COACHING & MENTORING SERVICES : Transformation at Work- releasing people to perform

Leader in a Global Pharmaceuticals Company


Leader in a Global Construction Business


Leadership Team in a Global Pharmaceuticals Company

LEADERSHIP TEAM IN GLOBAL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY

The Company
Two companies based in two European countries with significant operations in the USA and across the globe had recently merged. There was also a local merger between two units, one with a history of drug withdrawals from the market and of leading edge science in a challenging and wide ranging therapeutic area, the other seeing itself as small, innovative and successful in a therapeutic area with smaller potential. They were proud to be different.

The Team in the Business Situation
The global function within the merged company was organised on a basis of four Skill Centres across six sites in Europe and USA. The early global focus was on replacing the pre-merger site focus with a global skills focus and thinking. The management teams were organised internationally on Skills Centres and locally on a site basis. The Directors in the Site Management Team (SMT) travelled continually and had their attention drawn away from their site to the world and the global function. A second change was to focus the company's management on product delivery by shifting emphasis from line to project teams. Additionally, the company announced that the centre of excellence for the site's major therapeutic area would be in the USA. As a result of these changes and shifts, people were suffering loss and experiencing confusion and uncertainty, they feared that the site would be closed. They were struggling to keep what they valued of their former unit within their former company. The perceived remoteness of management, centralisation and slowness of decisions, imprecision of new roles and responsibilities, and bureaucracy of the merged company all combined to demotivate people.

The Team's Response to Coaching
The SMT set themselves the objective of giving their site a strong place within the new environment. This meant adjusting whilst recognising that people continue to relate to where their life and family are located. Geography means something to people. They worked with their coach, individually and with their various teams, to complement their own insights into the company's direction, to give them an alternative perspective as to what was possible and how, to help them structure and focus their thinking, and to help them design the key events that they used to involve and motivate their people. In these ways they started to give their people a sense of purpose, control, achievement and hope through perspective and goals.

The Benefits
The SMT built a local context is that it was global. They localised the global strategy of their company and globalised the attitudes of their people. An example of their progress is that one of their people was quoted in a company publication as affirming that "teams are the engine" of the company. This reflects and applies the strategy set by the Senior Executive Team of the company, but rarely articulated by senior management in such a practical and inspiring way. An SMT, coached to embrace globalisation whilst attending to people's needs for a local identity, was able to make real a strategy that executive management did not have the experience or confidence to apply with energy and effectiveness.