Transcript
Caroline:
[00:00:05 – 00:02:26]
The pharma industry is a world where innovation drives success and our passion is to perform for patients. So what the pharma explains why so many of us feel a bit, well, frustrated. We all know the world’s changed in the last few decades and we also know we’ve responded to these changes, or tried to. In some cases, we’ve been successful. But if we’re honest, there are some areas where, when we look back 20 years, things haven’t really changed that much at all, despite huge, huge investment and effort. So here at Rubico, we regularly wonder, what if it’s some of the less explored depths of our culture, the norms, assumptions and unwritten rules that are slowing our progress and keeping us, in some cases, unhelpfully stuck. Welcome to the What the Pharma? podcast, where we take inspiration from what’s working across our own and other industries and go deep into human behaviour. In each episode, we’ll be talking to a variety of guests, both inside and outside the life sciences industry to uncover new angles and ideas for action to tackle the industry challenges that seem most resistant to change. Together, we’ll share experiences, hunt for aha moments and spot clues that will help us unlock different ways to approach some of our stickiest problems. I’m your host, Caroline Gosling, here at Rubica and joining me is my co host and colleague, Harry Malcolm. Without further ado, let’s get into the show. Hello and welcome to this episode of the What the Pharma? podcast with me, Caroline Gosling and my co host, Harry Malcolm, who you’ll be hearing from later. I’m delighted to welcome Davidek Herron, global head of digital at Roche Pharmaceuticals. As we all know, Roche are a massive global pioneer in pharma and diagnostics, working tirelessly to improve people’s lives and pursuing advancement in life sciences with a track record of transforming how they structure work. Davidek brings a wealth of experience, particularly in digital transformation in the healthcare sector, and is here to share his perspective on its interface with customer centricity. So let’s get stuck into the conversation. Hi, Davidec, you have a whole ton of experience in this space and I’m very much looking forward to picking your brains and seeing if we can take a different angle on some of the things that we’ve talked about a lot as an industry. Just wanted to start really by asking you to introduce yourself, give us a few highlights who you are, where you come from and what gets you fired up about this subject of digital transformation.
Davidek:
[00:02:26 – 00:03:50]
Sounds good, Caroline, first and foremost, thanks a lot for having me. Name’s Davita Karen from New York. So only non New Yorkers will say that From New York, right? Not from the US but from New York. And been living now in Europe for eight years now. So I’ve lived in the Netherlands five years and now the last three in Basel in Switzerland. I started my career in healthcare at Teva Pharmaceuticals in New York City, women’s healthcare, and then most recently the last three years at Roche Pharmaceuticals. So my background stems across a lot of specialty and generic medicines from multiple disease areas, from women’s health, multiple sclerosis, neuroscience, obviously, and then we have immunology, you name it, right? So I have a good breadth of the various, let’s say therapeutic areas and diseases, these areas. What excites me about this topic is this is why I’ve always wanted to be in healthcare. Funny enough, I wanted to grow up, be a doctor, interesting enough, got drafted to play basketball, did that for a little bit, and then came back in pharma and started work with doctors and truly understood that we need to transform this model to benefit society as a whole. So that’s why I’m here. And what excites me about this topic is I believe this topic is somewhat the unlock to really help make sure we can get medicines at scale to patients. Because what you will see, and hopefully in this podcast here, there’s many good examples of where we’re doing it. But I think the unlock is how do we do that at scale? So that’s what really brings excitement. If you see the advancements in process people, technology, it’s moving at such a fast pace. Some of the advancements even in the healthcare systems around the world, it’s so exciting, right? I love healthcare, I love technology. It’s the convergence of both and that’s what brings me here today.
Caroline:
[00:03:50 – 00:04:07]
Fantastic. And I’m going to pick up on that topic of digital transformation. It’s one of those terms like many that we use in corporate life, that is a big word that we all think we know what it means. But actually what does that mean to you? I think you don’t love it as a term, but what is digital and what are we transforming?
Davidek:
[00:04:07 – 00:05:28]
Great question, Caroline. Far too often we hear a lot of these buzzwords, right? Digital transformation, hosted customer experience. And if you think about even around digital transformation, right. Often we hear about it later stage through the life cycle around once you pass phase three trials and go to pre commercialization and commercialization. But I mean, digital transformation means a lot to different people in the organization, right? If you look at drug Discovery and development. Right. People are leveraging AI machine learning to revolutionize drug discovery by predicting molecule behaviors, identifying potential new drugs faster. That’s digital transformation in that area for those individuals. Then they also have preclinical and clinical trials as well. So digital platforms that streamline clinical trial recruitment, management of data, accessing patients. Right. I mean, that’s different. But where I like to focus on really is around the transformation of how can we, once we get past that stage, once we have that molecule available or information to get to society, how can we very simply be the easiest company to get information from, to work with? Right. And that’s really my response of what transformation is, is this as companies be better versions of ourself, it’d be easy to work with. Because far too often we hear in pharma as an industry, we’re not as easy to work with. We’re very push, we’re very sales focused. But that’s not the case. Right. If you think about the masses of data and information we have to share to society to bring this in, I think there’s, there’s a lot of opportunity there. So to answer your question, again, to be straightforward, it’s really how can we make our companies easiest to communicate, work with and partner with?
