Culture vulture

I’ve been lying to you. 

In countless webinars, presentations, workshops and articles, I’ve been evangelising about how pharma managers can become more innovative. I’ve told thousands of people that a new future is available if they could change their mindset, challenge themselves, be open to alternatives.

But that’s not true. 

Because if you work in a big pharma company, you have gone through what Safi Bahcall calls a ‘phase change’. Your company may have started out as a dynamic venture where the early entrepreneurs felt they could change the world and get rewarded for it. But at some point, that company grew up, and now it’s more important for you to secure your next promotion than it is to set the world alight.

You care more about looking good than doing good.

Like a phase change between solid and liquid, the same molecules behave very differently. As a company matures, the same people change behaviour. It’s inevitable.

Think pharma’s got it bad? Consider the military. An industry obsessed with discipline, where creativity is seen as defiance and suggesting alternatives gets you punished. Yet, look at the brutal drone warfare in Ukraine and Gaza. The military needs constant fresh thinking, fast.

So how did the military learn to evolve? Through creating separate organisations, like DARPA—a skunkworks model where promotions don’t exist and risks are embraced. Bayer is inching towards something similar with Dynamic Shared Ownership, but most pharma companies are nowhere near.

Culture may eat strategy for breakfast, but structure rules them all. And your company simply isn’t structured to innovate.

p.s. We recently released a report for Pharmageddon. Download it for free here