What we learn in the
classroom provides the foundation for our working lives. Just as
important is what we learn on the playing field. Sport is a wonderful
metaphor for business because both require discipline, courage, ambition
and challenge us to be prepared for any eventuality.
So much of how I view leadership is framed by my approach to competitive sports when I was growing up. The desire to win, striving to always do better, adapting and learning when things don’t go to plan.
Business has even stolen a phrase from sport – blindsided - to describe that moment when you’re floored by the unexpected.
We’ve been preparing for such scenarios these past months in readiness for the European Respiratory Society congress in Milan. These meetings provide an invaluable opportunity for the business not to seek a rubber-stamp but to be challenged, which means doing all we can not to be blindsided. Anticipating every question, being ready to pivot according to the moment, knowing that to be a better business we need to welcome that process of being challenged.
That’s not easy. As a leader, I encourage that challenger mentality within our teams and, specifically, towards me. Admittedly, impatience can sometimes get the better of me and discussion about new ideas is curtailed by having to get things done. So I constantly check myself that I’m balancing debate with making decisions.
My instinct, and the instinct of many leaders, is to execute your plan and avoid conflict that gets in the way of achieving a vision. Yet better decisions are often made when inviting challenge and fostering an environment where different opinions are aired.
No one person – or organisation - possesses all the answers, especially in this era of fast-moving digital disruptors and heightened competition. Rather than fear that disruptive trend, we need the courage to take advantage of it and better prepare ourselves for the unexpected.
When I played team sports I’d spend countless hours with teammates practising and ruthlessly challenging one another; we wanted to be tougher than the competition and avoid being blindsided. And those principles are just as essential in my career.
As well as challenging one another to find smarter solutions, we need to be true to our vision and values. And we must also be accountable – seizing the initiative rather than relying on others, asking why instead of simply agreeing, listening to alternatives rather than impulsively railroading decisions.
An effective leader –an individual or company - not only wants to be challenged but has to be. The magnitude of our disruptive era demands it. By concentrating on long-held assumptions and previous successes, you lose relevance. In the pharma industry, we know that more clearly than most – it’s essential to stay close to consumers and better understand their needs so we can create more effective medicines.
So for me, the best scientific congresses challenge people’s thinking by debating evidence and hypotheses. For instance, 18 years ago at just such a meeting we launched a new respiratory medicine. Immediately, our research and development teams questioned how they could innovate beyond this medicine. One such hypothesis was that this medicines only met the needs of certain types of patients and that we had to move to a range of medicines that focussed on each different patient type. Today, because we challenged ourselves to be better, our understanding of patient types is greater and we’re introducing a broader portfolio of treatments. We are more relevant to customers because we refused to accept the status quo.
So a congress is a crucial opportunity not just to present and be self-satisfied but to explore, question and debate. Which means we need to be on top of our game, having analysed every option and planned for potential challenges
Just as sports require discipline to be prepared for all eventualities, so a leader needs to instil in a team a discipline for fearless spontaneity. To see beyond facts and data and engage in creative hypothesising, building that challenger ‘muscle’ that enables teams to embrace uncertainty, thicken skins and see different perspectives.
Growing up, I always strove to be better and more competitive, to set higher goals. I try to display that same mentality today. It’s no good measuring how far you’ve come, to make things better for patients you need to have the courage to ask how things can be done differently. As a leader or as a business. In the office or at congress. Towards each other or our patients. Otherwise we’ll miss opportunities and be playing catch-up. Complacency has no room on the sports field and certainly not when it comes to dealing with patients’ health. We must continue to be open to challenge.
A former mentor used a different sporting analogy when she spoke about the team dynamic. It’s better to be sparring partners, she told me, than always agreeing with each other. Sparring is not about confrontation, it’s about interacting creatively, pushing things further and deliberately challenging each other to be better. Instead of settling for the norm, leaders need to catalyse change by encouraging others to ask uncomfortable questions and seek difficult answers.