Caroline:
[00:05:28 – 00:06:49]
I love that and that sense of ease because I think it also comes up when we think about internally within pharma companies a lot, that it doesn’t feel easy to get work done, it doesn’t feel easy to have things happen. So, you know, there’s a kind of internal and external dimension to some of that if you think about making it easier. And that as a point of differentiation, I suppose potentially for some organizations. So we are the easiest organization to work with. You could imagine that might attract more connection with customers. But I’ve also heard you talk on a platform around the potential for partnership across companies. I’m really interested in unpicking that when it comes to this kind of customer experience, digital transformation thing. Because what we hear from HCPs a lot of the time from the customers is actually it’s really painful. Not just because of the interaction with an individual, but because you’re asking me to kind of divide my attention across so many different organizations and platforms and we all create our own HCP portals, they’re kind of navigating all of those. So can you talk a little bit to what the aspiration might be? So appreciating, there isn’t a start and finish here, but in terms of how we rethink how we add value to our customers. What could the aspirational end game be for this?
Davidek:
[00:06:49 – 00:09:01]
That’s a great question, right. I think very simply is how can we simplify our systems? Right? So for example, if you look at, if you just drive down to, let’s say one pharmaceutical company, that company has thousands of web destinations where customers can get information from and some, a lot of times they don’t know where to get it from. Right. If you look at a lot of the medical information platforms, right, it takes days and sometimes weeks to get turnaround on some of these pieces. Now if you amplify that across multiple different companies, it’s frustrating at times for patients, caregivers, healthcare providers, scientists, just to try to get relevant information. The reality is, and I’ll use a stat, right, I mean, medical information doubles every 73 days. That’s a fact. That’s insane. Each year over 800,000 medical papers are published like as individual. How do you stay current without leveraging some type of, let’s say simplicity or partnership with multiple companies? Now you raised a good point, Caroline. And I’ve seen a couple large companies outside of pharma try to create, let’s say this ecosystem, a platform where the utopia is how can we have one source of truth for all pharma engagement for a provider, right? And the reality is that a lot of those been shut down for various reasons, right? I can’t speak to why, but I mean it just hasn’t got off the ground. And in regards to the collaboration, you do see a lot of, you know, you do see a lot of companies are partnering, right, in a non competitive way to again create disease awareness, create awareness around certain specific areas and then ultimately we have multiple solutions that they can choose from. But the reality is we need to figure out how we can better get these, this information out, but also these medicines to patients that need it. Because reality is if you look at a global scale, the billions of people, there’s still so many people that just don’t have access to our medicines. And I think as industry we can continue to do better to figure out how do we approach that. So whether that’s in our countries, us or whether that’s in your lower middle income countries, right. I think there’s different strategies and ways you can approach to solve that. And that’s why I love the space of quote, unquote, digital transformation or whatever you want to call it, because these are the enablers that helps us then have those conversations strategically enabled to actually get supply chain through various areas where in the Past we haven’t. So to answer your question, Right. I think there’s been a lot of talk around partnership and maybe a third party coming in and trying to really consolidate us. But the reality is, as of today, it hasn’t really worked for various reasons.
Caroline:
[00:09:01 – 00:09:57]
How much of that do you think is. And this is a reality, I think, as well as a kind of conceptual thing around. I know you’ve talked on mindset, but this sense of almost scarcity mindset, so, you know, access is diminishing. It’s really hard to get in front of customers. It’s hard to compete for their attention. We all know how busy they are. There’s a kind of. In a world where it feels like we have to be quite protectionist over those interactions because there’s only a limited number available, how much does that pull against? And you know, when we’re competitive companies, they, you know, competition is alive and well in all of those companies. So how realistic, like how much of a mindset shift, how radical of a mindset shift do you think we actually need to make in some of these areas to really make our sort of dreams of customer and ultimately patient centricity and getting better patient outcomes more consistently a reality? What’s holding us back?
