All together now

All together now

The challenges of market access are forcing pharma companies to reassess their operational models and bring an abrupt end to the traditional habit of working in silos. Allan Mackintosh takes a practical look at how to bring teams together.

I was lucky to work with a specialist business unit of a UK pharmaceutical company recently and this unit was composed of four functions: Sales, Marketing, Medical Information and Admin Support. I was lucky in that I was involved with the unit since it was formed so I didn’t really have to work with any existing dysfunction between the functions. Although one had to remember that they all had been used to working a particular way historically – the ‘silo’ mentality way!

Firstly we had to get the whole department of 25 people together to talk through what the business unit has to achieve. We needed to get total ‘buy-in’ from everyone in that, although each function had particular goals, it was important that everyone knew exactly how these goals fitted into the ‘big picture’. The aim of this first session was to ensure full understanding of the outputs that needed to be achieved by the unit and the part each function should play in achieving these.

We then had the whole unit working on a mission statement that encapsulated what they were there to achieve and how they were going to achieve it. These sessions can be quite lengthy, as you will never get 100% agreement from everyone in terms of the actual words used but if you can support them to come up with a statement that captures the main needs of everyone then you will have done well. A good emotive mission statement can work wonders in bringing people together.

Our next step was for each of the functions to go and review the mission statement and then work on what values and behaviours they would like to see demonstrated in everyday work. Firstly they worked on what values they needed to see exhibited (e.g. honesty) and then against each value, they were asked to highlight what actual everyday behaviours everyone should demonstrate. (e.g. a behaviour put against honesty was that of highlighting to the team when things weren’t going well).

Mutual understanding

Once the four functions had done this, everyone compared notes and, lo and behold, there was very little difference between them! A short time later the unit had a mission statement and a series of core values and behaviours that the members would aspire to demonstrate wherever possible.

It is important at this stage to keep the momentum and the understanding going. To do this it is imperative that the level of understanding of each function’s goals, processes and challenges is high. In this situation we asked each function to present to the other functions the following information:
• What were their actual goals and targets?
• What were their key processes?
• Who were their major stakeholders?
• What were their main challenges?
• How specifically could the other functions support them?

By getting each function to highlight this information, the unit was able to get a better understanding of each function and thus strengthen the bond between them. The fact that ‘dependencies’ between the functions were highlighted meant that each function knew how they could support each other.

The next stage in the development process was to let this unit set about their tasks in the workplace, but before that happened a day was spent as a unit working on specific team building ‘tasks’. The aim of this day was to see the unit ‘in action’ and to see whether the values and behaviours that were agreed were actually demonstrated within the tasks that were set.

Values in action

The day involved the unit revisiting their values and behaviours and fine tuning them down to a more simple form. The unit were then set a number of complex team tasks which included taking on a large logistical task to collect a number of clues spread over a wide geographical area. The successful completion of the task needed clear and concise communication between ‘subteams’ within the larger teams, as well as effective planning and guidance from the leadership team. The task was designed to mimic the processes that can exist in a sales and marketing environment and was also designed to ensure that the team demonstrated the correct behaviours that are needed for the unit to function properly together.

This particular unit worked well together and almost completed the task but for one missing clue. However, it was a great result and the unit members kept to the agreements in terms of displaying the right attitudes and behaviours. There were some lessons learned about the need for better communication processes and, in the discussion that followed, this highlighted the fact that these processes were actually not as good as they could be back in the workplace. The unit then worked on what they needed to do to ensure better communications between the four groups.

Moving forward

The unit were now at a stage where they could really put the agreements and processes in place back at work. The two classroom sessions on mission statement, values and behaviours had got the four divisions working together towards a common goal and everyone knew what was expected of each other in terms of outputs and behaviours. The team development day completing the tasks had allowed the unit to put into practice their agreed processes and behaviours and to review how they had performed on the day. This was all translated back to the real world of the workplace and the unit felt that they had a good way forward and everyone was excited about putting it into practice in the workplace to ensure they continued to work together towards realising their mission.

Allan Mackintosh is a performance coach with TeamBuilders International Ltd who specialises in team and management development. He can be contacted on 00 44 1292 671220 and at allan@teambuildersinternational.com.

A performance review process was agreed that allowed the unit to track not only their overall performance against the goals and targets, but also to check how the mission statement is standing up, and how well the team members are demonstrating the agreed values and behaviours.

With a review due in the next couple of months it will be interesting to see just how the unit has worked together and whether or not there has been any return to the ‘silo’ mentality that existed prior to the four divisions coming together. Watch this space!