Keep it real

Up and coming

Arthur worked for a midsize family business, Boujour Medicine, in the pharmaceutical industry in France. It was relatively known in France as a niche player in the industry, and he had joined straight out of university.

Under the tutelage of his boss, Leo, Arthur developed into a team member able to consistently deliver results, and steadily moved up the ranks. He would move on to lead project, eventually resulting in a successful domestic launch of a specialty drug that reduced the symptoms of headaches by a significant margin when compared to generic brands.

The success of that domestic launch prompted the company to accelerate plans to do the same in Germany, and Arthur was appointed to lead the launch campaign. He would be leading the Germany office with close to 150 people under him, which was a big step up from his initial team of four.

Mind the gap

Leo knew the Arthur had gaps in his skill-set.

First. While Arthur could speak some German, he had to work with the local German management team of eight in a professional setting.

Second. At age 26, Arthur would be the youngest country manager the company has ever appointed. Most of the local German management team easily in their 50s.

Third. The decision was made to appoint Arthur to lead the campaign in Germany because that was not much lead time to hire a local there, bring that person up to speed, and then have them launch their campaign. It would have resulted in unnecessary delays, and the unexpected success of their campaign in their domestic French market now meant speed was of the essence.

Do not fake it

Arthur had 6 months to launch a similar campaign in Germany, there were a lot that he did not know about the German regulatory system and the way things work that. Leo could sense that Arthur was somewhat anxious, so he gave him a piece of advice.

"Rely on your local management team, admit when you do not know certain things, and focus on how you can contribute and collaborate to their success. Most importantly, keep it real."

Arthur was a little puzzled by the last three words, and how it would apply to his leadership.

The next four months was a complete whirlwind as Arthur worked with the local German management team to prepare a campaign to launch the same medicine in that country.

Summer time

August had come by and it was a common practice in France to take two weeks off to enjoy the summer. Arthur informed Leo that he was going to keep working in order to get the launch ready, only to have Leo insist that he take a break to recharge before pushing on. So he did.

Author return from his break to a disaster.

The lawyers in Germany had vetted the launch campaign and cited multiple areas which could not be use due to regulatory concerns. In short the launch campaign had been torn to shreds one month before the launch, and he now had to tell his team that they had to redo the entire launch in one months, when it took them 4 months to come up with the initial campaign.

Arthur was completely devastated and had no idea how he was going to tell the management team and the entire German office of the monumental task that is set before them.

He went into his office, close the door, and wept. For 10 minutes.

Set out to a new challenge

With his emotions cleared out of him, Arthur walked out of his office focused and intent on making a comeback. He immediately called for his management team and told them off the devastating news. He then laid out a challenge to his team, in a positive tone, that the team will be able to take the experiences gained from 4 months of working on the first launch campaign to come up with a better version in less than 1 month.

The renown work ethics of the Germans pulled through, and the German office came up with an improved launch campaign that proved to be an even greater success.

After the successful launch, a local was hired to lead the German office and Arthur was to return to France. Before he did so, the German management team told him that he was a leader who ‘kept it real’. He was not too sure what they had meant by that, but thanked them for the compliment.

The same script

Arthur would go on to face bigger challenges later on. One was when he was about to present to Bonjour Medicine’s Board of Directors a launch campaign for a new medicine for the domestic French market, only to find out an hour before his presentation that a competitor had just officially launched their own campaign, and there were many similarities to what he and his team had already planned with their own campaign.

There was no way he was going to launch a similar campaign and be labelled a ‘copycat’. He felt a similar sense of devastation as he completed his presentation and informed the board of the competitor's similar launch campaign.

His boss, Leo, told him that in the 50 or so steps that he was going to take from the meeting room back to his team's office, that by the time he walk through that door he was going to have to confidently update his team of the news and lead them into an improved launch campaign of their own.

Walk through that threshold

Each step that Author took felt heavy but as he got closer to that door, his resolve came back and he knew what he had to do. He told his team the truth of what had happened, and conveyed to them his confidence that they would be able to come up with improved launch campaign.

They did, and that would lead to greater success than what have previously been planned.

Arthur would continue on to have a global career in the pharmaceutical industry. People who worked with him would always comment that he was someone who kept it real. Keeping it real to Arthur did not necessarily mean showing his moments of weakness, but in revealing that he does have challenging moments as a leader, was not shy to share them, and yet was willing to do what is expected of a leader and lead everyone to success.

People could sense the intention of Arthur is a leader who likes to keep it real.

Exercise

Are you comfortable enough as a leader to keep things real and reveal personal truths about who you are, or do you continue to live up to certain unrealistic expectations of what a leader should be?