Article • June 11, 2025
What can a grocery store teach us about learning program design? In this final installment, Craig Sherman provides the answer. He shares how “environmental reinforcement” can help learners apply new skills in their day-to-day roles, and also make using those skills the “path of least resistance.”
You can download the full paper on this topic.
Article • June 4, 2025
Craig Sherman explains why our ability to forget things is a feature and not a flaw. However, it’s a feature that we need to overcome when developing learning programs. Craig offers a few tips on how to do that as he describes the third principle of change management in learning program development: Crafting Science-Based Learning.
Article • May 28, 2025
Below, Craig Sherman continues with our 4-part series on change management and its impact on learning program effectiveness. In this video, Craig explains another principle of change management in L&D: Build Role Models. This is the “B” in the ABCD principles that he introduced in part 1. As part of this video, Craig defines “behavioral contagion” and explains why it’s a powerful force that learning designers can use to great effect.
Article • May 22, 2025
Craig Sherman explains why change management should be an integral part of any learning program to make it more effective. He introduces the ABCD principles for change management in L&D, plus he describes the first principle: A = Anchor to motivation.
Article • April 24, 2025
Salience Learning VP, Jill Fenton wraps up her series on “Superhero Frameworks” and how they can revolutionize team development. Here, she talks about the “performance trap.” Have you ever felt like your team was struggling to keep up with demand, forced to focus on delivering on projects without any time for training? That’s the performance trap, and you’re not alone. Jill talks about how to overcome the performance trap in this short video (Part 3 of 3). Download the full white paper here.
Article • April 22, 2025
Change is difficult.
Not exactly an earth shattering revelation?
Because of its difficulty, you’d think we’d shy away from change. The reality is that it’s ever present in our lives. Personally, we dabble with it; new workouts, new hobbies, new experiments with how we spend our time. Within organizations, it’s a constant. There are new systems being rolled out, restructuring of teams and/or functions, and new skills that employees need to develop.
At the core of each of these changes is learning. Learning how to engage with the new system, learning how to operate within the new structure, and learning the new skill and how to apply it productively.
However, this relationship between learning and change is often hidden. Change management is often disregarded or viewed as an afterthought, something that can be covered within an email as part of the learning experience. This approach underestimates the difficulty of adopting and sustaining a change. Whether it’s asking team members to do new behaviors or work with a different tool, we need to understand that people tend to stick with the current state and find it difficult to change, with some even actively resisting change.
To overcome this difficulty, we need to go beyond a simple email and instead view learning programs and change management as one. For L&D professionals, it’s about understanding how to embed change management within learning programs to maximize the likelihood of achieving the desired results. To do this, we can leverage the ABCD change management principles for learning programs. Let’s explore them below.
All of these principles are very important, and failing to address any single one can greatly reduce a program’s ability to drive the desired behavior changes:
Before any learning program fully kicks off, it’s important to articulate the “Why?” from both the organization’s perspective as well as the learner’s. This can be tricky though, as in many cases organizations tend to overemphasize the corporate Why while under emphasizing–or even neglecting–the learner’s individual Why.
From a motivational standpoint, it’s critical to help learners understand why the requested change is important for each of them personally. For example, will it help learners accelerate their career development, gain prestige within the organization, expand their responsibilities, get promoted and/or earn more money, or promote personal values that are important to them? If so, then they will be more motivated to take the learning seriously.
A good communications plan should roll out in the early part of the program, focused on helping learners understand the Why from both perspectives. Communicating the Why early and often helps articulate the need for the change. This understanding motivates participants to fully engage with the change, making it more likely that the learning program is successful.
What do I mean by “role models?” Simply put, leaders in the organization—those who lead or manage the learners, or those who have more seniority or status than the learners—should model the desired behavior change on some level. This shows the learners “what good looks like” while reinforcing that the organization is fully committed to the new behavior and is not just pushing a short-term trend.
For example, we worked with a client to roll out a leadership development program to help first-line leaders more effectively provide feedback to their team members. To reinforce how important this was, we also included similar training for the 2nd line leaders. It was important that the primary learners (first-line leaders) received effective feedback from their own bosses. This helped the learners see, first-hand, why properly-delivered feedback is important. It also communicated the importance of delivering feedback as a skill required to reach the next level of the career ladder. This created motivation for them to take the training seriously and become better leaders themselves.
There are many theories, principles, tools, and techniques for designing learning experiences that maximize uptake and retention, and that facilitate application. We can’t hope to review all of them here, as that would take several books. However, we can hit a few high points.
For anyone reading this article, it should be common knowledge that “one and done” training programs are not ideal: a single 2-hour training session will not drive change by itself. After all, how many of us have gone through a training only to forget the majority of it a day later? Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve shows us that learners tend to forget a lot of new information within just a few hours of receiving it. Over subsequent days, they forget even more, losing around 90% of the new “knowledge” after a month.
That’s why designers must incorporate design elements or principles that help learners absorb knowledge and then apply it when needed. Spaced learning is one such principle.
Providing recurring experiences for the learners to actively engage with the material will create more durable and accessible “neural pathways” in the brain. This dramatically increases retention and substantially raises the likelihood of the desired change “sticking.”
Social learning is also useful. Having learners talk about the change with peers and leaders, with a focus on applicability and experience in a safe environment, is very effective in helping learning “stick.” It also helps learners more effectively apply their new knowledge and skills in their jobs. Other techniques are also useful, such as having actual subject matter experts (SMEs) present the content and incorporating active, practical application into the learning process.
After the learning experience is over, the program should incorporate elements that aid and support learners as they go out into the world and apply what they’ve learned. Again, the tools and techniques for this are seemingly endless, but we can hit a few high spots.
First, reference tools and job aids can be very helpful. They can provide quick-access support to help learners apply the new behavior or better utilize the new system and/or process.
Organizational support is also important. This includes targeted updates to systems so that they make expected new behaviors easier to accomplish while also reinforcing them. One example of this would be to alter the performance review process to reflect the new behaviors or new process that you want individuals to engage with. Reframing performance so that it reflects the desired change creates a formal incentive that will drive new behaviors.
Another example would be to create new capability, competency, and skill models to reflect the new behaviors and processes you want people to engage with. Connecting these expectations to the learner’s role is another way to help ensure the change sticks.
Hopefully, this brief article has demonstrated that change management and learning are deeply intertwined when it comes to creating behavior change. Without effective change management, the impact of any learning program will be appreciably diminished. In addition, I hope the ABCD principles described above are helpful as you consider the design and rollout of your next learning program. It should help you—and all the right stakeholders—stay focused on the key things that will drive positive change and program success.
Throughout the year, we will continue to publish helpful resources, including articles, white papers, videos, and podcasts, on our website. To see the latest from Salience Learning, click here. If you’d like to connect with Salience Learning about a potential L&D need, then please fill out a Let’s Connect form on our website. We hope to speak with you soon!
Article • April 10, 2025
Salience Learning VP, Jill Fenton shares how “Superhero Frameworks” can revolutionize team development and boost team performance. In this installment, she focuses on how team members’ perceived “weaknesses” can actually help boost overall team performance. Part 2 of 3. Download the full white paper here.
Article • March 27, 2025
Salience Learning VP, Jill Fenton shares how “Superhero Frameworks” can revolutionize team development and boost team performance. She introduces the concepts of origin stories and team member “super powers,” and even describes how perceived weaknesses can even help improve overall performance. Part 1 of 3. Download the full white paper here.
Article • March 25, 2025
In today’s fiercely competitive biopharma landscape, strategic investment in people can be the difference between market leadership and obsolescence. Forward-thinking organizations are discovering that developing executive presence capabilities for all roles is one of the most powerful ways to maximize their team’s potential. According to executive coach, Tom Henschel, “Executive presence is credibility that goes beyond a title.”
That’s a pithy quote because it sums up the concept of executive presence in nine short words. However, it leaves some pretty important unanswered questions. What are the key components that make up executive presence? Why is it important? What value can it offer to individuals and to organizations? What are the best ways to develop it?
In this article, we dive into this important topic. We address the questions above, exploring what this multifaceted capability truly encompasses, why it’s transformative for biopharma companies, and how organizations can leverage it as a competitive advantage in an increasingly challenging market.
At its core, executive presence encompasses how you communicate, present yourself, and engage with others. It’s the ability to convey competence and confidence while maintaining authenticity. Particularly for customer-facing roles, the ability to inspire confidence in external stakeholders becomes equally crucial for unlocking both individual and organizational potential.
