Business Encounters: Life Scientist

Building a Successful Working Environment

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Creating a working environment seems simple. As in It’s a Jungle in There, you can distill that down to:

  • Care about your staff or co-workers.  (ch. 21)
  • Recognize and praise their accomplishments. (ch 22)
  • Help others out (ch 23).

But creating a successful organization takes much more effort and a mini-degree in psychology.

The challenge starts with how you hire people. 

What are your current criteria? Are you seeking intelligence, flexibility, compassion, perseverance, energy, enthusiasm, mental toughness, physical fitness, leadership, or adherence?

Then decide what makes a person a good fit for your organization by describing:

1) Characteristics that help someone succeed in your enterprise

  • If your Friday dress code means that staff can ditch the suit, but should still be “professional,” that tells you a lot about what you value.
  • If your industry is rapidly changing and challenged with new technology, then flexibility and innovativeness may be your top priority.

2) Criteria that helped others in the past, assuming the environment hasn’t changed.

3) Personal values that predict success in the position

  • Options include money, autonomy, work-life balance, travel, quiet, minimal interaction, constant action, desire for a big success, fear that effort will be discarded, etc.

Once the staff member is on board, it’s time to get them up to speed. Don’t just dump them onto the organization and assume they will “figure it out.” Have a plan for training and inspiration that conveys the organization’s core vision, mission, philosophy, and values. If someone doesn’t seem to buy the core organizational direction, you have a problem you need to fix promptly.

Then use qualitative and quantitative to assess the accuracy of the fit. Perhaps you thought that the person having “energy” was paramount. Then you realized that the person you hired based on that criterion was always pushing for a change in a direction that conflicted with your obligations or timeline. Perhaps the proper criterion you are looking for is “passion” for your mission and goals. That passion will translate to “energy” for staying the course to achieve success.

The fit might be great, but the organization isn’t consistent or is providing conflicting messages. The solution is organizational, not personal.

Or, despite your best efforts, the fit for this position isn’t right. Before you give up, maybe another area would demonstrate an improved fit. For example, you assumed that the person was more extroverted, but it seems that they like quiet and working one to one with people. Migrating to a position that involves coaching vs. one with the leadership of a large team may be the right solution.

Finally, there are the red flags. Occasionally some folks have a toxic side. They breed resentment, crave control, manipulate and intimidate. You need a system to identify such people. It is unlikely they are going to tell you that harming your organization is their goal. And other staff are likely to be intimidated and unwilling to come forward. Folks who are bullied look to supervisors to take action – that’s your (unpleasant) job. You need a system in place to ensure you collect information from other staff so you can identify the problem and take action.

To summarize, It’s a Jungle in There recommends to be kind and helpful to folks and give out praise liberally for work well done. That is a tiny piece of ensuring that you are creating a working environment where everyone is working together, doing their best, and helping the organization meet its mission.

References:

Photo Credit: Competency-circle.jpg. Components of competency-based management. 1 October 2010 (UTC).  Paduch. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

About Health Impact Studio

We are a dedicated team of developers and researchers with the mission to improve the health of individuals through novel technology including games, virtual reality, and role-playing simulations. We welcome input from the full range of stakeholders to create a customer experience with the broadest applicability to improving health outcomes.

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Social Responsibility in 2019 and Beyond

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was all the rage post-Enron. Then we had more disasters, including the BP oil spill, banks selling toxic mortgages, sexual predator behavior by company leaders, ill-treatment of an airline customer, and defrauding bank customers by creating fake accounts. What happened?

CSR was a tag-along. As It’s a Jungle in There implies, if you add the following elements to your business:

  • “be responsible” and,
  •  “give something back,”

you are good to go. The reality was these words are and were hollow add-ons. So, for example, some movie producers gave us wonderful movies and were abusive at the same time. A company was “Beyond Petroleum”, but actually did nothing to move us away from a carbon-spewing economy.

What’s The Problem?

The problem is that being “responsible” wasn’t built into the core company. Even Google’s “don’t be evil” is a little vague. It leaves a lot of wiggle room for “get away with whatever you can as long as no one gets hurt.” Apple’s hiding of profits offshore (and Google’s) is an excellent example of “legal” behavior. Unfortunately, that action is not supporting the country that launched Silicon Valley startups, trained staff in top universities, built communication and travel infrastructure, created the dynamic economy required to develop wondrous innovations, and (lest we forget) invented GPS and the Internet.

