EP32 - Building Bridges That Endure
In leadership, some concepts are so familiar that we stop interrogating them. Stakeholder management is one of them. It appears in governance slides, strategic plans, and performance frameworks. Yet the lived reality of building meaningful relationships inside and outside an organization has far more depth than any diagram suggests.
In this Episode:
Francois Jacquemin explores the discipline of building and maintaining professional bridges, why trust must be nurtured over time, and how sustainable relationships shape execution and leadership impact.
This episode of COVERED invites a closer look at the craft of building bridges. Not the theoretical version, but the practical one that determines whether a strategy survives contact with reality.
Trust Given Before It Is Earned
I have always preferred to begin a relationship with trust rather than wait for evidence to accumulate. Some may find this counterintuitive. In highly regulated, high-pressure industries such as insurance and reinsurance, trust is often treated as a scarce commodity. Something to be granted slowly and with caution.
But trust withheld delays progress. Trust extended accelerates it.
This does not mean trust blindly. It means leading with openness, granting the benefit of doubt, and allowing the relationship to take shape without suspicion as its foundation. When trust can be shaped rather than proven, both sides move faster and more constructively.
A Multi-Beneficial Relationship
A bridge is only meaningful when both sides cross it. Sometimes the balance is equal. Sometimes it leans. But the intention must always be mutual benefit. In my experience, the strongest professional relationships grow from this understanding. They evolve as the business evolves, and they hold under pressure because both sides recognise the value created.
What distinguishes a bridge from stakeholder management is reciprocity. Stakeholder management can drift toward influence and persuasion. A bridge stands on shared purpose.
The Mistake That Changed How I Lead
Early in my career, I dedicated years to building bridges across a global organisation. I invested time, presence, and trust. Those relationships became the foundation of a business plan that was eventually approved.
Then execution began.
As the demands grew, my attention shifted. I did not maintain the bridges with the same discipline that I had built them. Not out of disregard, but out of the illusion that once built, a bridge remains intact.
When the environment shifted and resistance emerged, some of those neglected bridges could not be repaired. The oversight costs more than time. It costs optionality. It reinforced something I had intellectually understood but had not fully internalised. Relationships require continuous care. Not episodic attention.
Not All Bridges Are Meant to Last
Ending a relationship is sometimes necessary. Misaligned interests, broken trust, or changing circumstances may require it. But ending a bridge does not require hostility. I have always tried to close relationships with respect and transparency. Business can end. Humanity should not.
In several instances, relationships that were once paused later found new relevance in a different context. When the foundation remains ethical, a new bridge can be built on top of the old.
Bridges Must Be Lived by the Team
There is a final dimension that many leaders overlook. A bridge that exists only between two senior individuals is structurally weak. If the teams on each side do not understand, support, and participate in the relationship, the bridge becomes exposed to miscommunication, misalignment, and resistance.
Leadership requires not only building external relationships, but ensuring that internal teams live them as well. Communication, alignment, and shared ownership transform a personal relationship into an institutional one.
The Work That Endures
In an industry facing regulatory expansion, technological disruption, generational turnover, and constant margin pressure, bridges are not decorative. They are stabilisers. They allow organisations to navigate complexity without losing connectivity. They carry the weight that governance alone cannot hold.
Building a bridge is an act of leadership. Maintaining it is an act of discipline. Knowing when to retire one is an act of judgment. And having the humility to rebuild one when the context demands it is an act of strength.
This is the quiet work that sustains execution. It rarely appears in board reports, yet it shapes the trajectory of a career and the resilience of a business.
Looking for perspective? I have you covered.
Timecode:
00:00 Introduction to Building Bridges
00:04 Internal and External Bridge Building
01:57 The Importance of Trust and Openness
02:49 Personal Experiences and Lessons Learned
04:42 Maintaining and Severing Relationships
07:03 The Role of Communication and Team Alignment
François Links:
Apple Podcast
Transcript:
So I'd like to come back on, uh, building bridges. Building bridges can happen internally to the, um, in, in the, in the, in the company that you're working in or in the group you are working in. It can also happen externally with, uh, uh, you know, stakeholders or, um, actors in the ecosystem that, uh, you are.
And, and your activities is in, on your, your business is in, it could be thought of stakeholder management, but it goes much beyond than managing stakeholders and, and exchanging and creating a, um, a, a relationship with the stakeholders. It's something that is much more solid. Uh, it can also, uh, be expected happening on, on a, on a, on a two-way basis, managing a stakeholder.
It could be feeding information, trying to somehow manipulate or create a, a, a level of understanding on the other side so that your stakeholder is managing the situation. In a way that, that you would like, uh, and, and is beneficial for you. Building bridges requires, um, more than that. It requires that the relationship happens on, on, on two ways.
