Insights from manufacturing leaders at Amgen, Lilly, and Vertex who are developing new Pharma 4.0 leaders

Insights from manufacturing leaders at Amgen, Lilly, and Vertex who are developing new Pharma 4.0 leaders

Pharma 4.0 manufacturing leaders are expected to possess a strong background technical expertise and an ability to lead and manage people in teams. However, such leaders do not come fully formed, since it is their cumulative experience that enables them to lead others effectively in new contexts.

Manufacturing leaders also have succession planning responsibilities to develop upcoming leaders to lead and deliver capital projects or manage operations departments at primary or secondary manufacturing facilities.

How are effective leaders developing other new leaders in their organizations?

The conversation below was lightly edited (without GenAI to keep the nuances) and covered:

  • giving priority to organic pathways when developing new leaders,
  • the skills of both noticing and then using catalytic questions to influence teams, and
  • the importance of both self-awareness and resilience in the face of criticism following significant decisions.

This article was written by Malcolm Jeffers , Transformation Strategist and Head of Research with IAAE and certified executive coach, following a fascinating discussion with two seasoned Pharma 4.0 manufacturing leaders Adam Lynch, Senior Mgr. of Manufacturing Systems Engineering with Amgen and Alan Bledsoe, Associate Director of Automation at Lilly.

This discussion builds upon a detailed Manufacturing Leader profile originally suggested and drafted by Rachelle Howard , Director of Manufacturing Systems Automation and Digital Strategy with Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and this profile details the expected knowledge, sources of information and expected behaviors of manufacturing leaders at four distinct stages of their career, such as new-in-role, contributor, performer, and go-to-expert.

Adam Lynch is Senior Manager of Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Amgen new facility in New Albany, Ohio. It is an advanced secondary packaging facility with eight packaging lines that carries out assembly of auto injectors and syringes and then labelling and packaging. Adam has responsibilities for both packaging engineering and maintenance departments.

Alan Bledsoe is an Associate Director of Automation at Eli Lilly and Company and is based in Indiana, with responsibility for Global Process Automation and Control Engineering. His team support API manufacturing and delivery of new capital projects. He has been at Lilly for approximately 22 years with the past three and a half years in the corporate engineering group leading automation teams for new capital projects.

This article finishes with a list of take-aways for Pharma 4.0 Manufacturing Leaders and will be presented in more depth at the upcoming 2024 ISPE Pharma 4.0™ and Annex 1 Conference in Rome, Italy, and virtually, 10-11 December 2024.

Please note that the views of each contributor below are not the stated views of the organizations they work for.

Q&A with Adam Lynch of Amgen and Alan Bledsoe of Lilly


Malcolm Jeffers: Can Pharma 4.0 leaders be developed both organically and inorganically? What are the benefits and challenges of each approach?

Alan Bledsoe: You can have good leaders come from either pathway. In my opinion, an organic pathway, where someone is gaining leadership skills in the course of their normal work, breeds a more effective leader since it most aligns with succession planning, but that pathway is maybe longer to develop as opposed to an inorganic one. The inorganic pathway is where someone either wants to be promoted into a leader role, or is given responsibilities sometimes prematurely, with the hope that it will present scenarios that allow them to build leadership skills. I think there is a place for the inorganic style to get people a sense of leadership and what some of the issues are, but I don't think it's the better way to truly develop leaders.

Adam Lynch: I agree with that because I've seen, “the leaders, the engineers that failed” are cases when people try to put them in positions and they're just not the right type of person because the skills weren’t developed organically. 


Malcolm Jeffers: In what ways does cross-functional knowledge contribute to a leader’s effectiveness?

Adam Lynch: A leader should have experience in different work-streams, so they understand the bigger picture, the five- or ten-year picture down the road, so that they're not looking only within their own bubble. They don’t need to be a subject matter expert for each, but they may have been one at one time in those areas. I always look to those leaders because they can notice the opportunities for teachable moments.

 

Malcolm Jeffers: How important is a leader’s ability to notice and use great questions?

Alan Bledsoe: In cross functional meetings you know if someone is asking a question that doesn't add value or doesn't challenge. You know the type of discussion that follows and what may not be behavior to model. I encourage team members to look and listen for questions that specifically advance the topic. Did their questions identify risks that no one else was thinking about? Those types of questions can influence behavior. Anytime I'm in a meeting, especially with people more senior than me, I listen to what types of questions they're asking and then afterwards digest and ask myself which of those would help me, which would I ask if I was in a meeting like this in that role? How can I get to that level of knowledge to ask that specific question because it was clearly impactful in the meeting?

Adam Lynch: I'd like to add to that too, because it's the same for me and I agree with what Alan is saying. When you're in with those senior leaders and the directors, they ask “what are we doing in the next 10 years”? I mean, I've never been in a meeting prior to this role where we're looking at 2038! I think another thing to add would be to emphasize the extensive knowledge needed, of all aspects of the business, to be able to do this. Those leaders are really educating themselves around all the domains of knowledge they need as they oversee those teams. So, when the plant manager is asking questions to the director of supply chain, you know he that he understands supply chain enough to be able to interact, or when they talk to the executive director of quality they know about deviations enough to be able to ask questions to gain a better understanding so they can cascade down new information to their own teams.