Executive presence isn’t just one skill—it’s a strategic combination of three essential components that strengthen each other:
These core components create a professional presence that earns respect in team meetings and builds credibility with customers alike. When developed intentionally, these skills transform professionals at all levels into valuable organizational assets whose influence extends well beyond their formal titles or positions.
Figure 1: The Three Dimensions of Executive Presence and Their Underlying Factors / Skills
Strategic impact transforms how others perceive and respond to you. This component of executive presence can accelerate customer and internal stakeholder engagement. Example skills that enhance strategic impact include developing your personal brand, building stakeholder rapport, and conducting compelling presentations.
Those who master strategic impact find that people take what they have to say more seriously. They’re more effective in meetings and in one-on-one engagements. They tend to get action and results more quickly when engaging with their teams and other stakeholders.
Individuals with strategic impact often find themselves advancing more rapidly, being invited to higher-level discussions, and having their ideas implemented more frequently. In today’s collaborative work environment, your ability to present yourself strategically will help your technical expertise shine.
Business intelligence transforms how you process information and communicate to drive decisions. This critical component of executive presence elevates your effectiveness by building the skills of emotional intelligence, interpersonal communication, data storytelling, and advanced business writing.
Biopharma professionals who excel in business intelligence become trusted advisors whose recommendations carry weight. They effectively translate complex concepts into actionable insights, leading to greater influence in decision-making processes regardless of title. This capability is even more important in information-rich environments where your ability to process and communicate data meaningfully often distinguishes you from others.
Leadership influence determines how effectively you guide others through complex situations and create meaningful change. This transformative component of executive presence amplifies your impact, focusing on a range of important skills that include building trust and credibility, negotiating, navigating crucial conversations, and guiding people through change via effective change management.
Professionals who develop leadership influence find themselves becoming go-to resources during organizational challenges and periods of uncertainty. They’re entrusted with increasingly important initiatives and develop reputations as problem-solvers who can unite diverse stakeholders around common goals. In today’s environment of constant change, your ability to influence effectively often determines your value to the organization from any seat.
Executive presence delivers powerful advantages for both individuals and organizations by transforming how professionals engage with customers, cross-functional partners, peers, managers, and executive leadership.
For Professionals:
For Organizations:
Despite its proven value, developing executive presence remains underemphasized in most professional settings. Companies often assume individuals and leaders naturally possess these skills or hesitate to address gaps in these capabilities. Organizations that intentionally cultivate executive presence gain a decisive competitive advantage: their professionals communicate more strategically, navigate challenges more effectively, and build stronger business relationships that drive sustainable growth.
Building executive presence via learning initiatives requires strategic integration with broader talent development initiatives. The most successful approaches follow a proven pathway that begins with a thorough needs analysis to identify specific gaps between the current and desired skills and capabilities. This creates a targeted foundation for development.
The next essential element is a customized curriculum with learning experiences that directly address identified needs while accommodating diverse learning preferences. Using multiple modalities helps increase learners’ engagement levels and their abilities to apply what they learn. Equally important are personalized learning plans (PLPs) that tailor development pathways to individual roles, functions, and career aspirations, ensuring relevance and maximizing engagement.
Organizations that embed executive presence throughout their talent development strategies see dramatically higher adoption and application rates. When biopharma professionals recognize these capabilities as essential to their careers rather than optional, they engage more deeply with the learning experiences. The personalization element is particularly crucial—when people see development tailored to their specific needs and aspirations, motivation transforms from compliance to commitment, accelerating both individual growth and organizational impact.
Increasingly, biopharma companies are elevating the development of executive presence capabilities to a strategic priority—and for good reason. With the industry experiencing transformation, organizations that invest in these essential skills position themselves for success. By proactively building executive presence at all levels, forward-thinking companies can secure a powerful competitive advantage in today’s landscape.
The organizations taking decisive action now are creating stronger leadership pipelines, enhancing their ability to navigate complex challenges, and accelerating innovation cycles. This strategic focus on executive presence doesn’t just develop individual leaders—it strengthens organizational resilience and opens new pathways for sustainable growth that extend far beyond immediate business objectives.
Perhaps your organization could benefit from enhancing team members’ executive presence? If you have any questions about the concepts described in this article, or if you would like to discuss your organization’s specific situation and needs, please reach out to us. You can Contact Us via our website or reach out directly to Marcy Lantzy at mlantzy@saliencelearning.com. In addition, please follow our LinkedIn page to stay up to date on our white papers, videos, and other thought leadership content. We hope to speak with you soon!
Article • January 13, 2025
This article concludes our four-part series exploring how superhero frameworks transform traditional team development. In Part 1, we explored the power of origin stories. Part 2 revealed how teams can embrace both their superpowers and kryptonite. Part 3 tackled the challenge of making time for transformation. Now, we’ll discover how to translate these elements into sustainable excellence and legendary performance.
When Tony Stark first built his Iron Man suit, he was focused on personal survival. Years later, he wasn’t just a hero—he had become a legend who transformed the entire superhero landscape through sustainable systems, mentorship, and lasting impact. His journey mirrors the path that transformed teams must take —moving from initial success to lasting excellence.
The difference between a high-performing team and a legendary one isn’t just what they achieve—it’s what they leave behind. Like the Avengers, who built systems and relationships that survived even the toughest challenges, legendary teams create impact that outlasts any individual member.
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: Research consistently shows that a significant majority of organizational transformations struggle to achieve their desired long-term outcomes. Even when teams experience initial success, maintaining that momentum proves challenging.
The reasons echo common superhero challenges:
Meet the Medical Affairs team at Hero Biotech (a fictional company), who we’ll call “The Immortals.” Over the past year, they had embraced a superhero transformation journey.
First, they discovered the power of origin stories – sharing personal and professional journeys that revealed not just what each team member could do, but why they chose to do it. This created psychological safety and authentic connections that transformed how they collaborated.
Next, they learned to harness both their superpowers and their kryptonite, as exemplified by their team lead Marcus Rivera, PharmD, whose perfectionism was both his greatest strength and potential limitation. By openly acknowledging these dynamics, they turned perceived weaknesses into sources of collective strength.
Then, they mastered the art of balancing performance with development through their “Transform-Active Approach” – creating structured learning moments even in their high-pressure environment. They established “power zones” before key meetings and integrated reflection points into their project workflows.
“These frameworks fundamentally changed how we operated,” shares Rivera. “Our cross-functional collaboration was at an all-time high, we were delivering projects faster than ever, and team engagement was soaring.”
But six months after their initial transformation, they started noticing small cracks in their foundation. When their senior director moved to another division, the impact was immediate and concerning. “That’s when we realized,” Rivera explains, “that achieving transformation wasn’t enough – we needed to make it ‘immortal’—able to outlive any single team member or challenge.”
The breakthrough came when the team implemented what they called the “Legacy System”—a comprehensive approach to sustainable excellence that turned individual transformation into institutional strength.
The Legacy System had three simple but powerful components:
First, they created what they called “Hero Councils” – regular cross-functional meetings where team members shared not just updates but actively worked through challenges together. Unlike typical meetings, these sessions focused on collective problem-solving and innovation. “It wasn’t about reporting status,” explains Rivera. “It was about building our collective strength.”
Second, they embedded “Power-Up Sessions” into their daily work – short, focused learning moments that kept skills sharp and knowledge flowing. When a team member mastered a new approach or overcame a challenge, they’d share it immediately through these micro-learning opportunities. This meant knowledge wasn’t just transferred during formal training – it became part of their daily rhythm.
Third, they developed “Legacy Metrics” that measured both immediate performance and long-term impact. Beyond tracking traditional KPIs, they measured things like knowledge transfer, cross-functional collaboration, and team resilience. “We started looking at not just what we achieved,” Rivera notes, “but how sustainable our achievements were.”
The results were transformative. When three new team members joined six months later, they weren’t just onboarded, they were immediately integrated into this ecosystem of excellence. When market pressures demanded faster delivery times, the team adapted without sacrificing quality or burning out. Most importantly, when their next senior director transition came, the team didn’t just maintain their performance, they continued to grow stronger.
Within six months of implementing the Legacy System, The Immortals had achieved something remarkable. Not only did their performance metrics continue to improve, but they had created something more valuable: a self-sustaining ecosystem of excellence.