Honestly, in a world of “profit” vs. “responsible”, which one is going to win? What will the board of directors demand? How about the investors? Or the stock owners? Or the mutual fund? Is a mutual fund guided by pension plans that are seriously underwater due to overoptimistic (or deceptive) promises of future revenue from investments going to risk a low ROI? They certainly aren’t going to trade ROI for some fuzzy “good for the world/earth/society/individual” mission. If being “responsible” isn’t baked into the core organization then like a bumper sticker that has gotten old and out of date, it will be removed. And “stakeholders” will demand that “responsible” behavior stays on the periphery of the company’s agenda.

Additionally, there is the familiar “everyone else is doing it” argument. If you don’t put profit first (and second and third), then you’ll be out of business in a heartbeat. The mantra says, “Better to live on for another day then to drown in a sea of red ink.” That argument, although quite useful, has never been compelling and lacks ethical rigor.

Think About Your Approach

The winning strategy has been to come up with slogans like “Beyond Petroleum,” greenwash your company, follow the leaders in the industry, and give some money to charity. Prove that yours is a “good” organization and it will be showered with profit.

When corporations and other organizations weren’t looking, the customer suddenly took charge. Sure some industries have successfully treated their customers poorly (e.g., airlines), but the positive feelings toward the monopoly that is Amazon are instructive. At Amazon, the “customer experience” is king. Somehow it is hellbent on providing more products, faster, with unbiased reviews, at lower prices, and with greater convenience. Where is the profit in that? How did that happen? Because Amazon actually responds to customer demand and customers are pretty demanding. Customers want all the aspects of the Amazon experience that Amazon delivers.

Even the punching bag that is the airline industry recently learned that it couldn’t drag a person off of a plane without generating a firestorm of rage from consumers. You won’t see an airline treating a customer like United did again (as long as folks have smartphones in their pocket). “Beyond Petroleum” is gone as a slogan. Wells Fargo paid for is misdeed; again that strategy isn’t likely to be followed by anyone else. Uber’s leader and movie industry leaders have been toppled.

The alternative argument for the rise of consumer power would be to search for examples where organizations have been “irresponsible,” continued that behavior, and still remain profitable and successful. Starbucks settled with the EU. Pharma companies that tried to gouge customers backed off. Companies may stay profitable, but almost always they change their ways. What about Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon? When are they going to acknowledge the country that supported the means to acquire such enormous wealth? In the end, they too will need to explain why profit is more important than being responsible. Keep in mind that they are the most powerful companies (and valuable). When they change course, there won’t be many enterprises left that can act like being responsible is a mostly meaningless add-on to fool everyone and justify maintaining the status quo.

Perhaps customers don’t really care about clean water – tell that to folks in Michigan. Do they prefer money or healthy food? We see low-carb diets increasing and people demanding GMOs. Sales of fast food are down even though it is cheaper than “fast-fresh” restaurants. It’s hard to find high fructose corn syrup, and soda profits are decreasing. Customers are demanding more and slowly getting what they want.

Looking Forward

The good news for corporate leaders and future organizational leaders is that customers want you to bake responsibility into your organization and will reward you for it. They have seen the perils of a “profit-first” approach, potentially first hand when they lost their house in 2009 or when yet another company told them “too bad for you, what are you going to do about it?” You can even see the change in autocratic regimes like China where folks are finally fed up with pollution. They may not have the power to attack the political system, but they can demand cleaner air.

So, greenwashing your company won’t work. Nor will adding flowery words to the mission statement. If you want to please customers, you need to provide clear benefit and not sacrifice it when it becomes inconvenient. In a few years, it’ll be the only way to survive in this competitive business environment.

If you are building a new enterprise, take a chance and tell everyone that your goal is only to be profitable and provide high ROI to investors. Or take the safe route and demand that your organization considers its interaction with the environment, society, and individuals in everything it does.

References:

Photo Credit: Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling unit on fire 2010.jpg. 20 April 2010. US Coast Guard – 100421-G-XXXXL- Deepwater Horizon fire. 

Angel Funding: Harvesting (Part 7 of 7)

It’s never too early to start planning to sell the company. In fact, before even starting a company you need to visualize how this venture will end. After all, this is the outcome your angels and venture capitalists are waiting for. And they will have strong opinions about when you should sell.

When that time comes, you may be delighted that your company will be sold. However, you should consider the ramifications to your career. You may have invested most of your career in obtaining expertise in a single life science area. After you sell, what rights will you have to participate in this field? Will you continue to be able to expand your knowledge? Will you be able to utilize your expertise? These are essential components of any sales agreement, and it is important that you are comfortable with the outcome.