Davidek:
[00:09:57 – 00:12:14]
First, as an individual company, I think you need to be very clear on what you’re trying to solve for. Right. And I try to say there’s three wins that in theory we should need to get. You need to get a win for the patient, a win for the ecosystem, and a win for the company. Right. And in theory, the areas that you’re focusing and should check those three boxes before you even enter that kind of conversation or direction. Right. And within that, I think often as well as we see a lot of these companies try to be something that they’re not. Right. So I think you need to understand what is the true DNA of the company and then build and be better versions of that. And then within those three areas, I just articulated, right. Patient win, ecosystem win, company win, focus, those, those initiatives. Right. Because it’s, it’s. And you’re hearing a lot about Gen AI, all these different use cases, which is a beautiful thing, but it’s very tactically focused and it’s not addressing it at scale. Right. It’s very tactical. And, and I would like to call out as well, Caroline, is the fact that, I mean, in pharma, there’s a lot of companies doing great things in certain disease areas. Right. I think the reality is we just haven’t seen that scale and to get back to your question or your comment around, just access. The reality is there is the time of physicians becoming even more limited. I mean, look at the global number of physicians. It’s continuing to not keep up at the scale that a pace it needs to, right. In order to serve the patients we have globally. So their time is precious. So then do they have time for. And again, I started my career in sales in New York City and Women’s health, right. Knocking on doors, talking to physicians, you know, occupying 10, 15, 20 minutes at a time, sharing valuable information. But it was more of a push to sell. That model is no longer valid anymore. It’s dead. Right. I think we need to, when we do have that valuable time in front of our customers, we need to understand what are they trying to solve for. How can we actually have a partnership and drive both aligned outcomes together? Right. It’s not about pushing information and differentiating your product. It’s how can we make sure we’re looking at ecosystem needs. Right. You know, population health management at scale. And I think this is where companies are winning or failing. And if you look at the interesting part is some of these newer blockbuster areas like cardiovascular, renal metabolism, right. Those impacts and wiggles of the world, I mean this is opening up another can of worms, right. The mass and the scale is as fast, but also the competition is going to be fierce. So we shouldn’t be competing against each other. We should be competing on behalf of our patients to make sure everyone, no one’s left behind. I know it sounds very philanthropic, but the reality is I think pharma has such a key role to play within the healthcare ecosystem than it is already and we just need to continue to build on the great work that a lot of these companies have already done.
Caroline:
[00:12:14 – 00:13:50]
I really want to talk to you about that great work and the potential for scaling it. Because I think you’ve said in previous conversations, you know, it’s, it’s very easy to be hard on ourselves as an industry, but where there is great work, we need to find those bright spots and really look at what we can learn from them and how we can amplify them. Before we get into that, just going back to sort of hearing you talk a little bit almost about conscious strategic choices that organizations need to make. So there’s something in that kind of identity. So who are are we and what do we want to stand for and what do we want to be known for that feels more, more tangible slightly or more of a trade off choice than perhaps just conceptual purpose and values? Things. So there’s something in what I was hearing you say around the difference between, you know, we improve patient outcomes and one of the ways we do that is by selling medicines versus our reason for being is to sell medicines and then we hope that we’ll achieve some patient outcomes. And those two things sound similar, similar words in a different order, but feel very philosophically different if you imagine them pulled through. I just wonder what your observations are having come from a sales background where some of those tensions become very alive. Because I think most of us in the industry would say we’re here to improve patient outcomes. You know, if you asked us the question, that matters to most of us, all of us probably. But then the reality of the day job sometimes feels like it’s in tension with that. So short term focus on performance figures, measuring activity. So they’re quite tactical, but actually they pull sometimes in the opposite direction to some of that intent. So I just wondered on your observations and maybe some of the success stories where companies are getting that, right?
Davidek:
[00:13:51 – 00:15:59]
So you see a lot of companies where even incentives of our people, right? Let’s fast forward later on the value chain for our people in front of our customers. And you can see some of the incentives are shifting. Where in the past it was incentivized potentially on sales, when now it’s on value generation and collective ecosystem growth. Right. And those outcomes are clearly defined. Right. So even this, I think the piece I mentioned this earlier, Nicole, it really comes down to people, mindset, curiosity and behaviors, right? Because the technology is there, all that stuff’s there. But it’s what makes or breaks this transformation in a company and to become better versions of yourself is the people. And the reality is, Caroline, what’s made a lot of our company successful in the last two to three, five, ten years was great, but it’s not working today and it won’t work for tomorrow. Right? And that’s just the reality. So the key is how can we have people with capabilities that are leaning in with curiosity to understand again, whether I’m a scientist in a lab, whether I’m running clinical research and studies in the field, or whether I’m a marketeer in corporate, or whether I’m sitting in front of a customer, Right. How do we continue to be better versions? How do we continue to learn and grow in our space to do that? And that’s where you see companies succeeding, examples of that, right? Where people are actually leaning in identifying key three or four capabilities we need to live by as an organization to better serve our ecosystem. Systems and companies and patients and then, then driving that. So, but also investing in people. I’ll give you example. There’s certain companies where, you know, a lot of the focus is around marketing, right? So how do we market in the digital age? And that’s where digital transformation comes up. The reality is it shouldn’t be, you know, in theory, digital marketing teams, right. Marketing should be marketing in the digital age, right. Driving value for our customers. And in certain companies, right. You know, people would say, listen, I’m leaving if you don’t invest in me as a marketeer. Right. Or invest in me as an independent individual versus other companies. Some people, you know, just continue to be stagnant and do things the way they’ve done it, right. Because we’ve had such high margins on certain products and they’ve sold themselves for the most point, because the science is the science. But I think there is an evolution of people behavior that we’re seeing here and capabilities. And to answer your question, the companies that are getting it right in these examples we’re seeing is the ones where people actually, you know, the company identify those capabilities that are needed in specific roles. But then people are leading it with curiosity, right? And then there’s different behaviors we have behind that to make sure we’re driving in the right direction.
