The pharma seasons of career development

What makes for leadership success in Pharma?  I get asked this a lot, but there is no easy answer.  I am lucky enough to work with people at all levels in big Pharma, and what makes for success changes as people progress through their career.  This article looks at two things: first, what are the key phases in a successful Pharma career, and what development matters at these different phases; second, what stays the same, i.e. what is crucial on the first day to the last.

I like to think of a career in Pharma as having four key seasons:

Winter:
Any good gardener will tell you that Winter, far from being a dormant season, is the ‘getting ready’ season.  Now is when you prepare the ground for future success; put down the foundations.  The early part of a successful Pharma career often starts on the road, as a Sales Rep, or as a medical expert.  You are in charge of yourself, a glorious team of one and your success is measured in terms of your own personal performance.  Your technical know-how and your ability to dazzle prospective buyers with your understanding of your product and how it beats the competition, will secure your success.  Your focus is on your buyers interests and you link your product to what they want to do.  So, to begin with it’s a case of what you know, your technical expertise and your personal credibility that will define your success.  But this won’t always be enough.

Development Tips for Winter:
Get as close as possible to the R&D function, you will need more than a basic understanding of the chemistry and an ability to translate the science into application for your customers.  Focus on your consulting skills - read David Maister’s “The Trusted Advisor”. 

Spring:
Time to get ready for change and growth – and it’s going to be rapid.  Suddenly there is a new success factor to worry about, namely your ability to manage a business.  In the Spring you are promoted to Sales Manager, or an equivalent role.  Your success in the field has led you to manage a team all in the Winter preparation ground of their careers.  Your technical know how is still vital, as they will look to you for support.  What now becomes more important is your ability to transfer your understanding to others.  Financial management also comes to the fore, performance management, account management, strategic planning etc.  You are now running a small business, with a degree of autonomy and your company will be looking for a superb business manager that can be given a stretching target and not only hit it, but exceed it.  To be seen as really successful your whole team needs to be effective, pulling  and working together.  And just when you get to grips with doing that, it all changes again…

Development tips for Spring:
Get to grips with the key management tools; budgeting, forecasting, delegating, coaching, performance management and motivation.  Attend a “fundamentals of management” course or similar and gather feedback on your style and impact as a manager.

Summer:
Now it’s getting hot!  You are in full bloom and the emphasis of your role has changed again.  Now the need for technical expertise is waning, business management skills are still important and a whole new set of success criteria is on the horizon; leadership capability.  The switch from management to leadership is insidious, some of us never even realise it has happened.  Your direct reports will be managing teams.  These ‘springtime’ individuals will need support in grasping how to run a business - their team.  You will get involved with clients only at the most strategic level; and your success will depend on a set of leadership competencies such as your ability to drive quality, influence key stakeholder groups and build the confidence of your various teams in their own capacity to succeed.  You will need to take the organisational vision and translate it into something tangible for your people at a local level.  You will need to engage, motivate and excite them.  Your behaviour needs to be strategic.  Let the team take care of the tactical requirements of the day to day, you need to drive and think ahead. 

Development tips for Summer:
Focus on your behavioural capability; influence, building confidence etc.  From this point on it will not be good enough to benchmark yourself internally, you will need to know where you stand against a global leadership benchmark.  Attend courses to build your behavioural capacity.

Autumn:
Time to make some compost.  Seriously, this is the time to give something back.  You are now likely to be a general manager or country manager.  Your technical background is useful (it allows you to ask the right questions), but due to the dynamism and complexity of your market, it is impossible to be the technical expert on everything your people deal with.  Similarly it will now be down to others to run the business on a day to day basis.  You will still need to draw on your leadership capability, although now it is less personal, more organisational.  You are now the figurehead and have a new set of competencies to master, looking deep inside yourself to connect your values, motivations, drives and beliefs to the organisation.  Two others things are different about the Autumn.  Firstly, you are probably dealing with departments that are not your home territory; IT, finance, HR, logistics etc.  You can’t be the expert in all of these areas, but these teams will look to you for direction and you need to connect with each one.  Secondly, it really is about digging in some compost and making a fertile seed bed for the future, you need to start thinking about your legacy.  You will need to have embedded your values, key processes, quality and continuous improvement methodologies that will live, thrive and flourish long after you are enjoying your retirement.  During Autumn you are creating an organisation ready for a whole new generation.

Development tips for Autumn:
Attend to your legacy through the development of others.  Look to the broader business environment; attend seminars and host dinners for top thinkers to come together around specific topics.  Create your own learning environment and that of others.

And so the cycle continues.  Great organisational stewards see themselves in their organisational context clearly.  They understand where they are and what makes for success at that stage.  In summary, the key development needs in our seasonal career are:

Winter – Individual contributor – focus on technical know-how and expertise
Spring – First line manager – focus on managing a business, foundation management skills
Summer – Managing teams of teams – focus on leadership capability
Autumn – General management – focus on self and legacy

We’ve identified four key stages in a career in Pharma, but is there anything that stays the same? 

Some of the people I speak to would say so, they mention the desire to do something that has real value to society as a whole.  The watchwords for the pharma industry of tomorrow will be transparency and stewardship.  Big Pharma gives the world’s healers their tools, whether they are nurses, doctors, pharmacists, worried parents or the patients themselves.  This is business, but it is more than that, and that needs to be important to you right through from Winter to Autumn.

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