding down.

Start with discourse, not deliverables. Strategic initiatives and change programs shouldn’t start with detailed change strategies, comms plans or any other 'deliverable'. Deliverables have the shelf-life of a banana. They are one-way communiques, subject to misinterpretation, misinformation and they can be misleading. So many misses. Instead go talk to people, ideally in-person, about the change. Don’t wait until you know everything about it. Just start the conversation, early. Earnest and intelligent discourse. This isn’t just engagement. It’s involvement and it fosters mutual responsibility and opens a platform to address resistance. It sets a tone that says: “We don’t profess to know everything about this but think it is important to address and we can’t do it without you. What do you think and how do you feel about it?” Laying a foundation of stakeholder trust means they’re more likely (never guaranteed) to answer the call to make the change happen later. (Of course, some initiatives have innate sensitivities that limit when you can involve others, but the principle should apply as much as possible. If people don't change, nothing changes). So start with meaningful discourse, not time-sucking deliverables (that no one reads). "Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards." - Theodore Zeldin "Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk." - Doug Larson