Caroline:
[00:15:59 – 00:17:25]
It really helps. And I think baked into that, and you mentioned incentives and you talked also about, you know, if we’ve got limited amount of time in front of a customer, we might need to use that time differently to the way we’ve used it in the past. And those things are all linked to me in really being clear about what good looks like today. So what good used to look like might be I can deliver my messages really effectively and I can build great rapport. And some of those things will hold true. Building great rapport, for example, but actually being really overt with teams, people with ourselves, that actually what good looks like now is asking the right questions, uncovering things that we haven’t understood before, really having greater empathy for the reality that our customers are facing and the interactions that they’re having with their patients. And that’s quite a different ask potentially of people who have been trained to do things in a certain way and now we’re asking for something different because that also links to mindset shift, you know, people who’ve imagined themselves as, you know, I’m good at my job because I’m great at convincing a healthcare professional to buy into this piece of data versus I’m great at my job because I’M able to really uncover something that other companies perhaps haven’t uncovered. So where is that scaling? To come back to the scaling question, but also what works in terms of helping make that mindset shift? Is it the hard levers, is it the incentives and defining or is it softer stuff in your experience?
Davidek:
[00:17:25 – 00:19:49]
I mean, we could spend a whole hour on that topic alone. Right. It’s almost a carrot and stick analogy. Right. The reality is it’s a build on what you mentioned. Right. It’s, it’s our best people are doing all the right things. But then when our people are not physically there, how do we make it seem as if they always are? Right. So then again, we don’t have our people in front of customers. They can easily continue that conversation in any various platform that they’re in. Right. Whether it’s email, web, doesn’t matter. Right. The channel, congresses, et cetera, peer to peer. Right. So how do we make sure that again, the customer has everything they need when they need it at the time they need it? Right. And how do you orchestrate the, let’s say the omnichannel interoperability in and around that? Right. And it goes back to earlier in our conversation. In order to do that, there’s certain foundational elements companies need in place, such as data and architecture. Right. I think that’s key. You need to make sure that you have the understanding of the customer across all the various pieces. Right. You need to create interoperability between the systems. Right. You need to make sure that data is, is exchanging across. And we’re seeing this even outside the pharma industry. Look at Cleveland Clinic, right? They part of IBM, Watson, to really analyze vast amounts of data and medical to make sure the physicians can actually have quicker diagnosis and accurate clinical decision making. You also need to foster collaborative partnerships, right. Between companies and this is an interesting one there. And then lastly around just really embracing patient centric solutions. And I actually was inspired a couple weeks ago when I went deep on a use case that if you look at, and I invite you all to take a look at this, UC San Diego Health, they’re actually leveraged and partnered and they’re leveraging AI to predict patient patterns at risk for heat stroke. And if you look at now in the US there’s a lot of pockets that are, you know, we have a lot of hot temperatures, unseasonably warm in certain areas. In the past, I mean, it would be almost impossible to physically call each one of these patients to check in. But right now they’re actually leveraging Gen AI to actually personalize advice for each one of these individuals and actually have check ins and say hey maybe you might at risk, you need to do XYZ or even come in. So actually being proactive when it comes to approaching these specific areas. So again, but that’s again embracing that patient centric solution. Right. So those examples that pharma could continue to also lead into in order to really drive that forward, if that makes sense. So it’s really inspiring. It’s there. But again we need to continue to break down our internal silos. We need to think collectively as individuals. It’s not my customer, it’s our customer. Right. And it’s my patients. It’s our patients. So and then how do we actually make sure that you know, when we’re engaging, we’re engaging as one, not as an individual in medical and marketing and access or whatever it might be.
Caroline:
[00:19:49 – 00:20:16]
I wanted to come back to scaling because you mentioned use cases and obviously and also that there are some great examples and pockets of things going on. Lots of organizations talking about experiments and running experiments or use case led test and learn scenarios. Fabulous stuff. But feels sometimes like it is happening in pockets. What’s stopping us scale as an industry? What’s getting in the way of us being able to more easily scale?