“What’s different now,” explains Rivera, “is that excellence no longer depends on any individual. We’ve built systems and cultures that automatically generate high performance. New team members don’t just join a team—they become part of a legacy.”
Remember: Every legend begins with transformation, but it’s the systems you build that make it last. Just as the Avengers created a legacy that survived even their greatest challenges, your team can build excellence that outlasts any individual member.
The key lies in understanding that legendary status isn’t achieved through a single transformation—it’s built through systems that continuously regenerate excellence.
Ready to take your team from transformed to legendary? Let’s connect and explore how your team can build lasting excellence that becomes part of your organization’s DNA.
Article • January 8, 2025
In Part 1, we explored the power of origin stories in building high-performing teams. Part 2 revealed how teams can transform by embracing both their superpowers and their kryptonite. Now, let’s tackle one of the greatest challenges facing modern teams: making time for transformation while meeting daily demands.
In “Doctor Strange,” Stephen Strange begins his journey as a brilliant but arrogant neurosurgeon who measures success in minutes saved during procedures. After a devastating car accident left his hands with severe nerve damage that ends his surgical career, he must learn that true mastery requires something more valuable than mere efficiency—it demands time spent in what we might call the “learning zone.” When he discovers the Ancient One, his frustration with her insistence on spiritual development and mindful practice—rather than immediate solutions—mirrors what many of us feel when asked to pause our daily operations for development.
“I don’t have time for this,” he protests, attempting to speed through mystic arts training like it’s a medical residency curriculum. Yet the Ancient One’s wisdom about slowing down to truly master fundamental principles rather than racing to advanced techniques becomes a crucial lesson about the value of dedicated learning time.
But as Dr. Strange discovers through his journey from frustrated student to Master of the Mystic Arts, and as high-performing teams must learn, transformation doesn’t happen in the margins of our schedule—it requires intentional movement between learning and performance zones.
Today’s teams face a seemingly impossible challenge: they must deliver peak performance while simultaneously developing new capabilities. It’s like asking Spider-Man to stop a runaway train while learning to use a new web-shooter feature. Both tasks are crucial, but they appear to conflict—until they converge in moments of crisis where Spider-Man must master new abilities on the fly or face dire consequences.
Studies of high-performing organizations, from tech companies to healthcare systems, reveal a consistent pattern: as teams face mounting pressure to deliver, they naturally drift toward constant execution mode. This seemingly logical shift toward maximizing performance time creates what organizational learning experts call a “productivity paradox” – the more teams focus exclusively on execution, the more they undermine their long-term effectiveness.
The highest performers have discovered something counterintuitive – even under intense pressure, they excel not just through better execution, but by deliberately preserving space for learning. This intentional balance is what separates sustainable success from burnout.
The key lies in understanding that learning and performance aren’t opposing forces but complementary powers. Just as the Avengers regularly train together between world-saving missions, high-performing teams must find their rhythm between execution and development.
Understanding this paradox is one thing – breaking free from it is another. The path to transformation often feels like navigating Gotham City’s back alleys—full of unexpected challenges. Just as Batman must constantly balance responding to the Bat-Signal and developing new capabilities in the Batcave, teams struggle with three core challenges:
These obstacles create a self-reinforcing cycle: the more pressure teams face, the more they double down on performance at the expense of learning, ultimately undermining their ability to rise to future challenges. Like superheroes who master their powers through deliberate practice, teams must learn to balance immediate action with strategic capability building.
Consider “Project Catalyst,” a cross-functional team at a global pharmaceutical company that discovered how to break free from this pattern. Their Market Access Team, led by Senior Director Cal Ledger (known to his teammates as “The Calculator” for his precise analytical approach), was caught in the classic dilemma—the high-pressure environment of payer negotiations and market access strategy deadlines demanded constant attention.
The breakthrough came when they adopted what they called the “Transform-Active Approach,” inspired by superhero training montages. Instead of viewing learning as separate from performance, they integrated development into their daily operations through three key strategies:
The results were remarkable. Within three months, “Project Catalyst” had not only maintained their performance metrics but had surpassed them. The team reported feeling more energized and better equipped to handle complex challenges. Ledger discovered that their intentional learning windows helped the team anticipate challenges rather than just react to them. “We used to think we couldn’t afford the time for development,” he reflected. “Now we understand we can’t afford not to make that time. These learning moments are like our superpower charging station—we emerge stronger and better equipped to handle whatever challenges come next.”
Remember: Just as the most powerful superheroes make time to hone their abilities, high-performing teams must create space for development. It’s not about finding time—it’s about making time.
The secret to sustainable high performance lies in understanding a fundamental truth: sometimes you must slow down to go fast. While maximizing time in the performance zone is critical for delivering results, the highest performing teams know that strategic moments for learning and development ultimately enable them to perform at even higher levels. Just as the Avengers dedicate time in their compound to master new team formations between world-saving missions, these capability-building investments aren’t delays—they’re strategic accelerators that multiply a team’s speed and long-term success.
The key is knowing when to press forward and when to deliberately slow down for learning and growth. Teams that master this balance can operate at peak performance without compromising either the quality of their work or their team members’ wellbeing. They understand that sustainable excellence isn’t about constant battle mode—it’s about knowing when to train, when to recover, and when to deploy full power.
Coming Next in Part 4: “From Transformed to High-Performing: Building Your Team’s Legendary Status” — We’ll explore how to sustain your team’s transformation and build lasting high performance.
Article • December 9, 2024
This article is the second in our four-part series. In Part 1, we explored the power of origin stories in building high-performing teams. Now, let’s dive into how teams can transform by embracing both their superpowers and their kryptonite—turning perceived weaknesses into sources of collective strength.
Superman, arguably the most powerful superhero, has a fascinating weakness: kryptonite—radioactive fragments of his home planet that can drain his strength. Yet what makes Superman truly remarkable isn’t his invulnerability, but how he handles this critical weakness. Sometimes he relies on allies like Batman to help him overcome kryptonite-based challenges. Other times, he uses creativity and quick thinking to work around it. Over time, he’s even learned to anticipate and adapt to its presence.
The same is true for high-performing teams. Real transformation begins when we stop trying to eliminate our vulnerabilities and start leveraging them as catalysts for growth and connection. Just as Superman’s weakness comes from the very source of his strength (his alien heritage), our greatest professional strengths often contain the seeds of our greatest vulnerabilities.
Here’s a truth that might surprise you: Your greatest superpower often contains the seeds of your greatest vulnerability. Think about Spider-Man’s sense of responsibility—it’s both his driving force and his heaviest burden. In teams, we see this play out daily. The visionary leader whose big-picture thinking drives innovation might struggle with details. The detail-oriented executor who ensures quality might resist rapid change. These aren’t flaws to fix—they’re dynamics to harness.
Just as every superhero must learn to work with both their strengths and vulnerabilities, every team member carries unique powers and weaknesses that can either divide or unite a team. When we embrace both sides of our professional identity—our superpowers and our kryptonite—we open new possibilities for collaboration and growth.
When teams embrace the superhero framework, something remarkable happens. They stop just responding to challenges and start actively transforming their environment. Like the Avengers assembling, they develop an almost intuitive sense of anticipating needs before they become urgent. They approach team development not as a series of required exercises but as intentional training in complementary powers, each member becoming stronger through the growth of others. Resources aren’t just shared; they’re strategically built and deployed to amplify both individual and organizational capabilities. Support systems evolve from reactive safety nets into proactive launching pads for success. Most importantly, showing up for each other transforms from a nice-to-have into a fundamental part of how the team operates, with each member taking personal accountability for the collective success story they’re writing together.
To understand how this approach might work in practice, let’s explore a hypothetical scenario. Imagine a marketing team at a biopharma company struggling with silos between their analytics and creative functions. In this fictional “Project Phoenix,” the team’s data scientist (nicknamed “Captain Analytics” by her colleagues) had always seen her perfectionism as a liability that slowed the team down. The team’s rapid prototyper (their “Speed Force”) was known for quick, innovative solutions but sometimes missed critical details.
Instead of seeing these differences as obstacles, the team applied a transformative approach they dubbed “The Transform-Active Approach” which combined individual superpowers to create collective strength. They created paired working sessions where “Captain Analytics” and “Speed Force” collaborated directly, each learning to appreciate and leverage the other’s perspective. When facing a challenging campaign launch, instead of working in isolation, they developed a new workflow combining precision with speed—rapid prototyping cycles with built-in analytical checkpoints.