So it give and takes. It should be a balance. 50, 50, 40, 30, 70 30, uh, 40, 40 60, sorry. Um, or 70 30. Um, but there, there, there has to be, you know, a, a, a beneficial, multi, multi beneficial relationship. For, for, for the, for the parties. I like that very much. As a, as a, as a person, uh, as a manager, I've always, before I was managing companies, uh, even at the beginning of my career, and, and, and maybe it was because I chose to, to, to be in a, in a small firm and, and, uh, learned a lot and, and influence a lot, but I always found that establishing a relationship with the people I'm working with.
Extremely important. And, um, it's based on openness. It's based on, on, on trust building. I, I'm someone who would prefer, uh, trusting first, and I know that, uh, uh, we hear a lot, uh, trust need to be earned. But, uh, if you don't trust somebody and wait for the, for earning and, and, and that the other person and your trust, it take, it can take a, a long time and, and I prefer being.
Trusting at the beginning. Of course, not stupidly trusting and everything open, but trust, uh, is preferably from my side given. And then we build on, on that and, and, and shape, uh, a bit the trust, uh, as the, the relationship goes along. And then, uh, we establish, uh, those, those solid bridges with solid foundation.
And then, uh, um, we, we create that, uh, multi beneficial relationship. So, uh, that's how I've done it. And, uh, I tend to also enjoy doing that. Enjoy working with people, enjoy uh, establishing this trust level, understanding how people work, uh, be open with them. And then, um, it's not only about trust, it's not only about openness, uh, it's not only about building bridges, but also it's about action.
How does that materialize in, um, at the day-to-day life? Today and tomorrow? Uh, for, for, for the, for, for the business. And, um, I've made a stupid blunder in, in my career is that, uh, I worked very, very hard for a couple of years on, on building bridges, establishing a lot of relationship in the group I'm working, I was working with and or in, and, um, I had that string of very.
Strong stakeholders that could rely on it, they could rely on me. And I was building on that to, uh, promote a, uh, a business plan and, and, and, uh, which was, which was approved. But then I was caught in, in that business plan and the implementation of the business plan with a lot of things that were coming in my way positive, but they were very interesting.
But it unfortunately diverted me from. Keeping the bridges, all the bridges that I had built in a, in a very strong state. So some of them simply I did not care about anymore, but it was not about caring. It's simply that I did not have the time and therefore, mentally I forgot about those bridges. And, and, and when headwind came, then, uh, it was very difficult to rebuild those bridges or almost impossible.
So it created more hurdles in the long term for me. By not taking care of the, of the bridges. So the key there is to keep on, um, uh, taking care of the relationship that, uh, are established and having discipline to make to, to, um, to keep on doing that in, uh, in, in the long term. Now, it doesn't mean that all the bridges need to be kept.
Some, some bridges need sometimes, uh, also to be, to be severe. Also, relationship. To be, to be, to be cut or severe. It simply because the interest are not aligned anymore. Um, or also because, you know, uh, trust was broken or the relationship that was at the beginning thought to be beneficial. It's not beneficial anymore.
Um, does it have to be ugly? Uh, no. Certainly not. I, in, in my career, I've ed some relationship. But, uh, it's not being ugly with a, with a, with a person. It's simply that on the, on the business level, it made no sense whatsoever because of things that changed and, uh, situation that it evolved. But it need to be done.
Or at least from my perspective, uh, I always try to do it in the most, um, ethical and, and, and positive way so that. If in the future we meet again, then, uh, the relationship, the relationship remains positive. We, of course, know that the, that part of the, the business life was, was cut or that we had to cut the relationship, but still, we can still have a, a cocktail or a beer together and, uh, or a meal or a phone call and, uh, and have a, a discussion.
And why not build some other bridges in the future cutting a business relationship or. Breaking that bridge with a, with a person or a a business partner shouldn't be the end of the relationship having a discussion with a business partner in the future. Remains important. I find it's part of the network, but also, uh, it could be the basis for another relationship in a different context with different basis, and therefore, uh, reestablishing a stronger relationship in the, in the future, stronger bridges in the future.
What, what I've seen as well is that it's not for everyone building bridges. If you, if your strategy, if your personality, if your way of doing business is about managing internal and external stakeholders. And establishing, establishing bridges with them and, and creating stronger relationship. You as a strategy at strategy level need to also ensure that your staff, your internal stakeholders, your team, are able to follow and, and live.
Those bridges. You can't have a relationship with a business partner that is always put in danger because part of your staff doesn't like the way things are happening. So it's about, or are not aware of it. So it's about communication. It's about convincing. It's about. Making sure that it's not the, the, the, the two-way relationship, which is multi beneficial is not happening between the two persons that are establishing the relationship, but also within all the teams and that it percolates so that the team also live that, uh, positive relationship and create themselves a support and to, to solidify the, the, the, the bridges.