By doing so, we won’t just grow as individuals, we’ll grow as a team and, ultimately, as a business.
Eric DUBE
So much of how I view leadership is framed by my approach to competitive sports when I was growing up. The desire to win, striving to always do better, adapting and learning when things don’t go to plan.
Business has even stolen a phrase from sport – blindsided - to describe that moment when you’re floored by the unexpected.
We’ve been preparing for such scenarios these past months in readiness for the European Respiratory Society congress in Milan. These meetings provide an invaluable opportunity for the business not to seek a rubber-stamp but to be challenged, which means doing all we can not to be blindsided. Anticipating every question, being ready to pivot according to the moment, knowing that to be a better business we need to welcome that process of being challenged.
That’s not easy. As a leader, I encourage that challenger mentality within our teams and, specifically, towards me. Admittedly, impatience can sometimes get the better of me and discussion about new ideas is curtailed by having to get things done. So I constantly check myself that I’m balancing debate with making decisions.
My instinct, and the instinct of many leaders, is to execute your plan and avoid conflict that gets in the way of achieving a vision. Yet better decisions are often made when inviting challenge and fostering an environment where different opinions are aired.
No one person – or organisation - possesses all the answers, especially in this era of fast-moving digital disruptors and heightened competition. Rather than fear that disruptive trend, we need the courage to take advantage of it and better prepare ourselves for the unexpected.
When I played team sports I’d spend countless hours with teammates practising and ruthlessly challenging one another; we wanted to be tougher than the competition and avoid being blindsided. And those principles are just as essential in my career.
As well as challenging one another to find smarter solutions, we need to be true to our vision and values. And we must also be accountable – seizing the initiative rather than relying on others, asking why instead of simply agreeing, listening to alternatives rather than impulsively railroading decisions.
An effective leader –an individual or company - not only wants to be challenged but has to be. The magnitude of our disruptive era demands it. By concentrating on long-held assumptions and previous successes, you lose relevance. In the pharma industry, we know that more clearly than most – it’s essential to stay close to consumers and better understand their needs so we can create more effective medicines.
So for me, the best scientific congresses challenge people’s thinking by debating evidence and hypotheses. For instance, 18 years ago at just such a meeting we launched a new respiratory medicine. Immediately, our research and development teams questioned how they could innovate beyond this medicine. One such hypothesis was that this medicines only met the needs of certain types of patients and that we had to move to a range of medicines that focussed on each different patient type. Today, because we challenged ourselves to be better, our understanding of patient types is greater and we’re introducing a broader portfolio of treatments. We are more relevant to customers because we refused to accept the status quo.
So a congress is a crucial opportunity not just to present and be self-satisfied but to explore, question and debate. Which means we need to be on top of our game, having analysed every option and planned for potential challenges
Just as sports require discipline to be prepared for all eventualities, so a leader needs to instil in a team a discipline for fearless spontaneity. To see beyond facts and data and engage in creative hypothesising, building that challenger ‘muscle’ that enables teams to embrace uncertainty, thicken skins and see different perspectives.
Growing up, I always strove to be better and more competitive, to set higher goals. I try to display that same mentality today. It’s no good measuring how far you’ve come, to make things better for patients you need to have the courage to ask how things can be done differently. As a leader or as a business. In the office or at congress. Towards each other or our patients. Otherwise we’ll miss opportunities and be playing catch-up. Complacency has no room on the sports field and certainly not when it comes to dealing with patients’ health. We must continue to be open to challenge.
A former mentor used a different sporting analogy when she spoke about the team dynamic. It’s better to be sparring partners, she told me, than always agreeing with each other. Sparring is not about confrontation, it’s about interacting creatively, pushing things further and deliberately challenging each other to be better. Instead of settling for the norm, leaders need to catalyse change by encouraging others to ask uncomfortable questions and seek difficult answers.
By doing so, we won’t just grow as individuals, we’ll grow as a team and, ultimately, as a business.
Eric DUBE
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