The results in our scenario? The team discovered that their supposed weaknesses, when combined thoughtfully, created a stronger whole. Their collaborative approach led to faster campaign development without sacrificing analytical rigor. More importantly, it created a culture where differences weren’t just tolerated—they were actively sought out as sources of innovation.
Traditional team development tries to smooth out differences. The superhero framework celebrates them as sources of strength. It’s time to stop seeing challenges as obstacles and start viewing them as opportunities for breakthrough performance.
Remember: Just as the Justice League becomes stronger through diversity of powers, your team’s differences aren’t divisions—they’re your competitive advantage.
At Salience Learning, we’ve seen the power of this approach in action. Ready to discover how your team’s unique combination of strengths could revolutionize your results? Let’s connect and explore your team’s potential for extraordinary achievement.
Coming Next in Part 3: “Making Time for Team Transformation: Balancing VUCA Demands with Development” – We’ll explore practical strategies for integrating team development into fast-paced environments without sacrificing execution excellence.
Look for Part 4: “From Transformed to High-Performing: Building Your Team’s Legendary Status” – The series conclusion will provide concrete steps to translate transformation into measurable high performance and sustainable team excellence.
Article • December 3, 2024
This article begins our four-part series exploring how superhero frameworks can transform traditional team development. Join us as we explore the power of origin stories, discover how to harness individual and collective superpowers, and learn to build resilient, high-performing teams that thrive in today’s world.
In today’s business landscape, VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) isn’t just a buzzword—it’s our daily reality. In the biopharma industry, where scientific breakthroughs, regulatory requirements, and market dynamics shift constantly, this VUCA environment shapes every aspect of how we work. Teams face unprecedented challenges: navigating rapid technological advancement, managing cross-functional collaboration across global networks, and maintaining innovation while ensuring compliance. And let’s be honest: traditional teams aren’t cutting it anymore. What we need are super-teams. Not the cape-wearing kind (although that would be fun), but teams with the resilience, adaptability, and transformative power of our favorite superheroes.
Think about it: Every superhero has an origin story—that pivotal narrative that reveals not just how they gained their powers, but why they choose to use them as they do. These origin stories are more than just histories; they’re the foundation of purpose, the source of strength, and the guide for future actions. They shape not only how heroes face challenges but how they show up for others. Clark Kent didn’t just become Superman by putting on a cape—he learned to balance his extraordinary abilities with his humanity, showing up as both a powerful individual and a dedicated team player. T’Challa’s Black Panther journey wasn’t just about inheriting powers, but about opening Wakanda’s resources to the world, transforming individual strength into collective progress.
Traditional approaches to building high-performing teams often feel like trying to assemble IKEA furniture with half the pieces missing. In our quest for efficiency, we’ve created standardized processes that treat team members like interchangeable parts rather than unique individuals with distinctive gifts to offer. We measure success through group metrics that, while important, often overlook the unique value each person brings to the table. Our rigid role definitions, intended to create clarity, instead become constraints that limit rather than empower.
The result? Teams that function but don’t flourish. Teams that perform but don’t transform. Teams that work together but don’t truly show up for each other.
Just as every superhero has an origin story that shapes their powers and purpose, every professional carries experiences that influence how they solve problems, communicate, and face challenges. The superhero framework isn’t about wearing capes to meetings (though we won’t stop you). It’s about understanding that true high performance starts with embracing your origin story.
Your journey—including the victories, failures, and plot twists—isn’t just background noise. It’s your power source. Google’s Project Aristotle found that psychological safety was the top predictor of team success. When teams share their origin stories, they create that safety through authentic connection and understanding.
To understand how this might work in practice, let’s imagine a hypothetical scenario: Picture Maya, a brilliant software architect known for creating innovative solutions. Her kryptonite? A deep-seated fear that collaboration would slow her down—a fear that manifested as an instinct to work in isolation. The breakthrough came when she shared this vulnerability with her team during a challenging AI implementation project. “I realize I’ve been holding back,” she told them, “Because I’m afraid that slowing down to collaborate might mean missing something brilliant. It’s been my pattern for years, and it’s holding us all back.” This moment of vulnerability changed everything. Her team, understanding her triggers, created rapid-prototype sessions that satisfied her need for speed while leveraging collective creativity. When they noticed her withdrawing into solo mode, they had permission to redirect her energy into group problem-solving. The result? Not only did the project exceed expectations, but it sparked a culture of shared innovation across the organization, transforming Maya from solo problem-solver to catalyst for collective brilliance. By owning and sharing her kryptonite, Maya enabled her entire team to show up better for each other, creating a culture where vulnerability becomes a catalyst for collective excellence.
Remember: When individuals own their stories and commit to showing up for each other, teams don’t just perform—they transform. This isn’t about building better teams; it’s about creating a new category of professional excellence where personal growth drives collective achievement.
But what happens when we discover that our greatest strengths can also be our hidden weaknesses? In our next article, we’ll explore how to identify and harness both your superpowers and your kryptonite to create unstoppable team dynamics.
At Salience Learning, we didn’t just design this framework—we live it every day. Our own origin story includes transforming ourselves before guiding others. Want to see what’s possible when learning and development transcends traditional boundaries? Let’s connect and explore how your team’s superhero journey could unfold.
Coming Next: “From Kryptonite to Collective Strength: Unleashing Team Superpowers” – We’ll explore how to identify and harness both individual and team superpowers while transforming perceived weaknesses into sources of strength.
Future installments:
Article • October 22, 2024
The concept of personalization in the biopharma industry is often discussed in the context of precision medicine, which identifies medication choices based on individuals’ genetic makeup and unique lifestyle factors, but life sciences companies are also harnessing the power of personalization to increase the effectiveness of learning and development (L&D) activities. With personalized learning plans (PLPs), biopharma companies are increasingly moving from the “one-size-fits-all” approach that many have traditionally taken and are developing training that enables employees to select training targeted to their particular strengths and development needs.
PLPs are a core element of the systematic approach to L&D. We define a systematic approach as one that is structured, methodical, and standardized across an organization, while consistently using ongoing evaluation and measurement, socializing the process with both leadership and individual contributors, and applying a mindset of continuous skills enhancement.
A systematic approach to L&D enables organizations to enhance employee effectiveness while also improving the employee experience. Part 1 of this series describes the benefits of this approach, as well as its key components. Those components are:
In Part 2, we explored needs analyses and capability models in depth, examining how biopharma L&D functions can use those processes to understand their employees’ learning needs and define the skills needed for any given role. In this third and final article in the series, we look at how a systematic approach to building PLPs can help target the right learning and development to the right employee at the right time—and in turn enhance employee engagement, retention, and performance.
Personalized learning plans are customized learning pathways that are targeted for specific functions, roles, and teams or for specific employees based on their roles, needs, level of expertise, and career goals. These plans differ from the traditional pharma L&D model, which offers standardized training to large groups of employees regardless of their individual needs, goals, learning styles, and career paths. Instead, the elements of a PLP are customized for individual learners. Using a PLP helps continuously upskill employees on core skills while offering them the flexibility and ownership to focus on their individual needs to meet and exceed their professional development goals.
A systematic, data-driven process for developing PLPs helps ensure that they align with organizational goals while addressing individual development needs. As we shared in the second article in this series, the process generally begins with a needs analysis, which looks at the skills individual employees currently possess as well as their areas for development, ultimately identifying the capabilities they need to perform their roles. Next, we recommend that L&D organizations build a capability model based on the needs analysis. The capability model provides details on expectations for performance in each role and helps L&D functions identify and develop the learning solutions needed for individuals to meet and exceed those expectations. With a personalized approach for developing capabilities and skills, individuals have the opportunity to create a learning plan that will help them achieve their specific goals. This usually takes place through a self-assessment or during performance reviews.
A key strength of PLPs is their flexibility and ability to meet the needs of different learners and situations. They are often customized for different proficiency levels, such as beginner, intermediate, or skilled. They may also vary by company and by individual. Some may include core courses and then offer a variety of additional learning options based on each person’s need. Based on the “70-20-10” model for L&D—which says that 70% of learning happens through on-the-job experience, 20% through social interactions with colleagues and friends, and 10% in formal training experiences—learning modalities should include a variety of on-the job learning, course-type work, and social learning. At Salience, we often align with 70-20-10 via experiential learning, social engagement, and spaced micro-learning.
