R- Rally the Coalition

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Getting people to agree on the solution is essential.

It's also not enough.

I've watched technically rigorous standards get endorsed by exactly the right people — and then nothing. The working group agreed. The launch event went well. The right names were on the document.

And the problem stayed exactly where it was.

Agreement is where most stop. That's not a coalition; it's a mailing list with good intentions.

The real work starts with a harder question: if everyone agrees this is the right solution, why isn't it already in place?

That question forces you to look at the conditions holding the problem in place.

In the proCHW movement, those conditions were clear once we looked for them. 1) No global guidelines — so every country was starting from scratch and it felt risky to start. 2) No startup capital — so countries couldn't fund the transition to the low-recurring-cost proCHW model even when they wanted to. 3) No unified CHW voice — so no bottom up pressure or insight to win proCHW policy.

Each required a different kind of action (research, advocacy, activating in-country pressure). And each action required a different kind of actor — someone with the specific legitimacy and leverage to shift that particular thing.

That's the real design work of R — Rally the coalition.

Not: who agrees with us?

But: what conditions are holding this in place — and who can action each one?

Each condition becomes a tactic. Each tactic points to the people you need.

Most of those tactics require a group. You can't shift global guidelines with research from only one country. You can't move a financing institution without coordinated pressure from multiple directions. You can't win national policy without activating in-country groups in the run-up to the political window.

The coalition is built around those people who both endorse a solution and help build it.

Not because co-ownership is a courtesy. Because a standard built with the people who need to move it — governments, frontline implementers, the communities it's designed to serve — carries a different kind of authority than one presented to them after the fact.

In the proCHW movement, that meant community health workers themselves were part of building what they were demanding. Nothing about us without us wasn't just a values statement. It was the reason the standard traveled.

Try this:

Map the conditions holding your problem in place. For each one, name the tactic it calls for. Then ask: do you have the people and groups with the legitimacy and leverage to action that tactic?

If your coalition is full of people who agree — and missing the people who can shift the specific conditions — that's where to start.

🌿 Agreement is what. Co-ownership is how.