Our bold ambition and our critical choice

Our ambition for this decade is sweeping: breakthroughs for Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s, cures for many cancers, one-time gene therapies to cure chronic diseases, personalized medicines with better outcomes and fewer side-effects for patients… and delivering more of all of these than any other enterprise in the world! We aspire to do this by leading the whole industry in making medical breakthroughs more affordable for society, so that patients never need to choose between health and financial security.

We recognize we cannot achieve our vision simply by working in the ways that we - and indeed the entire pharmaceutical industry - have always worked, and we've been changing! The inertia of hierarchy, siloed organizations and complex processes are not compatible with our ambition. Nor is it feasible to multiply patient benefits at half the cost to society by doubling our people resources - or by asking them to work twice as hard. Rather, achieving our bold objectives for patients requires transforming the very ways in which we work.

We need a new way. One that features discipline and accountability, but keeps the authority for action close to the patient, the science, the project, or the customer. Our critical choice is to find empowerment in a new discipline, and the key elements of this have become clear: 

Vision-driven priorities – and stopping every activity that doesn’t clearly deliver a better future for patients and society.

Improvement expectation – that each of us can constantly learn, grow, improve processes, eliminate waste, and deliver a bigger impact tomorrow than today.

Talent flow – that we can easily move and flex to be in position to make my greatest contribution; not be “stuck” in places because of past needs, but develop and grow.

Accountability – that we hold ourselves and our peers accountable to making the best investments and delivering mission results, rather than being limited by static targets negotiated with our bosses.

Lucid plans and results – the success of the mission depends on every person, and each person is entitled to a clear view of plans, expectations, progress, and results – for the enterprise and their areas of involvement.

How does this work? By each of us applying the VITAL standard to our work, every day! This will help us remove impact-killing behaviors and free time and space for people to swarm to our most important and impactful work.

Delivering huge ambitions that will have truly incredible societal impact means tough decisions and constantly learning from yesterday. It shouldn't mean more work for our people, or more people for our work, but the ability to make more meaningful contributions on the things that matter most. And, this is where being mission-driven makes everything a little easier. When grappling with the toughest calls or the greatest challenges we, the whole enterprise, know we’re going the extra yards to double medical advances and deliver more benefit to patients for less cost to society. 

This is an excerpt and adaptation from a memo to the people of Roche Pharmaceuticals.