The PLP that the employee and manager then collaborate to write—typically in the form of a templated document or within a learning management system—usually includes several common elements. These elements include:
Different parts of the company can play different roles in supporting the use of PLPs. L&D organizations can provide and develop learning solutions and opportunities based on the capability model, gauging which solutions are being used most often, measuring how those solutions are helping to improve behaviors, and identifying which gaps may still need to be filled. Leadership can support their employees by allowing them to spend time conducting the learning activities and identifying ways for employees to apply the skills on the job or learn from others (known as social learning).
PLPs that are built with a systematic approach have several measurable benefits for both employees and the organization, especially compared with the one-size-fits-all model. First, learning that is tailored to the needs of individual learners is always more effective than standardized learning. PLPs help equip employees to perform the responsibilities of their role at a higher level. When more employees can work with greater competency, companies are better equipped to succeed in the increasingly competitive global market.
In addition, because PLPs are customized to the specific needs of each individual learner, they are more likely to engage employees. The more engaged employees are, the more likely they are to choose to remain with the company. This in turn can help companies avoid the expense of recruiting and training new talent when disengaged employees leave.
Finally, because PLPs are specifically designed for each individual, they allow progress against goals to be tracked more easily, through tools such as pre- and post-assessments and observation of behavior change. These performance metrics make it easier to assess the effectiveness of L&D initiatives and adjust them as needed.
Leadership for a global pharmaceutical company knew that they needed to future-proof their cell therapy organization to stay competitive in a rapidly changing marketplace. To do so, they undertook several initiatives to invest in people, processes, and culture. After working with Salience Learning to conduct a needs analysis and develop a capability model for their cell therapy team, the company asked us to develop a personalized learning plan framework for account managers in the cell therapy organization.
To address this request, we developed a PLP framework for executive presence capability. The model included a pre-assessment for each employee, followed by learning content on executive presence, and then a post-assessment followed by a capstone workshop. The learning solutions for the PLP included a few core courses and a range of options for the account managers to select from based on their needs assessment. The options used different modalities, including workshops, podcasts, videos, and links to additional resources. The model enabled each account manager to customize a learning pathway based on their individual needs.
With a dynamic learning curriculum systematically tailored to the needs of the cell therapy organization and incorporating different modules and learning modalities, the account managers can tailor their learning to their individual needs, building the skills required to succeed in a competitive environment. They will be able to leverage fundamental executive presence skills to help the company’s cell therapy organization thrive.
The economic, policy, and social transformations of the last several years have put increasing pressure on biopharma companies to operate more efficiently and effectively than ever, and Learning and Development functions play a key role in preparing employees to perform at the level needed to match the moment. By approaching the process of developing needs analyses, capability models, and personalized learning plans systematically, these companies can give themselves a boost in the battle to stay competitive in today’s changing market.
Article • September 12, 2024
The economic, policy, and social transformations of the last several years have greatly affected biopharma companies’ operational performance and strategic effectiveness. These transformations have led to greater complexity in the required skill sets for many roles, increasing the demands on the professionals who work in these companies. Those increased demands, coupled with the post-COVID increase in demand for issues such as work flexibility and professional development, are making it more challenging for biopharma companies to develop and retain great employees. However, learning and development (L&D) teams within biopharma companies can play a key role in addressing this challenge. Ultimately, the companies that work with their L&D functions to mitigate the effects of those changes on their employees are the ones that will be best positioned for success in spite of the challenging headwinds.
Taking a systematic approach to developing core capabilities is one of the most powerful ways for companies to develop staff members and thrive in this challenging time. We define a systematic approach as one that is structured, methodical, and standardized across the organization. Moreover, this type of approach consistently uses ongoing evaluation and measurement, socializes the process with both leadership and individual contributors, and applies a mindset of continuous skills enhancement.
By using a systematic approach, organizations can both enhance employee effectiveness and improve the overall employee experience. In Part 1 of this series about how L&D can develop core capabilities systematically, we described the need for such an approach, its benefits, and its key components. Those components are as follows:
In this article, we explore the process of conducting needs analyses and developing capability models. We take a detailed look at what it means to approach these processes in a systematic way, and we share a case study that illustrates how doing so helped a biopharma company better support its employees’ development and retention. Later, we will conclude the series with a third article on developing personalized learning plans.
Developing a needs analysis is the essential first step toward building a capability model that defines the skills needed for success in a given role. In this process, L&D teams identify and evaluate individuals’ needs and areas for development, with the goal of finding the gaps between their current skills and abilities and those that are required to perform in their specific roles.
While some of the specifics of needs analyses can differ across organizations, a systematic approach to the issue usually includes the following steps:
The topics explored during the interviews depend on the gaps being explored. Examples may include:
Companies may choose to work with either their internal L&D teams or with a third party to conduct needs analyses. While internal L&D teams understand organizational dynamics deeply, they also run the risk of being too close to the issue and not seeing some issues as clearly as an external partner may. There are other benefits to working with a third party. One is that someone with an outside perspective is more likely to avoid the bias that can come from being too close to the subject. Another is that third parties bring in external expertise and thinking to the process. Finally, with their relative distance from the topic, third parties have the ability to synthesize the data collected in a needs analysis into documentation that is more understandable to a wide range of users.
Once a needs analysis is completed, its outputs are used to align on core capabilities for the organization and inform the learning pathways that support individuals’ career paths.
Once the needs analysis has been completed, its outputs are used to develop capability models for the organization. These models are structured frameworks that lay out the specific skills and abilities needed to succeed in a given role. They offer insight and direction on expectations for performance, and they answer two key questions: What do employees need to know to optimize their performance, and what actions do they need to take to do so?
Capability models most often include the following elements:
A completed capability model often contains components that include worksheets to support goal creation and networking/mentoring conversations, as well as short (often one-page) summaries by role with proficiency levels and select contextual examples.
A systematic approach to capability model development includes multiple key steps that are typically performed in a standard order:
Developing capability models offers numerous benefits, both for individual contributors and for leaders. For individuals, the benefits include:
The benefits for leaders include:
Once the capability models are complete, an organization may use them to develop focused learning that can be used for developing personalized learning plans.
The commercial operations function of a large biopharma company needed to develop a capability model and learning pathways for customer-facing field teams in a business unit dealing with complex treatments in international markets. Because these teams had high logistical coordination needs, a diverse set of stakeholders, and a complex product-to-patient journey, their work required them to develop new capabilities.
The commercial function began by conducting a needs analysis and then built a capability framework based on it for three functional customer-facing field roles: account managers, medical science liaisons, and patient support managers. Some of the capabilities defined included problem solver, clinical expert, organizational navigator, and influential communicator. As part of the same project, they subsequently defined learning pathways for each of the roles.
Once the needs analysis, capability model, and learning pathways were defined, the functional area’s leadership had a clear roadmap for how to implement the most appropriate trainings and when to do so, based on the organization’s new, evolving customer engagement model for international markets.
Needs analyses and capability models feed the subject of the third and final installment in this series, personalized learning plans (PLPs). That article will examine how to develop PLPs that enable employees to grow and thrive in their current roles, as well as progress to future roles that increase their contributions to the organization. The article will focus on how to build PLPs with a systematic approach, using a standardized process to identify situation-specific insights that drive success in the organization.
Article • July 3, 2024
While many industries have felt some effects from the economic, policy, and social transformations of the last several years, change has always been a constant for the biopharma industry. For pharma and biotech companies, technological and scientific discoveries, regulatory structures, health policy and politics, payor relationships, and the global health landscape are consistently in a state of transformation. All pharmaceutical and biotech companies need to be agile and adapt to these changes as a reality of doing business—and the ones that do so most effectively stand the greatest chance of success.
But as much as constant change presents an opportunity for biopharma companies, it can also put pressures on them that can strain their operational performance and strategic effectiveness. The potential effect on employees is significant. Working in an organization in the midst of transformation can create an environment of uncertainty that can lead to a drop in employee satisfaction, higher staff turnover, and a decrease in employee effectiveness.
This article is the first in a series about how learning and development (L&D) teams can use a systematic approach to developing core capabilities, not only to improve team member effectiveness, but also to enhance the overall employee experience. In Part 1, we describe the need for this systematic approach, its benefits, and its key components. The articles that follow will go into further detail about each of those components: identifying needs and developing capability models, and building personalized learning plans.
Given the changes that biopharma companies face and the risks those changes bring, L&D teams play an instrumental role in supporting employees and having a positive effect on overall employee satisfaction. This support can help reduce uncertainty, turnover, and other challenges caused by rapid change, while simultaneously helping increase employees’ professional and career development.