Davidek:
[00:20:17 – 00:22:22]
Yeah, so that’s a good question. I think a lot of it’s on a really clear value proposition. So really defining kind of, you know, where we collectively trying to aim and go to and I always use analogy Big Harry’s audacious goal, right. A bhag but then making sure it’s within a bite size piece where the organization can understand it and digest it. Far too often we jump straight to the moonshot and you lose people along the journey. And if you think about the vastness and sizes and just the ecosystem we play in, there’s hundreds and thousands of people potentially you need to have come along that journey which means you need to speak multiple different languages at the same time. So I think having a clear value proposition, a clear vision on where we’re going and where we’re going to be better versions of what we already do behind us. That’s led by science. I think that’s where I think someone, let’s say the unlock is the second piece which I can continue to harp on is people and culture. Right. Just understanding where people are currently within the journey, having a check in with them and making sure they want to be part of that. I think that’s sometimes the gut check. You see a lot of these amazing institutions and companies where people are there for quite a while because they love it. But people also have to evolve within their roles and continue to be curious, continue to challenge themselves. I relate to sports. You can be a great athlete, but you need to continue to get in the gym. You need to continue to put in work when people are not looking, right? And far too often that’s not the case. Right. So it comes down to human behavior. But then as from a leadership perspective, you need to create that excitement, the clarity and vision on where we’re going, the why, the impact that’s driving on behalf of our patients in the company, in the ecosystem. I think that’s definitely key. And back to what I said before, just incremental implementation, right? Breaking down to bite sized pieces so people understand it, they feel it, they can digest it, right? So I use the analogy crawl before you walk, walk before you run, run before you sprint, right? Progress over perfection. The good thing is we have some smartest people in the world working in an industry. You mentioned this earlier on the issue is we have some of the smartest people in the world working on this. We try to overcomplicate it, right? So it’s just how can we really just sometimes, you know, speak plain talk, right? To the point where 8 year old can understand it. And I think that’s the level where I think is another unlock and unfortunately a lot of companies go wrong is because they bring in these, these amazing visionaries and people just don’t get it. They’re like, but I’ve always done it this way. It’s not going to work.
Caroline:
[00:22:23 – 00:23:26]
It’s absolute music to my ears I think because there’s a lot to be said for visionary thinking and that kind of aspirational future state, etc, but by its nature, like we don’t know what that looks like. We actually don’t know. This isn’t one of those, you know, working in organizational change you get some changes and certainly historically where it’s like here’s clear A, where we are, here’s clear B where we’re going to get to and here’s the roadmap A to B. And sometimes we still try to apply that thinking to this type of evolution. It’s not even a change, it’s a kind of iterative evolution. And when what happens is we try and describe the future state and because we don’t know what it looks like, it ends up being quite high level, vague, right message, right time, la la la. But the useful stuff is the almost like if It’s a bit foggy. We just need to know what the next step is. So what is the viable instead for tomorrow? So tomorrow, what do I need to do differently than what I’m doing today? And I love that, that description that you gave of kind of breaking it down so we can all get it rather than just think, well, aspirationally it sounds fine, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do differently.
Davidek:
[00:23:26 – 00:24:46]
Correct, Caroline? I would actually even in build on that as well. Where then where companies go is, and this is where it comes back to the transformation piece. They focus so much on just the customer experience side and not understanding what they’re trying to accomplish. And I think that’s where a lot of companies unfortunately go wrong as well. It’s like, hey, we need to, to provide the best experience for our patients, customers, ecosystems, et cetera, et cetera. Right? But the reality is ultimately in the past, you, you would drive the best customer experience or aim for that strategically across the value chain, which then you would hope would have a behavior change that would then meet an outcome for patient, ecosystem and company. Right? When in reality, I think now is we’re seeing that 180 flip where ultimately you need to be very clear again on the outcomes you need to drive collectively. That’s measurable from patient, ecosystem and company. Within that behaviors we need to see within the ecosystem and then altogether the experience that comes out of it. Right. So I think that’s what companies will start getting it right. I call Outcomes Driven cx where they’re making that flip of, hey, let’s make sure we drive the best customer experience versus let’s make sure we’re meeting that outcome that’s getting medicines to patients, that’s driving better outcomes at scale, right? Then ultimately getting the behaviors that we need to get there and then within that ecosystem making sure that experience is seamless. Right. So I think we need to get back to that focus and I think that’s where we’re seeing use cases of disease areas, therapeutic areas, and companies actually starting to get it right.
Caroline:
[00:24:46 – 00:27:20]
I love that. So the customer experience bit is a, is almost a byproduct of that thinking. If you’re really focusing on that end state and working back, it’s not the end state in and of itself. I love that. Just want to pick up on the sporting analogy that you used earlier and obviously you have a strong sporting background. I don’t know if you still play any basketball. It was interesting to me hearing you talk about sport as an analogy and of Course, we do that in work all the time. We say, oh, you know, let’s pull all of the experience of sports teams and high performance into work. But one of the things that, that we’re noticing is this kind of expectation gap, I suppose, when we’re trying to build new capability in organizations. So if I give an example from sport that I do know about and it’s quite topical at the moment, certainly in, in Europe of football, soccer and if you imagine a kind of, we’ve got superstar striker and they are absolute high performer, they’ve scored loads of goals, really outstanding performer. And then we say to them one day, well, actually now we want you to play in goal, so we’re going to give you some tools. Here are some goalie gloves and we want you to go in gold. But by the way, we’re going to give you a 30 minute online video. And then when you’ve watched that, you need to be as good in goal as you were as a striker. So it doesn’t take away from the being a high performer. But it is a totally unrealistic expectation that there’ll be no performance dip that they won’t be needing in that learning zone. They won’t actually get not great before they get better. And sometimes I think because there’s a lot of pressure on, on certainly commercial ends of organizations, all parts of pharma, we’re like, we’re going for this sort of unrealistic expectation where we want our superstar reps to suddenly be able to orchestrate all of this stuff. And we do it with a bit of training, but we aren’t overtly contracting with people around. It’s okay to be less good at it while you’re practicing, basically. So while you’re learning. And the other thing that I’ve noticed, which I’d love your opinion on, is, you know, if we again take sport, you train every week, you know, you train as a team all the time. Training isn’t a right. We’ve got three weeks of training and then go away and you’re not supported in any way. So there’s something about how do we create an environment where it is okay to be practicing and learning and not. I’m absolutely not advocating that performance should just, you know, fall through the floor. But there’s something about acknowledging that when we’re learning stuff, we’re going to be rubbish for ages before we get good at it. And I don’t feel that that’s really widely and overtly talked about. I don’t know if you’ve got a different view.
