The New BCM Manager: Common Mistakes to Avoid

I Am New - What Should I Work First?

Suppose you are a newly appointed Organisational BCM Coordinator or better known as a business continuity management (BCM) manager. In that case, you may be wondering where your priorities should be and what you should be working on first.

While you may receive guidance from Senior Management on your roles and responsibilities, you should not expect your path to be nicely mapped out.

Neither should you expect projects to be handed to you on a platter in tidy, neat packages? New BCM managers must chart out their initial days with care and consideration to ensure they are off to a good start and that their efforts are productive.

Worth Sharing My Thoughts

In this series of related focus areas, I share my thoughts on the practices BCM managers who are new on the job should consider. These are gleaned from working and interacting with BCM professionals in my career, both as a BCM manager myself, training both newbies and experienced BCM professionals, and as a consultant helping organisations implement BCM.

I start with what NOT to do when coming on board as a new BCM manager. Then, in subsequent blogs, I will touch on some of the priorities and good practices that new BCM managers should adopt when starting on the job.

You Are Not Employed As A "Fire Fighter"

Unless you were brought in as a 'firefighter whose immediate priority was to avert an impending disaster, a new BCM manager should think twice when embarking on a campaign of implementing changes without having first acquired a sound understanding of the organisation and the environment in which the organisation operates.

Trying to Proof, You're Worth

This is a temptation many enthusiastic new BCM managers cannot seem to resist. They feel an overwhelming urgency to prove their worth and rush into making changes without considering the consequences.

Not Taking Into Account of Current Circumstances

In the haste to implement, they do not consider the organisation's current circumstance, the expectations of its key stakeholders, the prevailing regulatory environment, and the organisational politics.

Good Intention But Sub-optimal Results

While the intentions may be good, wanting to increase the level of disaster readiness in record time, this careless move, more often than not, leads to unhappy stakeholders and less-than-optimal results. As a result, they get little management buy-in, and the new BCM manager is left wondering why his grand plan is met with such a lukewarm response. Indeed not a great start to his BCM career.

Lack BCM Competency

Next, I will share BCM education, a fundamental must-have for all new BCM managers and their teams. Unfortunately, this aspect is often taken for granted, and hence, neglected.  Often, research via the internet or relying on past effort completed by the predecessor. 

Meanwhile,  you may want to start with "Where Can I Improve My Competency and Skill Needed as an Organisation BCM Coordinator?"

The New Manager Series

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