To do this, L&D teams must take a systematic approach to developing core capabilities, the specific knowledge, skills, and behaviors that are essential to an organization’s success. A systematic approach requires planning that is structured, methodical, and standardized across the organization, with ongoing evaluation and measurement, socialization with leadership and cross-functional stakeholders, and a mindset of continuous skills enhancement. L&D teams that bring this approach to their work have the greatest likelihood of success in supporting employee professional development, retention, and advancement of corporate objectives.
A systematic approach by L&D teams to developing and implementing core capabilities offers benefits for both organizations and staff members.
Capabilities that support company objectives can help increase employee satisfaction and, in turn, staff retention. There are multiple reasons for this. First of all, defining core capabilities shows investment by the organization in professional development. It also demonstrates clarity and consistency in the organization’s expectations for individuals’ skills. Finally, having defined capabilities like this lays the groundwork for career advancement, because people know what they need to do to be promoted into the next role or roles.
In addition to the organizational benefits of a systematic approach to capability development, there are also advantages for individuals at all levels of a biopharma organization: leaders, managers, and individual contributors.
For leaders, a systematic approach helps lay the groundwork for a learning strategy that reflects their priorities, which can help them become more effective leaders. Such an approach also has several benefits for hiring. For one, it enables more strategic recruiting because it helps leaders and the HR team more effectively identify which attributes to look for in new hires. In addition, by allowing for a skills-based hiring process, it offers tangible ways to evaluate candidates based on their practical capacity for doing the job rather than simply using subjective insights about how well they talk about their experience and qualifications. Finally, it supports strong succession planning, because it helps identify the skills needed to backfill roles and enables more proactive recruiting.
Managers benefit from a systematic approach because it offers them a set of tools for guiding their teams. For example, it gives them more inputs beyond performance reviews alone that they can use to recognize high performance by members of their team. These can include dynamics such as customer feedback, completion of training programs, and attainment of KPIs. And in cases where team members are not meeting expectations, it helps identify areas of development. Importantly, a systematic approach also creates opportunities for development conversations to be both more productive and more frequent, as opposed to being held only during performance reviews. And finally, it helps make performance reviews more effective because it offers objective measurement criteria and data-driven assessments.
A systematic approach helps individual contributors by showing them the skills and behaviors they need to perform successfully in their roles. It also creates the opportunity for team members to have more productive professional development conversations with their managers. Finally, it can make performance reviews more productive for individual contributors because it consistently aligns individuals’ work with corporate objectives, for example when an organization that prioritizes developing cross-functional collaboration tracks and quantifies interaction between departments.
There are two primary components to a systematic approach to developing core capabilities:
A needs analysis is the process of identifying and evaluating individuals’ needs and areas for development. It does so by finding the gap between their current skills and abilities and the capabilities needed to perform the duties of a role. One of the benefits of a needs analysis is that it provides a 360-degree understanding of the support individuals need from leaders, managers, and the individuals themselves. Components of a needs analysis include the following:
Together, these elements become key components of aligning on core capabilities for the organization and informing the learning pathways that are used to support the next one to five years of individuals’ career progression.
Capabilities include the knowledge and skills that the roles need to adapt and flex to meet future needs. By focusing on capabilities, organizations can focus development on the knowledge and skills that allow individuals to thrive in fast-paced, cross-functional, and constantly changing environments.
Core capabilities are used to develop capability models, which are structured frameworks that outline and articulate the specific skills and capabilities required for success in a specific role. Capability models can include the following:
Aligning to a core set of capabilities has several benefits, including making it more likely that individuals’ professional development supports corporate goals, offering direction on career paths, and providing consistent and clear expectations. By developing robust capabilities and aligning roles to them, organizations can help ensure that they have the necessary resources and future-focused skills to meet customer, market, and organizational needs and expectations.
Personalized learning plans (PLPs) are the other key component of this systematic approach. PLPs are professional development roadmaps that are customized for individual employees. They provide curriculum options to develop and enhance individual and team capabilities, and they can be included in capability planners or leaders can refer to them during discussions with their direct reports about ways to improve in specific capabilities. Among the benefits of PLPs are skill development targeted to the individual, greater employee satisfaction and retention, and alignment with corporate objectives. Employees generally appreciate PLPs because they are personalized to them, as opposed to the “one size fits all” approach that many biopharma companies have historically taken.
In part 2, we will take a deeper look at needs analyses and identifying core capabilities and skills. The article will demonstrate how taking the time to conduct a needs analysis and identify the capabilities to meet those needs helps organizations ensure that they have the necessary resources and future-focused skills to meet customer, market, and organizational expectations. It will also detail the key steps and best practices for conducting needs analyses and developing capability models and aligning them using a systematic approach, with specific guidance for building the models in the most impactful way possible.
Insight • May 20, 2024
Senior leaders are important and influential people within any organization. It’s necessary that they stay at the “top of their game” and are well-equipped with the capabilities needed to drive their organizations forward. In Part 1 of this series, we outlined why executive leadership development is so important for these individuals, their teams, and the organization and identified some common development needs. Part 2 addressed the unique challenges associated with creating and fielding development programs for senior leaders, offering some solutions along the way.
At the end of Part 2, we noted that a well-orchestrated communications strategy is essential to the success of any development program for senior leaders. Without that, senior leaders will likely be unclear on how to take advantage of a program or dismiss its value, resulting in low participation rates and minimal impact. In this installment, we address the key components of a good communications plan, unique challenges in communicating with senior executives, and some high-level solutions to those challenges.
An effective communication plan for any change initiative–which is what an Executive Leadership Development Program is–should have defined objectives, consider cognitive constraints in absorbing information, and be developed in stages.
Recommended objectives for a communication plan include the following:
This might sound relatively straightforward, and perhaps accomplished by simply preparing and sending out a few emails. Unfortunately, that is exactly how fantastic programs fail to reach their potential. In any change initiative, there is usually a lot of important information to communicate, which often results in a mad rush to get the information out, neglecting the learners’ ability to process, internalize, and act on it. One must keep the learner at the center, and importantly, consider the ways in which cognitive constraints impact a human’s ability to absorb information.
The intricate processes of human memory can significantly impact one’s capacity to absorb and retain information. Working memory is often a bottleneck, as it restricts the amount of information that can be processed at a given moment. Moreover, encoding, which determines how information is initially registered, can be influenced by factors like attention, prior knowledge, and emotional state, affecting successful processing.
In addition, long-term memory storage, essential for retaining absorbed information over time, is impacted by the frequency with which information is processed and if the leader has elaborated or crafted meaningful associations during that processing. As our recommendations highlight, it is essential to account for the cognitive constraints all leaders have in a communications plan in order for leaders to first remember and then act on a development journey’s opportunities.
Finally, a communication plan is not a one-and-done deliverable. While back-of-the-napkin ideas are great and creativity should be fostered, developing, socializing, and deploying an effective communications plan typically follows five core stages:
Objectives, awareness of cognitive constraints, and a solid development approach will put any communications plan ahead of the curve. That said, specific nuances and watch-outs should be incorporated and accounted for in communications plans that target senior executives.
Everyone is drowning in communications. Emails. Teams chats. Yammer posts. Slack streams. Not to mention LinkedIn articles, white papers. Reddit feeds, and on and on and on. Senior executives are no different – and in reality, likely even worse off.
Senior executives are the key drivers of a company’s vision and strategy, critical decisions, and change initiatives. Every internal stakeholder with a deliverable and a dream likely wants to inform, discuss or gain a senior leader’s input, advocacy or stamp of approval. It is impossible for a senior leader to read every communication. Hence they have Executive Associates and make choices or they would never sleep, not to mention achieve their business objectives.
In addition to receiving a boatload of communications, senior executives are often privy to privileged and confidential information that goes way above and beyond topics disseminated on common, all-access communications channels. Add in the reality that they are usually in meetings all day and travel frequently, and typical communication channels that cater to broad sections of the organization likely won’t be on their radar.
Lastly, in an era of a constantly changing external landscape, being a good leader requires the ability to quickly adapt and pivot. Senior executives have highly dynamic agendas that are continually reshaped by changing business needs. A priority today might not be one tomorrow. The value proposition of an Executive Leadership Development Journey must be continually measured against what senior leaders need at that moment, with clear links to current corporate priorities. If not, the journey risks becoming irrelevant, falling off senior executives’ crowded radars.
