Five Competencies for Managing Growth

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By Doug Treen, MBA, PhD

Are you prepared to manage growth as your biotech company scales up to launch its new product? Managing growth requires a unique set of management skills, and scientific success in creating the product does not ensure success as a manager. Managing people to create growth depends on special competencies. Being a great scientist is no guarantee of being a good manager. These special skills are not the traditional management textbook variety, nor do they resemble the technical skills of a scientist. This is because managing growth based on innovation is unique; it involves the creative process of executing a number of complex tasks for the first time. As a consequence, this does not permit a cookie-cutter traditional management approach.

The talent of managing innovation and growth are softer competencies rooted in an individual’s life experiences, personal values, style, passion and drive for success. To develop these abilities, the seeds need to already be there. It requires interpersonal aptitudes beyond the technical profile of a pure scientist. Instead of taking the driver’s seat with hands firmly on the wheel, those motivated to manage must be able to let go in order to facilitate, coach, motivate and guide other individuals and teams.

The following management competencies are derived from research and interpreted through direct experience in management development of high-growth pharma companies. Rate yourself against these five competencies, but do a reality test with feedback from a colleague or manager. Rate yourself simply on each dimension on the basis of “No,” “Not Sure” or “Yes.”

1. Self-Management

Are you a good self-manager? You are quite aware of your personal needs and feelings, and can control your impulses as well as adapt to new requirements in the environment to ensure the desired outcome. You are willing to flex yourself to changing requirements in an ethically assertive and a result-oriented way. You cannot manage others if you cannot first manage yourself.

For example: The good self-manager is very aware of the tight timelines and restrictions in resources and funding. In spite of this pressure, she has made progress at the lowest possible cost and fewest resources. The biotech R&D project environment can be uncertain, volatile and stressful; this is accepted with composure, personal maturity, resilience and strength.

2. Achievement Driven

Are you driven to achieve and be committed to the organization’s goals because your personal goals and aspirations are completely compatible with those of the organization?

For example: Clinical trials and outcomes are very important because they reflect a central R&D interest to the manager. Despite delays and obstacles, he is intensely focused given that the whole company depends on the results of the team’s work. This manager is an entrepreneurial scientist driven to create a viable product.

3. People- and Team-Oriented

Do you enjoy working with colleagues as a team? With the excitement of the R&D process, you cannot wait to come to work each day. You particularly enjoy interacting and exchanging ideas with colleagues. You feel completely ‘in sync’ with the R&D project’s purpose, methods and goals. Each team member has significant differences in her and his background. Yet, within this diversity, a shared set of values and common purpose is created.

For example: The team is flexible and, given a lack of resources, individuals often change roles to get better results. The members share negative as well as positive thoughts objectively. The success of the R&D project will be a win for every member. Though lean, the team has a competitive advantage with its diversity of great skills and a winning attitude.

4. Influence and Change

Can you proactively influence your boss and colleagues, as well as any subordinates? You have an intuitive sense of how others feel at different levels of the organization, and are able to sensitively but assertively communicate on tough issues to overcome inertia and disagreement, and to gain positive timely action and momentum for a creative direction. You are a positive agent for change, leading and speeding up the process of transforming a situation for the better.

For example: The R&D team may blame senior management for lack of financial support and resources. It is important to work with these colleagues to help them better understand these realities and come up with new creative ways of achieving the results at the lowest possible cost. Selling senior management is usually important whenever a change is required.

5. Diagnostic Problem-Solving Skills

Can you analyse a dilemma and come up with a creative solution? Often problems are created by continuing to do the same thing in the same ways. So, being able to see the formation of issues, to qualify problems, constraints and variation, are key to developing a new approach that prevents the problem. A big picture of the process can help to diagnose it objectively by stepping out of the micro-issues. Seeing something from a distance helps to creatively resolve problems as new approaches are introduced.

For example: The protocol for a particular clinical trial may need some minor adjustments to prevent later rework. These modifications may in fact open up the need to fine-tune the overall approach due to new incompatibilities in other dimensions, and a broader redesign may in fact add more value, speed up the process and lower the cost.

Self-Assessment

In assessing your compatibility for future management success in a growing biotech, it is advisable to look carefully at how many clear “Nos” you had. If you had more than one, you might seriously consider sticking to being a scientist. If you had one “No,” then ask yourself how many “Not Sures” you had. If this is more than one, then you might consider developing a greater awareness of yourself before considering managing at a higher level.

Final Thought

Some may ask, what do these soft criteria have to do with the science of biotech? In reality, the answer is not much. However, they have everything to do with managing and leading biotech scientists to create a product and bring the science to life!

Doug Treen, MBA, PhD has a track record of developing high-growth pharma companies, as a vice-president with Genpharm Inc. (Toronto, ON), a subsidiary of Merck KGaA, and previously with AstraZeneca (formerly Astra Canada) (Mississauga, ON). Recently he taught MBA students at the Schulich School of Business at York University (Toronto, ON). He has been an organizational development consultant and published numerous articles on strategy and high-growth organizations.