 

Malcolm Jeffers: The recent ISPE Pharma 4.0 Baseline guide gives welcome emphasis to Leadership in the Pharma 4.0 Environment. How significant is it for leaders to translate change and develop the skills of sharing context to help their team members be successful?

Alan Bledsoe: I would say that actively providing context is critical. I choose to spend a lot of time in sharing context and here's why. Across any team you will have some people who are more independent and only need general direction and others who might benefit from additional context from me so they don't hit a roadblock or setback. As an example, you may have a new leader who's eager to deliver but would benefit from extra context that sets them up for success. Going back to the skill of question asking, I would expect a more experienced leader to actively seek out context. For example, I would expect them to ask questions like, ‘Are there any pitfalls? Have we tried this before?”


Malcolm Jeffers: How important is it for leaders to be able to flex beyond their default introversion or extroversion tendencies?

Alan Bledsoe: Earlier in my career my boss got promoted and I applied for his role and got it. So, I ended up leading the team that I had been on. When I sat down with him, he shared that one of the things that I would need to do would be to speak a lot more than listening. I'm very introverted and I typically didn't want to add unneeded information to meetings. After this advice, I learned to overcome that by speaking more in meetings, as the new role, and the team I was now to lead, needed this from me.

Adam Lynch: I'm an extrovert and I never understood the difference really until I started reading about introverts and what I've learned in the last ten years is to listen to the questions and better listen to others. I developed my questions and may not even speak in a meeting, but it may be later that I come back with an e-mail with a better-quality question or a better-quality response to what was said. And so now instead of immediately responding to things, I'm like, let me get with my team and then we'll come back to you. That response has helped me grow because then I can come back with a good response to the problem or root cause analysis. It is very interesting to see the view of a leader through both an introvert's eyes and an extrovert's eyes.

Malcolm Jeffers: How significant is self-awareness and resilience in being a leader within Pharma 4.0 manufacturing?

Alan Bledsoe: At the career stage of being a performer, and maybe the go-to-expert stage, there are decisions that must be made at that level that will have broader and more significant consequences. With any decision like this there's going to be someone unhappy with it. The more senior you are as a leader the more you open yourself up to negative criticism and you must be able to parse what is truly constructive and this requires self-awareness. Perhaps the survey feedback you receive is a pressure relief valve for someone, or maybe you really did rub someone the wrong way and should learn from that and do better next time. You could have two different responses with the same feedback.

Takeaways for Pharma 4.0 Manufacturing Leaders

  1. Prioritize organic leadership development: Organic growth pathways typically offer a more comprehensive understanding of situational challenges and team dynamics. Cultivating leaders over time through varied experiences can better round out their leadership skills.
  2. Encourage better use of questions to influence: Teach leaders to notice if the type of questions being asked are advancing the conversation, bringing clarity, or mitigating risk. Then practice getting better at asking such questions.
  3. Identify teachable moments for impact: Notice helpful opportunities to share your insights but adjust your approach based on team members' levels of self-awareness and capability.
  4. Promote context seeking and context sharing: Encourage junior leaders to actively listen to seek out context to better understand the larger impact of their work and encourage more capable leaders to more actively share context with their teams.
  5. Balance tactical and strategic thinking and doing: Leaders should be able to demonstrate strategic thinking and deliver on a strategic initiative as they progress, going beyond more expected tactical contributions.
  6. Deepen cross-domain knowledge: An understanding of other domains like quality and supply chain is essential for effective collaboration and innovation in manufacturing.
  7. Use stretch assignments: Stretch assignments are valuable for both personal and professional growth, helping new leaders grow into the responsibilities of leading in a Pharma 4.0 era.
  8. Foster openness towards coaching: Encourage leaders to remain open to mentorship, coaching, and feedback throughout their career to 'round out' their leadership capabilities.
  9. Retain self-awareness but develop resilience: Humility enables leaders to absorb feedback constructively but as leaders make decisions that will be unpopular with some it is necessary to develop a humility-tempered resilience to criticism.


The full set of seven IAAE Transformation Profiles, including that of manufacturing leader, was developed and reviewed by the IAAE Life Sciences Advisory Board and IAAE team, and can be downloaded from the IAAE Knowledge Center.

The ISPE Pharma 4.0 Baseline Guide Vol 8 1st Edition can be found here on the ISPE website.

#Pharma40 #myIAAE #LifeSciencesManufacturing #leadership #contextseekers #contextbuilders #catalyticquestions

David Sinnott

Senior Director at Pfizer driving transformational business change across supply chains in Life Sciences

3w

Great article Malcolm Jeffers and I enjoyed the presentation at ISPE!

Rachelle Howard

Director of Manufacturing Systems Automation and Digital Strategy at Vertex Pharmaceuticals

1mo

Thank you for sharing, Malcolm! The emphasis on asking great questions and pausing to consider if the question will drive the conversation forward is a fantastic cue. Listening is a skill in itself.

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