Is communicating with senior leaders challenging? Yes. Is it impossible? No. Below are some recommendations to customize a communications plan for senior leaders to drive impact.
Hearing messages from above goes a long way. Having the C-suite deliver the value proposition of an Executive Leadership Journey increases the likelihood the message is taken to heart. How to do this? Meet corporate communications.
Almost all C-suite members have a dedicated corporate communications team member. These individuals typically reside in the Corporate Affairs function, which can stand alone, be embedded within a public affairs or compliance function, or be a component of the executive leadership team. Along with many other responsibilities, corporate communications team members are responsible for coordinating, drafting, and approving the high visibility communications a C-suite member sends or delivers internally and externally. Their partnership and support is critical.
An L&D team should partner with the leadership communications team members to identify the optimal C-suite leader to advocate for the journey as well as the most appropriate content, platform, and timing for communications. A key here is to connect the value proposition, vision or objectives of the Executive Leadership journey to a C-suite member’s other priorities.
For example, if the Executive Leadership journey focuses on diversity and inclusivity capabilities, then the Chief Diversity and Inclusivity Officer would be key (note, this might be the CHRO). If driving innovation or new ideas is a focus, consider a Chief Research Officer or Chief Commercialization Officer. Connecting the Executive Leadership journey’s value proposition to a C-suite leader’s other organizational priorities creates a win-win for the C-suite member to participate and advocate for the initiative.
To increase the likelihood that a senior executive internalizes the what and why and acts on the how of a communications plan, it is important to engage the key individuals that surround a leader – their proverbial circle of trust. This includes the aforementioned Corporate Affairs team members and extends to the leaders’ Strategy and Operations team members, HR business partners, executive assistants and other company-specific roles that have linked priorities or regular touchpoints with senior leaders.
Finding and connecting with these individuals in a 30,000-employee global organization may seem daunting. Consider leveraging the Learning leadership team or the Chief Learning Officer to establish access and develop rapport. Investing the time to communicate the why, what, and how of the Executive Leadership journey pays returns in their championing and fostering the senior executives to engage in it.
Following that senior executives are very busy people, they have little time to sift through verbosity. Content must be relevant, concise, and actionable. Asks should be at the forefront, not buried beneath the fold; content and key messages should be in alignment with business priorities.
All of the above requires planning, networking, and stakeholder management. L&D must identify the right stakeholders, understand their priorities, get on their calendars, gain their buy-in, and get their help in shaping the communication plan. With busy schedules, this takes a long time. That said, as mentioned, senior executives’ needs and priorities can change quickly. Just like their learners, the senior executives, an L&D team must remain flexible and agile throughout the lead up and execution of an Executive Leadership journey.
Effective communication is vital for the success of any senior leadership development program. Without a well-crafted communications strategy, even the most meticulously designed program will likely fail to engage senior leaders and drive meaningful impact. By following best practices such as partnering with corporate communications teams, engaging stakeholder groups close to senior executives, delivering concise and relevant content through effective channels, and maintaining agility to adapt to changing priorities, organizations can increase the chances of their senior leaders internalizing the value proposition and actively participating in the development journey. Ultimately, a thoughtful and comprehensive communications approach is essential for ensuring senior leaders stay at the top of their game and are equipped to drive their organizations forward in an ever-changing business landscape.
Article • April 11, 2024
“To admit ignorance is to exhibit wisdom” – Ashley Montagu
Senior executive leaders are often the most experienced people within a biopharma company. With double-digit years of industry experience, they’ve often come up “through the ranks”, gaining a wealth of wisdom during the course of their professional journeys. Tenure and tacit knowledge aside, in a complex, ever-changing industry like biopharmaceuticals, learning should never stop.
In Part 1 of this series, we outlined why executive development is important and its ability to positively impact a company’s trajectory when done right. We also covered senior leaders’ most common capability gaps, including decision leadership and change management. Designing and implementing development journeys to address these common gaps is not easy. Along with known, common challenges to educating any adult, some challenges are unique to a senior executive audience. Here, we outline those challenges and explore some potential solutions.
Time-pressed, academic-brand conscious, sophisticated; three characteristics of senior executives that create unique challenges to impactful executive leader development.
If everyone is busy these days, senior executives are busier. Time is senior leaders’ most valuable resource, and there are many different needs, duties, and stakeholders vying for that time. Getting them to carve out time to engage in development becomes a real challenge.
Top executives, especially in biopharmaceutical companies, are often highly credentialed. They have one or perhaps multiple advanced degrees: a masters or PhD in their area of expertise, or perhaps an MD or MBA. They are high-utilizers of academic institutional learning. As such, they tend to be “brand conscious” when it comes to their own professional development, showing a preference for development offerings from academic institutions.
Top universities’ executive development programs can be very good. They often address burgeoning topics, bring together learners from across industries, and offer deep subject matter expertise. While valuable qualities, viewed differently these offerings tend to be generalized, rarely focusing on an industry and, less so, a specific company and its challenges or contexts. This broad approach demands more effort on an executive’s part to transfer the concepts to his or her specific company and situation and distill relevant insights to action immediately to drive new ways of working or business results.
This is not to say that broad offerings are sub-optimal. It’s the extra effort required that becomes less ideal when the learners are busy executives and not full-time students. Think back to your days as a full-time student. Most likely, you attended a professor’s lectures to glean concepts from their immense subject matter expertise and then spent additional time on your own–and perhaps with teaching assistants–to transfer the theory and concepts into tangible actions or skills you then applied. Top executives simply have less time to make the abstract meaningful.
While engaging with learners from across industries is valuable, this should be assessed against the value of a cohort of leaders from within a company experiencing and learning together. Universities have shifted to accommodate for this by offering customized learning for specific companies, and this may be a viable option. It is important to recognize that, in the end, the finished customized program often sits outside the company; making the company beholden to the university should there be interest in redeploying or expanding it.
Many humans have suffered the slings and arrows of overconfidence bias. Cognitive research has consistently revealed that most adults tend to rate their abilities, whether those be business or non-business related, as above average. Senior executives are not immune to this calamity and theoretically they might be at greater risk. If a leader has been in the same environment for many years, it is possible that their capabilities could become a bit “ossified,” rendering them less able to adapt to—or lead—change.
In addition, senior executives—who neglect their development— may have missed significant developments that would have kept them abreast of change. While a leader may have earned an MBA 20 years ago, MBA programs of today are radically different from those even 5 years ago. The world changes. Key knowledge and capabilities change. Similarly, many senior leaders in key functions rose through the ranks in their companies more than a decade ago, largely before the cross-functional “revolution” took place in the biopharma industry. While leaders may have very deep expertise within their own functions, they can have gaps in the holistic, cross-functional understanding that is so important to strategy and operations today.
Those are just two small examples, but the key point is this: leaders who have been in senior roles for a significant period may not be aware of areas in which they could improve and develop.
Senior executives need development opportunities that are specific to their needs and contexts and that fit within their schedules. This is why individual one-on-one executive coaching is often seen as the best approach for this learner population. And for small populations, coaching is the answer, but it also has drawbacks in its difficulty to scale and hyper-individual focus. The question is: How can L&D combine the principles of individual coaching and then deliver them on a large scale? Answering that question correctly is the key to overcoming the challenges of creating a learning solution for senior executives.
Earlier, we drove home the idea that any learning program must be highly relevant to the learners. This means that the content should not only relate to the biopharma industry, but also to the individual learner.
The key is to communicate from the start that the program will be custom-fit to them as individuals, then actually deliver on that promise as things move forward. To do this, L&D should keep the following points in mind:
Busy executives do not have time for long sessions held at scheduled intervals. Learning programs must be designed to accommodate the reality of their day-to-day schedules. From a practical standpoint, this means:
A large-scale executive leadership development initiative should be a “big deal” within the organization, with a well-designed communications campaign and visible buy-in from top leadership. They should lead by example and be vocal about it.
Even though learning experiences will be customized to the needs of individual executives—and learners will have a high degree of choice regarding how and when they engage with the content—the program should still be structured as a collaborative, group initiative. This can make the experience more enjoyable and introduce a healthy bit of social pressure to engage and participate in the program. Potential techniques for doing this can include:
We’ve mentioned the importance of communicating with the learners the need for development, its relevance to them, and the benefits. However, we don’t want to give the impression that such communication can be achieved with a few emails and a meeting or two. In fact, effective communications must be done in a highly coordinated fashion that uses multiple channels and that truly engages the learner population in an ongoing way. This coordinated, integrated approach to communications is a highly essential part of any change management initiative…and that’s precisely what a comprehensive leadership development program is: a change management initiative. This aspect is so important that we will dedicate Part 3 of this series to it. Stay tuned!
