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Showcase 6

 

Industry
Pharmaceutical Industry

Business Type
Service Provider

The Challenge

If you have been in a challenging business situation, did you ever

  • want to rather follow your intuition instead of completing the next table and using the next tool ?
  • have had the feeling you do things 3 times yet it doesn’t change anything as you wish it would ?
  • perceive that the variety of system you use are disconnected ?
  • feel the pressure of wasting resources for triplicated activities ?

I can tell you, you aren’t alone.

So why does this happen ?
Why do we ignore what we feel and keep completing tables instead ?
What if we would listen to our intuition instead ?
What if we could LEARN to APPLY our inner voice ?

We are all highly affected by our cognitive skills, whether conscious or not. We perceive things to happen we cannot explain. We react to situations without thinking. Interestingly it may even better not to try to explain that perception : Research suggests that we can literally overwrite our intuition.

Means, if we try to put our hunches into a written format and we may or may not succeed – we even risk to remember our explanation and disregard our initial intuition, perception, inspiration, creativity … aiming solution.
So what else can we do ?

The Story

Quite some years ago I used to work as a project manager in clinical research. I was in charge of up to 16 trials in parallel for our main client whom I loved to work with. A new project was granted which was truly exceptionally complex. It was a combination of 2 (out of 4, normally separated) phases, it considered different gender, ages, food interaction and many more aspects all in one and we reviewed the data weekly.

In the past we had enabled an internal team which was very consistent and wonderful to work with. Till today I love remembering it. Not much to talk anymore since everyone took his responsibility, we knew the client, his strengths and weaknesses and vice versa. In those days it happened that a new colleague joined the company and “us”. He got assigned to be in charge of the laboratory work. He just graduated, was a very smart young man – yet I insisted to get him support from the beginning. I was somehow sensing that the complexity of that trial and associated tasks and activities might get overwhelming for him. My request was rejected and I was told they would make an extra plan just for him; he would get a special training and so on. While that was all done, it happened what from my point of view had to happen : Overnight a whole batch of serum samples got destroyed, even back up samples could not be used anymore. For our study it was a disaster because we lost precious resources at many layers which put a lot of pressure on us. Resources you don’t have at all as timelines keeps moving and everyone’s capacities are allocated. Regardless we did need to re-create the conditions, get approvals, produce and apply new material, take blood again and many more …. a whole chain of intense work and communication needs associated with high costs to fix that. Not to talk about the communication needs with the sponsor and that nobody would pay for fixing the incident … To make that long story short we got it done. However, BEST of it : it happened never again. There was this ONE outcome I truly loved : We never blamed the young man (the trial WAS complex and like we learn driving and one day will do it automatically, processes would have had to be internalized already which was simply not realistic). Ever since he got active if something potentially could go wrong and we were able to figure out and circumvent any cause of possible issues. He was part of our team till the company was sold. I truly love working with him.

PS – Sadly enough, we had to stop that mixture of trials because of some unexpected, unfavorable results. However, due to the close monitoring we didn’t harm anyone neither wasted time nor money and we were granted a special bonus for that achievement.

The Conclusion

Over the years I made several comparable experiences and made copious notes, always reflected on what worked and what didn’t, tried to figure out the main driver and nail them down. One output is a template that we use to capture things very early, involve people early - and as we produce good results, there is no need to explain up-front what we’re only sensing at that moment.

Keyword

Phases

Activities / Thinking Tools

 

 

 

Issue

Acknowledgement

 

Insights

Draw on to the experience of others

 

Solutions

Identification

 

Outcomes

Distillation

 

Decision

Consolidation

 

Execution

Implementation

 

Conclusion

Documentation

 

 It helps us to lead from the front and considers the following :

  • Raising awareness is just the BEGINNING of a process.
  • APPLYING the idea is critical (We realized the various industries are not that different. * )
  • It takes real work to actually PERFORMING application.
  • KEEP GOING, it’s all about the result (don’t bother to argue)
  • FOLLOWING THROUGH the process allows you not to have to explain what you just feel

* We will tell you more about that.

We hope you enjoyed this article on HOW to apply the Silent Wisdom.

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