Finding Innovative Leaders
Problem Solving Style and Cognitive Diversity
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Chase Partners help you find leaders who are comfortable pushing complex boundaries, who have emotional intelligence and soft skills, and who exercise vision and risk-taking in addition to their precise scientific knowledge. Cognitive diversity in the workplace refers to the wide variety of ways employees think and solve problems. Getting it right can pay big dividends, it terms of improved retention, engagement and problem solving.
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Life sciences is an industry which thrives on innovation and companies innovate in different ways. Therefore, we believe it’s important that the way leaders themselves innovate need to be taken into consideration. All individuals can be plotted on an innovation or creativity continuum between what is called “high adaptation” and “high innovation”. Leaders at both ends of the continuum are creative, yet in very different way. People with high adaptation prefer to find solutions using established systems, whereas those with high innovation prefer to find new and untested answers to problems. Each person's individual style is innate, such as eye color. Leaders with adaptive style are agents of stability and progress, whereas Innovators are agents of change and reactiveness.
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No style is better than the other, yet certain situations call for a certain problem solving style for optimal results. Companies create their own individual innovation or problem solving climate and if a new leader has a similar style, they are more likely to thrive within their new environment. This, will increase retention and the ability to solve problems. As part of an on-boarding programs, we work with both client and successful candidate to check alignment on crucial work areas and can offer additional coaching support on cognitive style, where appropriate, amongst senior management and new hires.
Start-ups and emerging companies often rely on big companies for funding, robust analytics, and distribution and commercialization capabilities, yet they want to maintain their agility and autonomy throughout early development stages. Many entrepreneurs believe that large-company scientific executives are constrained by bureaucratic processes and rules that infringe on their creativity, so they try to limit big company involvement in co-development contracts.
Chase Partners help bridge these bias by listening to candidates and clients desires and sharing what really counts to make a difference.
Executive Recruiters
In the work we do as an executive recruiters, Chase Partners have found that both fledgling and established Life Sciences companies are challenged to identify and retain executives who can spearhead innovation within increasingly open business models. One reason for that is today’s need for leaders with stronger soft skills and self-awareness than in the past. We at Chase Partners hone our search strategy to finding you skilled leaders with the emotional intelligence to adapt to both your company culture and your external partners.
On-Boarding Service for Game-Changers
Most organizations understand the need to invest significant resources, time, and money identifying and attracting best-in-class executive talent. Far fewer organizations address the question: Once a new executive is on board, what will we do to ensure his/her success, especially during the critical first three to six to twelve months?
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According to research, executive failures can cost up to 50 times the base salary of leaders. This implies that organizations can waste millions of dollars if an effective on-boarding process is missing. A worldwide Executive Search firm underwent an online survey at the VP level which revealed that "almost 60% reported that it took them six months - and close to 20% said it took the more than 9 months to have a full impact on their new roles. Less than a third said that they have received any meaningful support during their transition- a bid problem when you consider that more than 80% of this fortunate minority thought that such support had made a major difference in their early impact. Not only that, according to Fortune magazine, about 40% of executives who changes role or get a promotion fail in the first 18 months."
https://hbr.org/2017/05/onboarding-isnt-enough
Another study of CEO's from 11 countries concluded that:
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50% said driving culture was more difficult than anticipated.
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48% said that finding time for themselves and self-reflection was harder than expected
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47% said that developing leadership teams was surprisingly challenging.
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Chase Partners understands that our work is not over once a candidate has signed his/her contract with our client. That is why we offer an initial three month session on-boarding service to facilitate candidate integrations into their new team. Ask us about this service we provide to support our candidates' on-boarding process better.
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Finding Innovative Leaders
Who Encourage Audacity
Great leaders are people who strive to be truly open to opportunity - with this type of leadership a company can build its pipeline of transformative medicines or devices. With the understanding that people are the key to innovation, our clients are looking for leaders whose greatest passion is to improve patients’ lives dramatically.
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We, at Chase Partners, help our clients hire leaders in an innovative environment who listen and lead by example and encourage open debate and provide joint ownership of projects, hoping to prevent issues with ego and lack of focus that often derail innovation.
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Also, we know that inclusion and diversity are key to innovation and growth, that’s why we follow the latest D&I trends and changes in the workplace and are committed to identifying and presenting candidates of diverse backgrounds. In addition, Chase Partners collaborates with Predictive Index and offers behavioral assessments on candidates to help quickly align leadership teams to new strategic business objectives and company culture.
Chase Partners is proud to network with the most innovative Life Sciences leaders/drug/device developers who can help companies navigate through the complexities of development to commercialization.
Continuously Engaging
Chase Partners is continuously seeking to meet and engage with these new emerging innovative leaders, constantly building on our growing
network with a specific focus with international companies setting up innovation life science companies from North America and across Europe with the goal to expand beyond.
Finding Innovative Leaders
With Highly Developed Soft Skills
Guided by successful entrepreneurs, Chase Partners dig deep into the three questions that provide insight into an individual’s mind, heart, and gut:
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(Mind) “What do you know?” The response should be brief, direct, and clear. If the candidate’s answer is long-winded and unclear, the candidate does not have the requisite self-awareness and knowledge that our client's seek in innovative drug development leaders.
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(Heart) “Why do you do what you do?” The candidate’s response should be linked to the true mission of drug development; resolving unmet patient needs. Innovative leaders require personality traits that balance their passion and creativity with the requisite humility and fear to prepare for the obstacles and potential risks of failure.
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(Gut) “How will you get up every morning to try again?” This question is about working in the face of adversity. The response will give insight into a candidate’s reasoning and ability to deal with the challenges of slow progress and to lead teams despite the potential risk of failure.
Effective Leadership
From our competency based interviews and confidential references, we seek to provide examples of effective leadership that demonstrate our candidates ability to maintain an openness to changing paths as new interpretations of evidence are generated. Innovative leaders should never “fall in love” with one project or technology or assume that the current path is the best and only one toward a solution. They should demonstrate their ability to constantly seek quicker and more efficient solutions for unmet patient needs.
Finding Innovative Leaders
Crossing Functional Boarders and Networking Experience
Innovative leadership within established companies needs to break down barriers of communication and develop trust with their smaller partners. Big company teams must be trained to understand how to work within the context of confidentiality and while being encouraged to collaborate and change appropriate types of helpful information.
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The key to developing an effective collaboration model is to develop relationships in which inter-dependency is needed . . . to work on things together that neither party could easily do alone . . . and to develop governance models that facilitate and simplify the communication and decision-making process.
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As relationships are simplified and communication improves across dynamic, fluid boundaries, the opportunity for disruptive innovation increases. For instance, to simplify their Big company model, technical experts are located across “innovation centers.” They listen and openly communicate to facilitate co-development relationships with entrepreneurs at three distinct stages:
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Incubation
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Selection (technical experts meet entrepreneurs for open conversations)
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Transition (projects achieving specific milestones to be incorporated in larger groups)
Creative Thinking
Chase Partners look for leaders who can demonstrate their ability to influence creative thinking across
a functional diverse team.
Finding Leaders
Fostering Fearless Innovation
Successful modern drug and device development is attributable not only to strong clinical evidence, but also to the best leadership for open environments. For leaders, this requires great self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and a commitment to personal and professional growth. One very important characteristic of an effective open-innovation leader is a willingness to question, self-examine, and learn from others. For such leaders, the journey is as important as the outcome.
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Chase Partners LLC work diligently to uncover examples of self-awareness in our candidates with the hard and soft skills fundamental to the company's innovation and success. Ask us about tools we use to better understand candidates soft skills.