Is your enterprise culture a value-multiplying asset - or does your culture slow people down?

The success of the innovation you're championing is all about the people you mobilize — and the courage they have to level with one another, take initiative, and drive adoption.

What's the best time to build a culture of championing, problem-solving, initiative and driving adoption? It's when you're starting out, not when the enterprise is mature. It's when you're kicking off a new initiative or a new collaboration. It's when you're starting a new job as a leader, onboarding yourself and setting expectations, not after a few months when things have settled and you're seeing habits that you'd like to change.

The 5As that Make Courage Contagious can give you a framework to define the culture you want to create in your core team — and the way your culture should come to life in collaborations with your board, with investors, with suppliers, CROs and CMOs and with advisors, in-license and out-license partners who are keys to your success.

The 5As — which we assess in leaders and in team cultures — can help you define the passion, energy and spirit that you want teammates to AROUSE in each other — not just when things are going well and you can say "Whee!" and coast downhill, but when you face Volatility and Adversity.

The 5As can help you AIM high and keep your eye on the prize - by defining the impact you expect adoption to have on the standard of care in your vertical, and the way everyone should profit from that impact.

The 5As can help you establish an "all-in-this-together" honor code to ALIGN parochial interests, so you find optimal win-win-win solutions rather than indulging win-lose zero sums aspirations, allowing a few privileged parties to get ahead and leave others behind

The 5As can help you operate with transparency, openness and learning agility - to ASK questions that need to be asked, rather than pretending everything's OK and hoping your board, customers or collaborators don't catch on until you have time to get things fixed. And to profit from diverse perspectives, even when that means there's some abrasion to sharpen up everyone's best thinkg.

And, finally, the 5As can help you ADHERE to a rigor and discipline that encodes the culture into the people and collaboration decisions you make along the way, including…

• Whom to hire, based on culture-fit and desire to learn and grow into a culture that Makes Courage Contagious and drives adoption as champions, rather than settles for being order-takers
• Whom to let into your deals as investors and collaboration partners, based on their culture fit
• How to reward and bonus based on shared success, not just fee for service — so everyone who plays a key role (as a team member, investor, board member or service provider) has "skin in the game" and contributes to adoption
• How to do periodic check-ins and 360 assessments — to make sure that the culture really is as much of an asset as you think it is, and so you identify leaders and teams who could profit from some more growth and development
• How to celebrate success, build pride and esprit d'corps and show appreciation - so accountability and good governance generate positive upbeat uplifting encouraging energy, and bring out the best in one another

Some CEOs and newly hired leaders act like culture-shaping is a luxury. Or something they'll get to later, after they raise funds, get established in their new roles, or complete the next pivotal study. They act like the culture "just happens," and only needs attention if problems appear and team dynamics have to be set right. Even though, intellectually, they know that the people and the culture that keeps them working together are the most important keys to their success. If you're ready to be more proactive, we welcome the opportunity to talk about the culture you're shaping.

Dr Merom Klein and Dr Louise Yochee Klein are leadership experts who equip innovation leaders to build cultures that get traction, get funded and accelerate adoption. To see if you've got the culture to get traction on your innovation leadership priorities, they invite you to take the Readiness Assessment in their FREE online leadership quest.