Insight • April 2, 2024
When you hear, “leadership development,” what comes to mind? Most think of programs for aspiring or new managers. Programs that empower individual contributors to transform into efficient and effective first line leaders. But what about existing leaders? And specifically senior executive leaders?
In our experience, executive leaders—and, by extension, their companies— benefit greatly from a strategic executive leadership development journey as it unlocks immediate value in leaders’ enhanced capabilities and goes far deeper by impacting teams, functions, and the entire organizational culture. So, why doesn’t senior executive leadership development typically come to mind? And what does good senior executive development look like?
Over the coming weeks, we will publish a series of articles on leadership development for senior executives. Here, in Part 1, we address two key topics:
Part 2 explores the unique challenges related to executive leadership development, as well as some high-level solutions. Part 3 outlines the value of – and helpful guidelines for – communications efforts that drive participation to ensure executive leadership development initiatives are a success. Let’s dive in!
Developing executive leaders unleashes a wealth of untapped tacit knowledge and achieves a multiplier impact on an organization’s culture.
Executive leaders are typically the most tenured people within an organization. They house years and years of expertise in their heads, much in the form of tacit knowledge – knowledge that is difficult to explain and relevant to a specific domain. Executive leadership development builds, elaborates on, and propagates tacit knowledge across an organization, acting as a competitive differentiator.
Executive leaders are the social influencers of an organization. They have an overweight impact on a company’s culture via the philosophies they silently or expressly espouse and their observable actions, truly leading by example. The example they set may be intentional or unintentional, but make no mistake, their example gets noticed and is often adopted and repeated, whether they want it to or not.
Knowledge and influence become critical success factors for organizations operating in a rapidly evolving and highly competitive environment. Executive leadership development harnesses leaders’ expertise for new, innovative ideas and empowers them with a megaphone of influence to impact everything from day-to-day operating norms to huge transformations. Data supports this. A study by McKinsey and Co. showed that companies who invest in developing leaders during significant transformations (which are quite common in biopharma) are 2.4 times more likely to hit their performance targets.
Executive leadership development taps into senior leaders’ power and knowledge, enabling organizations to better achieve business results.
Executive leaders often show gaps in their cross-organizational strategic thinking, decision leadership, digital fluency, and ability to advocate for and empower change.
Leadership development programs geared towards new or aspiring leaders typically focus on foundational capabilities such as communication, collaboration, and coaching to name a few. This makes sense, as this audience is transforming from individual contributors to first-line people managers. When it comes to executive leadership development, most senior leaders are experts at these core capabilities and their needs are typically more sophisticated. Like most adult learner populations, these needs are often quite diverse, yet there are a few common gaps.
Generally speaking, most senior leaders have a solid foundation in strategic thinking. They define objectives, identify barriers, articulate and evaluate options, and formulate an integrated approach to overcome the barriers to achieve the objective. They do this adeptly within their functional domains.
However, in today’s biopharma industry, strategy development has become an increasingly holistic and cross-organizational endeavor. As senior leaders grow into their functional areas, they often have a blind spot when it comes to other functions. In some cases, internal political and/or competitive factors can also limit cross-functional awareness and collaboration. Today, with the increasingly integrated nature of the biopharma industry and the more holistic nature of strategy development, SVPs and VPs must more carefully consider how strategic decisions within their own functional areas can affect—as well as be impacted by—other functional areas’ strategies.
It’s important to note that some leaders have been operating with a broader cross-functional mindset for some time. The past 5-10 years saw the explosion of cross-functional commercial planning. For example, a commercial VP planning for a new product launch understands the interplay between Marketing, Market Access, Training, Medical Affairs and Regulatory and Compliance, and can integrate those areas’ strategies accordingly. With the speed to market accelerating and the global marketplace shrinking, executive leaders must also understand and consider other cross-organizational areas’ strategies, dynamics and needs. Creating an optimal launch strategy more often requires that same VP of commercialization to understand and adjust to broader organization strategies. Think government affairs strategy. Or a health equity strategy. A good executive leadership journey expands senior leaders’ pan-organizational understanding and enables connections between these leaders to ensure they can craft optimal strategies that move at the speed of business.
The biopharma industry must innovate to survive and thrive. It must develop new and better therapies on an ongoing basis. This need to innovate extends beyond scientific innovation. Every functional area including research, development, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, medical affairs, market access, business development, and more, must innovate to stay ahead of competitive and market changes, regulatory issues, payer dynamics, and so on. What most senior leaders neglect to accept is that innovation is predicated on what many in these roles consider anathema – failure.
Innovation expert Matt Ridley writes, “Tolerance of error is therefore critical [for innovation]”. Think of how many times Thomas Edison “failed” before developing a working light bulb (over 1,000 times). Top leaders usually ascend to their roles by being successful. While, don’t get us wrong, success is a great thing, individuals who are accustomed to success have a tendency to develop an intolerance of failure and exacerbate their underlying loss aversion. Loss aversion is a known cognitive phenomenon where, in spite of being quantitatively equal, humans assign disproportionately more pain to losing (for example) $100 than joy in winning $100.
Mitigating for loss aversion bias and developing a mindset of failure tolerance requires decision leadership. Executive leaders with strong decision leadership establish decision architecture across their teams (they enable team members to make decisions within clear parameters and they manage that process, versus simply making decisions). They view and bundle decisions in a portfolio approach versus individual decisions. These capabilities power a faster, more urgent way of working and also develop failure tolerance. Consequently, they can encourage a culture where new ideas and approaches are welcomed, even if they don’t work perfectly.
Much ink, both real and virtual, has been spilled on the topic of change management over the years. So, we won’t dive into its various sub-topics here. However, it is a common area of need in leadership development, as articulated by senior leaders themselves.
In a rapidly (and constantly) evolving industry like biopharma, the ability to successfully facilitate and/or manage change is critical. Highly tenured professionals learn a lot of habits during their career and can become “set in their ways.” However, as leaders, the company looks to them to forge a way forward in a change-filled environment.
A strong senior leadership development program is often effective at helping these professionals
We all know the cliché about how parents must rely on their children to show them how to operate a smartphone. Well, senior leaders usually don’t need that kind of development support. However, with the rapid advent of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), it can be challenging for anyone to understand what a given new technology is, what it can be used for, and how the company might be able to leverage it.
We often see executive leaders who want a deeper understanding of new technologies and how they might impact their business. Such an understanding can also help facilitate more innovative thinking and better results for the company overall.
In Part 2, we will explore the unique challenges associated with leadership development for senior executives. But don’t worry: along with those challenges, we’ll also look at some potential ways to overcome them.
Article • March 28, 2024
Before designing any new learning and development program, most L&D professionals start with some form of needs analysis. After all, it’s not wise to design a program without first gaining a deeper understanding of the need (or needs) that it’s supposed to meet. A good needs analysis involves a robust methodology for:
Recently, the Salience Learning team gathered for a company retreat in Las Vegas, NV. Our goal was to pool our creativity and devise fresh ways to enhance how we deliver solutions to our clients. In one session, we focused on ways to improve the needs analysis process. In this short blog article, we share a few high-level thoughts and ideas.
To kickstart our creativity, we considered a scenario involving a commercial pharmaceutical company seeking to craft a capability model and identify the knowledge and skills required to future-proof their customer-facing roles. In this scenario, the company (our hypothetical client) also wanted to:
Our initial step was to compile a list of traditional methods for gathering insights from target learners and leaders during project initiation. These typically include:
With these traditional methods established, we then ventured a bit farther afield to generate some out-of-the-box ideas. We proposed several potential strategies that could more effectively uncover the true learning needs within the company, such as:
Now, it’s true that in various cases, budget constraints may prevent a company from implementing some of these ideas. For any given situation, the team would need to evaluate the feasibility of any given method and ensure that it’s properly aligned with the company’s strategic objectives and available resources. As we move forward, we recognize the need for continued innovation, as well as evaluation and alignment with client expectations to ensure successful outcomes for L&D programs.
Be sure to check our Insights Center on a regular basis to read short blogs like this one, as well as longer papers, how-to guides, podcasts, and more. And don’t hesitate to contact us if you need assistance with any learning and development initiative!