How to get ordinary people to do extraordinary things: Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan on the multiplier effect of energy

On LinkedIn’s video series,?This is Working, I sit down with top figures from the world of business and beyond to learn what they’ve learned about how to navigate setbacks and how to achieve more in work and life.

My guest this week is?Vas Narasimhan, CEO of?Novartis.?

(Trouble with the video? Click?here to watch?and comment.)

One of the main talking points in business over the last decade has been the importance of embracing failure. Failing fast should be celebrated, we’re told. It’s how a company stays nimble, continuously testing the waters to find new ways to thrive.

But, come on: Failing sucks. Nobody enjoys seeing the way-too-many hours away from friends and family, way-too-many documents, way-too-many meetings turn into a project that is shelved, trashed, or ignored. Whatever lessons come with a failure, they’re always paired with bruises.

But if there was one industry I figured would have nailed how to fail and move forward, it would be pharma. This is an industry, after all, where only 1 in 20 new medicines on average actually works when it gets into humans. And that 5% success rate represents the drugs that?make it?past all of the regulatory and scientific hurdles. So failure — lots of failure — is built into the business model.

Vas Narasimhan, the CEO of Novartis, told me that it still stings and will always sting. And learning how to accept and move forward is something he’s constantly working on.?

Vas became CEO at Novartis in 2018 at the age of 41. We last spoke in 2018, when he was only 100 days into the role. Since then, he has driven digital and A.I. innovation at the company, spearheaded life-changing advancements in gene and cell therapy, and led a cultural transformation and reshaping of the company. But he’s also dealt with?drug recalls,?rough market performance, and?job cuts.

For this week’s episode of?This is Working, I sat down with Vas to discuss how Novartis’ self-described “chief energy officer” navigates setbacks.

“We’re in an industry that fails all the time but is not great at learning and processing failure in a way that lets people grow,” he told me. “How do you get to a place where you can process all of that always in a way of learning as opposed to having it be a debilitating step back? …I think you have to go through the experience and come to a place where you either realize you're going to let all of this make you feel small or destroy you. Or you're going to say, ‘I can learn from this.’”

Vas talked about the importance of being resilient and having a growth mindset as a way to choose the latter. But I really think what he’s figured out is the power of bringing energy into every interaction he has with his 105,000 workers across 140 countries.

I had heard him?talk with his business coach?about the importance of being the “chief energy officer” at Novartis. But until I heard Vas talking about the challenge of getting employees to accept failure, I didn’t totally get why this idea of channeling energy was so important to him. Energy can be the equivalent of regenerative medicine: As CEO you can’t solve missteps or fix the science, but you can help people realize why what they’re doing is so important and get them to?want?to learn from this. You can speed recovery time.

“People have to have clear accountability. They have to know the role. They have to feel like they're well supported their direct superior – all of the basics have to be in place. But the difference is what makes an individual go the extra minute, the extra mile, to make something extraordinary happen.

“And I think so much of leadership in the end is how do you enable a group of people who are otherwise ordinary, to do something extraordinary? And that I think is in that nuance of how do you kind of make people feel so connected to the work they're doing? That they're willing to do the extra work — and they don't even know why.

“In our industry, which is hugely competitive and super complex, that's what makes the difference between finding an amazing medicine and maybe not. And somebody else finds it and somebody else makes a difference for patients.”

That’s where energy comes in. What helps people move forward from failure, Vas believes, is enthusiasm and a sense of purpose and excitement of what’s possible. At Novartis, Vas has boosted morale by decentralizing power amongst his ranks and has created a culture of accountability and trust that encourages teams to assume ownership on their projects.

But, Vas said, in order to give energy, “you have to have energy.”

For leaders who want their companies to take risks and push their limits, learning how to harness energy in the face of failure is paramount. Failure without excitement leads to burnout. Creating energy without insisting on innovation? That’s simply cheerleading.?

Vas' advice on how to be an “energy multiplier” is to start with making sure you are giving yourself what you need to set the strategy and tone, make sure you believe in what you’re saying, and then be prepared to channel all of that to everyone you come into contact with.

“In order to lead anyone else, you’ve got to lead yourself,” Vas says. “If you can't lead yourself, if you can't manage your own energy, it's very hard to convey anything to anyone else. Do the work to figure out what are the practices that enable you to have energy about the work.”

Channeling energy takes energy. It’s not an easy task. But it just might be what people need to feel like all those meetings, all those documents, and all that risk is worth taking on again.?

Want to get in touch? Send me an?email at [email protected]. You can also follow?Dan?and?LinkedIn?on Instagram. Subscribe to?This is Working.?

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