How ONE TEAM works for us

Over the past year, we have spent a lot of time thinking about how we want to work in the future. In my three years leading Consumer Health, I’ve learned that a lot of my role is about creating an environment where both individuals and teams can thrive. As people at Bayer can attest, the concept of ONE TEAM is fundamental to a successful operation. Companies can only thrive when they operate as a cohesive unit. Here’s what’s important to me:

1. Have a strong shared purpose. It all starts with “Why.” Within #TeamBayer, “Science for a better life” is an incredibly powerful expression of why we do what we do.
2. Give teams ambitious goals and end-to-end responsibility to deliver them. I firmly believe that both individuals and teams are at their best when they are working towards something big and meaningful that requires them to bring their absolute best to the team.
3. Encourage healthy challenge. I prefer working in and setting up teams that include a diverse range of functions and backgrounds. Just like my beloved Ajax football teams of the early 70s, I like teams where everyone has a specific role, but – more importantly – everyone knows that to bring their A-game, they can’t stay within the limits of position. My leadership team consists of thirteen people and nine nationalities with experience in various industries and very different backgrounds and perspectives. When we approach a problem, they know that I expect their expertise in their area or specialty, as well as the willingness to collaborate holistically. I also expect them to challenge each other to strive for nothing short of being the best.

I look back on the early stages of the pandemic as a time when we put truly put those three points to work. We were facing significant demand surges for some of our products, challenges in sourcing materials and moving products across borders, and a workforce that was almost entirely remote.

Our shared purpose, a common goal and the freedom to achieve it, as well as the license to productively challenge and collaborate across organizational lines was what kept our business healthy. This is what enabled us to keep delivering our promises – to both customers who were facing their own set of challenges, and to consumers who needed access to science-based self-care more than ever before.

We've learned that we work well in diverse and empowered teams.

Our sales teams and supply teams worked in extremely tight partnership to serve customers. Our marketing teams and our R&D teams found new ways to support our brands with relevance and science-based innovation. Our regulatory teams kept our products accessible to consumers. Our production sites stayed laser-focused on keeping our people safe and our operations running. And our enabling teams made it possible for more than 10,000 members of #TeamBayer in Consumer Health to stay connected and engaged in a distanced environment.

Those experiences taught us we can adapt quickly. We’ve learned that we work well in diverse and empowered teams. As the situation has evolved, we have learned along the way. I am optimistic that we can create an even more dynamic, inclusive, and successful ONE TEAM culture. And I am looking forward to translating these experiences to more sustainable ways of working together in the future.