It’s a phrase we hear often as
the year draws to an end: taking stock. How far have we come over the
past year, what have we achieved, what ambitions lie unfulfilled? It’s
an opportunity to attach arbitrary measurements to our lives.
Yet self-reflection when it comes to business isn’t enough. Leaders need to ensure it is accompanied by effective action. Especially when you work in an industry at the service of patients – pharma has to measure itself not by how far it has come but by how far it needs to go.
My respiratory teams have finished this year on an extraordinary high. We have gained initial approval for our latest innovation in the management of a severe lung condition called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). It is a single inhaler that contains three medicines. We believe this has the potential to be a very significant advance for patients and as such should be celebrated and rewarded.
In fact, in respiratory our team continues to push the bar in terms of how we help patients and healthcare professionals treating conditions like asthma and COPD. We have transformed our portfolio of products in recent years to reflect the diversity of patient needs, achievements that have been driven by our own dissatisfaction. For if patients continue to suffer, then we must endeavour to improve. Any achievement is not an end in itself but another step in our relentless quest for better treatments, more personalised regimes, faster solutions.
Too much self-reflection can breed complacency and inaction. Instead, we should be contemplating new horizons, making incremental steps to better ourselves and our medicines. Utilising data-fuelled digital technology and connectivity, for instance, to gain greater understanding of the lives of those with respiratory disease. Or adapting methodologies to unleash creative collaborations that will enable us to be more agile and responsive to patients.
So this new inhaler represents a dualistic moment. It shows what’s possible if we relentlessly pursue our goals, yet is also a reminder that we can’t simply pat ourselves on the back. How can we be satisfied if, in the case of chronic lung disease, the majority of people are still not being treated optimally?
And it is that dissatisfaction that leaders and their teams need to be comfortable with. I know that such an emotion can sometimes get the better of me, too ready to push rather than first praise. It’s a balance all of us struggle with – between the relentlessness of our actions and the emotional dissatisfaction that fuels those actions. Two sides of the same coin.
I learned a valuable lesson during my time as a leader within GSK’s Japanese business. Every Friday we’d have ‘Kaizen’ meetings, when teams would suggest small changes to working practices that, over time, would inspire significant benefits. In Japan, Kaizen is complemented by Kaikaku – the former represents perpetual change based on small improvements sparked by dissatisfaction. The latter is radical, rapid and sometimes sudden transformation.
Leaders need to enact both, but the most effective way of encouraging teams to be comfortable with dissatisfaction is to find small ways of pushing boundaries we set for ourselves. Such as making faster decisions, or encouraging individuals to view work more expansively rather than in terms of process and how things have been done in the past.
For me, it’s about passion. Being dissatisfied isn’t a negative emotion, it has been a motivator my entire life. Leaders are necessarily focused on company numbers, budgets and values – the challenge is to display eagerness and excitement in tandem with such responsibilities. To imbue decision-making with emotion rather than view it through the prism of internal performance. I know we can make a difference to patients’ lives and meet their unmet needs. Not being afraid to express that emotion and connect at a deeper level with patients, encourages us to be comfortable with dissatisfaction.
A colleague recently circulated Jeff Bezos’s introduction to his company Amazon’s annual report, in which he reaffirmed his Day 1 business mantra: unless every day feels like the start, stasis sets in.
Our wonderful medicines, detailed data and highly effective development process mean little to customers who continue to suffer. If we really listen to patients we’ll understand the job is never done. Every achievement is an incremental step in the right direction but relentlessness requires us to always be on Day 1.
The past few months have, for me, been a period of self-reflection of a different kind. My father passed away after a battle with cancer at the tragically young age of 62. I sat by his bed in California and held his hand as he drew his final breath, swamped with the kinds of emotions that, even now, I find difficult to unpiece.
During those final days and hours, I began to ask myself why I was living thousands of miles away in London, working 12 to 14 hours a day. I knew instinctively. Because of the new medicines we can bring to patients. Because of what comes next. Because I believe I can help people like my father who suffer needlessly and look to our industry for hope.
The experience made me realise we have precious little time to realise all our goals, and that we should always strive to accomplish more rather than be self-congratulatory about our achievements. I don’t think patients would join the mutual backslapping when we hit internal milestones – our ambitions need to be greater than that.
Until people are to breathe better, stay out of hospital and go to sleep confident that a sudden night-time attack will not be fatal, we need to be both relentless and dissatisfied. To be better at what we do so that people can lead better lives.
So, yes, this is the time of year to reflect on how far we’ve come but it’s also a chance to reflect on how much more we can still do. Because there is always more.