Davidek:
[00:27:20 – 00:29:03]
Yeah. So I love that. Caroline, I think really what you’re talking about now is less around the specific subject matter, but around this leadership. Right. And for those individuals, kind of the three E’s, exposure, experience, education. Right. How do we make sure that leadership is actually leaning into these individuals and departments and being very clear on again, the vision, the why? Because at the end of the day, people have to have that curiosity to want to have that curiosity. You can’t force someone to do something. Right. You need to inspire and motivate and understand and make them see why they’re bigger than something that it’s a bigger piece that they’re a part of. And I didn’t mention this yet, but the reality is specifically why I love this industry. But it’s also a scary part is no matter what position you have in the company, you could be the difference difference between someone, a loved one showing up to a wedding or graduation or not. That’s just a reality. And the decision you make or don’t make can even enable that or excel that. Right. But far too often we get stuck in our day to day emails, back to back meetings, workshops, customer engagements. But the reality is there’s people at the under end of this. So hopefully that just inspires some people to understand that guys, we need to continue to evolve and get it right. And then from a leadership perspective, which is something where I’ve evolved over the last three years now working at Roche is less more the subject matter expertise, which I’ve always been good at, but it’s more like, how do you lead amazing individuals? Right? I mean, think about from a leadership perspective, we’re at a day and age where we’re leading five different generations, right? From the silent generation to the baby boomers, all the way to gen Y. And even I got to speak later on to our summer interns, that’s five or six different generations that all kind of act a little differently. Right. So but as a leader, you need to make sure it resonates with all them because they’re all key and critical to the full value chain. Right. And ultimately helping us achieve our goals. So I think it really comes down to foundational leadership as well. Needs to be present, needs to be clear, needs to have core the principles that they live by that’s understand by the company as well. So it kind of comes back to that.
Caroline:
[00:29:03 – 00:31:04]
I think that is that whole leadership piece. And I think there’s a particular challenge with this. You talked previously about the pace of change, like just New stuff is coming in all the time in, in the digital world and we can’t learn it fast enough to be expert in it, potentially as leaders, but also it’s not been our, our history. So you came into the industry in a sales role and you had a way of selling then that now you’ve got a different ask of the people you’re leading to give an example. And that’s quite a new thing for us, I think, as leaders to being. I haven’t kind of gone through it myself, but I’m still expected to lead others through it. So it’s not totally unique, but it is, it is different to. I know what this feels like because I did the carrying the bag job and now you’re doing the carrying the bag job. So I can just give you the benefit of my wisdom. And sometimes as leaders we don’t have that expertise, we just have strong leadership and how do you create the conditions for others to be good at this stuff? And I think that’s spot on. It’s a different question of leadership than the one perhaps we’ve grappled with historically. One final topic to explore, stopping things. So almost every pharma company that I’ve ever interacted with somewhere has a conversation going on about prioritization and how do we get more choiceful in where we spend effort and how do we focus differently, etc. Etc. And also that those conversations have gone on for a very long time and we still have people feeling like there’s a lot going on that may never change. But I think there’s another dimension in, in this space where we’re talking about evolving how we think about ourselves as an industry and how we iterate that, which is we quite often use a trapeze analogy. So if you are leaping for the next bar but still holding on to the old bar, you essentially end up dangling. You get stuck. So you sometimes need to let go of some stuff to be able to get forward motion. So what do we need to let go of? What do we need to stop doing, do you think, in order to help us keep moving in the right direction?
