Global Pharmaceutical Organisation

The Challenge

The leadership structure of this pharmaceutical organization was traditionally hierarchical, with a matrixed operating model and business areas separated by lines of sales and contribution. Their internal consultation process for decision-making hindered the ability to take fast, incisive actions that would benefit the business and the customer.

The arrival of a new country Managing Director, eager to identify innovative ways to address a fast-changing market, sparked a conversation about the organization’s readiness to realize this ambition. This shift highlighted the need for Agile leadership development to drive and sustain meaningful change.

Our Solution

• EPiC applied an inclusive approach to designing the change process that would unlock the value in the missions
• The business areas of the organisation were offered a bespoke approach, whilst developing reusable components for change that formed a pattern library for other business areas to use 
• In each business area, self-paced engagement space was made for opportunities that sought to uplift capability at each step with practises as a principle of the change
• Leaders were coached to empower their teams and shift their focus from managing work to leading intent
• Each iteration of the change identified the next biggest friction points in the organisational systems to get the most improvement 
• Measures and a consolidated dashboard that tracked the change process outcome to ensure a high level of transparency and engagement were present throughout.

Achievements

Still Ongoing. So far: 

• Introduction of OKRs at the organisation level in just 2 weeks 
• Creating a portfolio prioritisation business value model (BVM) and transparent methodology for the overall portfolio of initiatives that enabled real-time trade-offs and capacity decisions 
• Undertaking organisation-wide listening and engagement workshops to bring the entire cohort on the change journey. 
• Reimagining objective setting in business areas that connected with OKRs at the organisational level 
• Redesigning and relaunching team structures within business units including the operating rhythms and team capabilities
• Introducing collaboration tools
• Establishing a ‘Centre of Excellence’ for continuous ways of working improvement and quickly upskilling the members to enable facilitation and implementation of new practises. 
• Introducing and implementing measurements for both flow of work, outcomes of the change and engagement in teams. 
• Introducing a cultural shift in participation and empowerment for teams, including the launch of a quarterly delivery cycle, a part of which is a ‘‘whole of organisation’ big room planning
• Implemented Empowerment Ratios to build trust over time