Yet self-reflection when it comes to business isn’t enough. Leaders need to ensure it is accompanied by effective action. Especially when you work in an industry at the service of patients – pharma has to measure itself not by how far it has come but by how far it needs to go.
My respiratory teams have finished this year on an extraordinary high. We have gained initial approval for our latest innovation in the management of a severe lung condition called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). It is a single inhaler that contains three medicines. We believe this has the potential to be a very significant advance for patients and as such should be celebrated and rewarded.
In fact, in respiratory our team continues to push the bar in terms of how we help patients and healthcare professionals treating conditions like asthma and COPD. We have transformed our portfolio of products in recent years to reflect the diversity of patient needs, achievements that have been driven by our own dissatisfaction. For if patients continue to suffer, then we must endeavour to improve. Any achievement is not an end in itself but another step in our relentless quest for better treatments, more personalised regimes, faster solutions.
Too much self-reflection can breed complacency and inaction. Instead, we should be contemplating new horizons, making incremental steps to better ourselves and our medicines. Utilising data-fuelled digital technology and connectivity, for instance, to gain greater understanding of the lives of those with respiratory disease. Or adapting methodologies to unleash creative collaborations that will enable us to be more agile and responsive to patients.
So this new inhaler represents a dualistic moment. It shows what’s possible if we relentlessly pursue our goals, yet is also a reminder that we can’t simply pat ourselves on the back. How can we be satisfied if, in the case of chronic lung disease, the majority of people are still not being treated optimally?
And it is that dissatisfaction that leaders and their teams need to be comfortable with. I know that such an emotion can sometimes get the better of me, too ready to push rather than first praise. It’s a balance all of us struggle with – between the relentlessness of our actions and the emotional dissatisfaction that fuels those actions. Two sides of the same coin.
I learned a valuable lesson during my time as a leader within GSK’s Japanese business. Every Friday we’d have ‘Kaizen’ meetings, when teams would suggest small changes to working practices that, over time, would inspire significant benefits. In Japan, Kaizen is complemented by Kaikaku – the former represents perpetual change based on small improvements sparked by dissatisfaction. The latter is radical, rapid and sometimes sudden transformation.
Leaders need to enact both, but the most effective way of encouraging teams to be comfortable with dissatisfaction is to find small ways of pushing boundaries we set for ourselves. Such as making faster decisions, or encouraging individuals to view work more expansively rather than in terms of process and how things have been done in the past.
For me, it’s about passion. Being dissatisfied isn’t a negative emotion, it has been a motivator my entire life. Leaders are necessarily focused on company numbers, budgets and values – the challenge is to display eagerness and excitement in tandem with such responsibilities. To imbue decision-making with emotion rather than view it through the prism of internal performance. I know we can make a difference to patients’ lives and meet their unmet needs. Not being afraid to express that emotion and connect at a deeper level with patients, encourages us to be comfortable with dissatisfaction.
A colleague recently circulated Jeff Bezos’s introduction to his company Amazon’s annual report, in which he reaffirmed his Day 1 business mantra: unless every day feels like the start, stasis sets in.
Our wonderful medicines, detailed data and highly effective development process mean little to customers who continue to suffer. If we really listen to patients we’ll understand the job is never done. Every achievement is an incremental step in the right direction but relentlessness requires us to always be on Day 1.
The past few months have, for me, been a period of self-reflection of a different kind. My father passed away after a battle with cancer at the tragically young age of 62. I sat by his bed in California and held his hand as he drew his final breath, swamped with the kinds of emotions that, even now, I find difficult to unpiece.
During those final days and hours, I began to ask myself why I was living thousands of miles away in London, working 12 to 14 hours a day. I knew instinctively. Because of the new medicines we can bring to patients. Because of what comes next. Because I believe I can help people like my father who suffer needlessly and look to our industry for hope.
The experience made me realise we have precious little time to realise all our goals, and that we should always strive to accomplish more rather than be self-congratulatory about our achievements. I don’t think patients would join the mutual backslapping when we hit internal milestones – our ambitions need to be greater than that.
Until people are to breathe better, stay out of hospital and go to sleep confident that a sudden night-time attack will not be fatal, we need to be both relentless and dissatisfied. To be better at what we do so that people can lead better lives.
So, yes, this is the time of year to reflect on how far we’ve come but it’s also a chance to reflect on how much more we can still do. Because there is always more.
- I’d welcome your thoughts on how leaders and their teams can foster a kaizen mentality in their work. Do share your ideas and experiences…
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