Davidek:
[00:31:04 – 00:33:56]
Yeah. So, Caroline, this is a really interesting topic, right. Even this morning I was on a couple calls around this piece. So the reality of what’s actually happening. I’ll get one specific use case, right. And I was actually talking to one of my peers outside of my company currently around something as simple as, you know, if you’re a person, an affiliate, no matter where around the world you can’t find information, your content and because of that is because there’s so many various different systems, the way people store stuff, like it’s very simple. You just can’t find what you need in the time that you need it. In this day and age, that’s irresponsible, Right? But the reality is, because in the past, you know, whether you’re decentralized or centralized company, it doesn’t matter. Like people feel and they should be empowered to go and go on their own direction. Right? But this causes chaos at times. And the interesting part is a lot of times when leadership or teams decide, let’s stop something, and I call it zombie projects, you turn around a couple months later, six months, a year, like, wait, I thought we stopped that. Right? Things don’t stop, they continue to live on. Right. And so you have to look at what’s causing that. Right. And I think sometimes what causes that is maybe there’s not clear vision or direction collectively where we’re trying to drive. Whether you sit in access, medical, commercial, doesn’t matter, PT pharma development, they should be that aligned vision or clarity. But also understanding from a collective perspective as individuals what we’re trying to do. And I’ll give you an example what I heard, not from my company, from another one recently where there was a clinical trial that was stopped and some of the sites had to be reached out to. It’s just normal practice in pharma. For various reasons, they stopped it. IT and one site received close to 20 different messages from the same company. And each one of those individuals that reached out or departments felt like they own that customer relationship. But think about the confusion, the frustration it has for our customers on the other side, right? When in reality we need to collectively sometimes say, you know what, my legacy system, the way I’ve approached it, might not be the right one for the company. We should leverage something else. Right? So it’s, yeah, living and working the US and now ex us. I’ve had my fair share and I’ve been a culprit of it as well, of keeping some of these projects going when they probably should have been stopped. Right. Because I felt at the time that this was the right thing to do and others are not listening. Right. But now sitting in that chair collectively across the enterprise, having optics, it’s not the right thing to do, but it still happens. But it comes back to people, right? It really comes back to capabilities, mindset, awareness, education, right. On the impact that can have, both positively or negative, of not doing some of the stopping, let’s say, and One last piece. I know I’m too long in this response, but far too often when we do stop things, we don’t retro and understand what worked and what didn’t. Right. And then we end up doing the same crap again. Right. So that, that’s. I don’t know, so what the solution there is, but far too often we just don’t. We don’t stop and think like, hey, how did this actually go when people say fail fast and all this. But again, reality is people don’t highlight that stuff. Right. So I think that’s another piece to help with. Stopping is just sharing successes, but also the failures.
Caroline:
[00:33:57 – 00:35:27]
Totally that. And I think the other thing that I’m noticing is sometimes we approach things in a. We’re deciding whether to scale or not, for example, or we’re deciding whether to do something or not. So we’re going to do a pilot, so it’s called a pilot, but it’s really just driving a go, no go decision. So we do the pilot and then we go. That didn’t work. Okay. The end versus that experimentation philosophy, which is we’re going to go. We’re going to learn. We’re going to go again. We’re going to learn, we’re going to go again. We’re going to learn. So yes, absolutely. Some things need to be killed. You know, those zombies need to be killed. But I also think there is space for us. Just saying a failure doesn’t mean it has to stop either. You know, a failure might be what did we learn from it Go again. What did we learn from it? Go again. So you’re getting that iterative understanding in the organization and I think that feels quite hard to do in a lot of. Because we’re so used to kind of doing a business case, getting all of the, you know, what’s going to be with the roi and. And we don’t know that for a lot of this stuff yet because we have to practice it to find out. There’s a bit of a mindset shift there, I think perhaps. What is the mindset that we need to let go of those. You’ve mentioned it quite a few times. Are there any things in our beliefs and our assumptions of kind of what’s good that we need to let go of if we want to make progress? Is there anything not just of tangible, but almost that conceptual? We’ve always done it this way and we still probably believe it’s the right thing to do, but actually we need to let go of it.
Davidek:
[00:35:27 – 00:36:34]
Yeah, I think it’s really Legacy, I think far too often, because we’ve had such successful, amazing, you know, science that’s come out and solved and ways in which we’ve communicated or engaged with the world with that science. I think legacy sometimes our culprit or Achilles heel. Right. I think again, if you look at just the healthcare ecosystems and how fast everything’s evolving in the patient populations that we’re entering, it’s changing, changing, right. So I think, unfortunately, because we have such amazing people that have been in this industry, legacy sometimes hurts us. Right. And the same to sports, right? I mean, the game evolved. Again, I play a lot of basketball and how I played basketball five years ago has drastically changed and how I’m getting coached to play basketball now. But you have to evolve, you have to understand that. Because what happened is I found out, you know, I wasn’t winning. But sometimes, unfortunately, in corporate world, you don’t see the direct impact, right. Of your actions versus in sports. Sometimes it’s really in your face like, all right, yeah, I need to start working on, on this muscle group. I need to start working on these moves because it just. The game’s evolving and similar to pharma, the game’s evolving and we need to continue to move that forward and continue to figure out very simply, again, how can we continue to become better versions of ourself to help the collective. Sounds simple, but multiply that by thousands and thousands of amazing individuals. It gets a little complicated.
Caroline:
[00:36:34 – 00:37:05]
Absolutely. All with different motivations and complications. Yeah, that’s why humans are so awesome, isn’t it? So on that note, if you, you know, you think about your years of experience in this space, you think about what you’re still learning now because you’ve talked about, you know, still wanting to learn and pay attention. What are the one or two things we should really be doubling down on now and next as an industry to help realize that aspiration. So what would your advice be if you, if you ruled the world, what would you be telling us all to do?
Davidek:
[00:37:05 – 00:38:26]
No, do not want to rule the world. When it comes to this piece, I would say probably two things. And I mentioned a little earlier, right. It’s around us being very clear on the organizational capabilities that exist and what’s needed to be successful now, but also in the future. But also invest. Invest in people, invest in the skill sets, both in bringing amazing talent into the organization, upskilling the talent you have and finding new talent. Right. Even within. I think that’s piece, because again, it all really comes down to the people. If you look at the emergence of Gen AI and all these other pieces, right? We’re going to be super humans, if not already, if you’re not leveraging it, but in the near future, right? But how can you make sure that superhuman capabilities are going in the right direction collectively, right. To help us? And then secondly, really it’s around just outcome focused initiatives, right? So outcomes driven CX piece where to be very clear again on the outcomes we’re trying to drive collectively for winning for our patients, our ecosystem and our company, the behaviors we need to drive and then ultimately the experience we want to deliver as a company to partner with. Right? And I think if you can get those two foundational pieces that’s going to help with the pyramid to really make sure you’re ultimately achieving what you need. Because what you’re going to do is you’re going to find yourself not running after those shiny tools tools you’re going to actually implement certain use cases such as Gen AI and others where it matters. Right. And that leadership at all levels understands and actually it’s hitting the pulse on where they want to try to where they feel is critical for the company to go. So I think that’s the two things again, it’s organizational capabilities really around the people and then really just be very clear on outcomes that you’re trying to drive.
Caroline:
[00:38:26 – 00:38:49]
I get the sense, which isn’t true for all of us I think in the industry, I think sometimes there’s a sense of like I said at the beginning, frustration or slight hopelessness. It’s like, oh, but I sense real hope and optimism from you. Like I sense that you believe there’s real possibility here for us as an industry. So maybe just as closing words, what’s the possibility that you, you see for us?
Davidek:
[00:38:49 – 00:40:01]
So the reality is it’s happening now. If you look at a lot of the countries, right, there’s pockets of greatness that it’s happening. Right. I think the key is how do you scale it across both your core non core products if you have vast portfolio portfolios, right. I think that’s the key and also to stay current on what’s going on. But again it’s down to the people. We have such amazing people in this industry that continue to enter it. I mean just continue to invest in these individuals and with the curiosity and then you’re going to achieve what you want, right? And you’re going to have fun while you do it. I think that’s the cool part, right? Because I mean, you know, we all rock up to our jobs because we Love what we do and impact it drives. But now this next level of what the next two to three to five years looks like, it’s insane. If you think from a tech company perspective, they’re not forecasting more than three, four years out because of how fast the pace is going. We’re all part of that in healthcare, which is amazing. Right. I can’t wait till we start looking at the earlier clinical trial drug discovery piece. Right. There’s just so much that’s going to happen in a short period of time and hopefully you look back 10 years from now and be like, wow, then what’s next? Right. So I think just the excitement’s there. The reality is, again, it’s already happening in many companies in many countries and I think if it’s not happening in your country or your company. Right. Start asking those questions. Right. Make sure you have the right people around the table. What are those catalysts that are going to help push this forward collectively with you? That’s my only invitation there, but it’s here.
Caroline:
[00:40:01 – 00:40:25]
I love that. So often it’s we just need to get out of the way of the great people and remove the constraints rather than add anything in. Yeah, I love that. Davidec, thank you once again for joining us and sharing all your knowledge and experience. Your insight was fascinating and really shines a light at end the actually on how technology and innovation can transform the healthcare landscape to be truly customer centric and better serve patients ultimately.
Davidek:
[00:40:25 – 00:40:28]
Appreciate it. Thank you so much, Caroline. It’s been a pleasure listeners.
Caroline:
[00:40:28 – 00:41:15]
Thanks for tuning in. Because this topic of digital transformation is so huge, this episode will be split into two parts. So on part two we’ll be sitting down to continue our conversation with Clement Gavrila, head of Digital transformation at Virgin Media 02. But this time from the perspective of the telecommunications industry. Then I’ll be speaking to my co host Harry Malcolm for a discussion on the insights from both guests to translate them into what we might want to do about some of that and what new questions it might raise that help us solve this challenge. In the meantime, if you’re interested in hearing more about the work Rubica does in this space or want to join the conversation, head to Rubica.co.uk or find us on LinkedIn. We would love to hear hear from you. Please subscribe. Give us a review on the platform that you’re listening on. We appreciate your feedback.