Regarding the actual sale of the company, typically there are multiple options for obtaining value from the company post-funding cycles. However, for life science companies there are typically very few options. Almost certainly you will seek a strategic sale to a pharmaceutical company. The capitalization requirements and complexity of marketing a novel pharmaceutical or device most rule out an IPO. And without that expertise, obtaining revenue to entice a walking harvest (ongoing payment based on sales) or partial sale are unlikely. Nor is a financial sale to non-life science company likely.

Further, few purchasers can obtain the full value of your vision. On the other hand, large life science corporations are counting on companies such as yours to identify new opportunities, so if the trials go well, you have a valuable product to sell. Of course, there is a chance that trials go poorly and the value of company plummets. Be prepared for the reality that the end result of your venture is Chapter 7, full dissolution of all assets. Not a pretty outcome, but highly likely in a life science venture.

To prepare for eventually selling your company, your goal is to find angels. More importantly, venture capitalists with expertise in this domain are a good end goal since the skills required to sell a company are likely far outside your skill set. Look to investors to obtain expertise and negotiate a favorable sale of the company. Regarding the value obtained, keep in mind that timing a sale is not an exact science. You are going to feel like you either waited too long to sell or have sold too early. You are not seeking the perfect solution, but a solution which meets your financial and developmental needs and goals. Good luck with your planning and good luck with your future venture.

Angel Funding: Sourcing (Part 1 of 7)

Medicine is a worthy venture that can help change the population outcomes immensely. But, what if your passion is not to practice medicine, but start up a company that can impact health outcomes? What if you want to research and then turn that research into life science business that sells pharmaceuticals and medical devices? What if you want to launch a health startup with health focus?

The possible ways of improving health by altering other components of our health care system are endless. With the rise of precision medicine there are a plethora of opportunities to provide value through new technology and implementations of technological solutions. If this is where your passions lie, then this series of seven blogs is for you!

The blog series will specifically focus on early stage angel funding for the life scientist or health-oriented entrepreneur and include the following topics:

  • Part 1 – Sourcing: Put your investment opportunity in a place where angels can find it.
  • Part 2 – Evaluating: Providing an opportunity that appeals to angel investors.
  • Part 3 – Valuing: Describing the value you will provide to the angel.
  • Part 4 – Structuring: Organizing an offer that appeals to the investor.
  • Part 5 – Negotiating: Working together to finalize an agreement that meets everyone’s needs.
  • Part 6 – Supporting: Gaining value from the angel beyond funding.
  • Part 7 – Harvesting: Providing ROI to the angel.

Part 1 – Sourcing Groups

The first priority is to make sure an angel can find you. Investors seek opportunity so you need to put your opportunity out there. Options include:

  1. A Local Angel Group: For a venture that is location-dependent or dependent on some unique aspect of the local community, this is a perfect match. For a life scientist, this is unlikely to be the case. So, the main value is convenient access to the angel as an adviser post-funding and the likelihood that they are more comfortable (and thus more likely to fund) someone close to them geographically.
  2. AngelList Syndicates and Internet Focused Angel Groups: Such angel groups take advantage of the Internet to establish and foster longer-distance relationships and are more logical for an Internet-based business. The point of contact will want to be involved, but they probably won’t be local. If your product startup is Internet-focused, they are likely to have more comfort with and expertise in products targeting Internet-based solutions and that use the Internet for digital marketing.
  3. Typical Means of Finding Single-Source Angel Funding: Examples include a convenient family member, friend, business associate, accountant, or lawyer. These are still an option so classic face-to-face networking and promoting in smaller groups and via Internet presence (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook) may yield results. But, as with most other aspects of society, the value of the Internet and the search engine are quickly eroding this means to find funding for your health-oriented venture.
  4. Health and Medical Focused Angels: The Internet can also direct you more quickly to an individual angel or angel group with a specific focus on the life sciences aware of your venture. Not only are they more interested in what you propose but they most certainly have the connections to grow your company and advice most relevant to your business opportunity. Examples include:
    • Individual Medical Devices Angel Investors via AngelList: Links to individual investors although AngelList has other investment opportunities for more passive investors.
    • AngelMD: A company focused on “building relationships that spur investment in the companies, innovations, and people charting the future of healthcare.” It is free to be listed on the network.
    • Angel Investment Network: The investors in the network look at all stages of business development in order to determine funding. They currently have 140,130 family and venture capital funds as well as private investors. The search engine for investors can easily identify health or medical opportunities.
    • Life Sciences Angel Network: From their website – “To help our portfolio companies succeed we need to provide them with funding but also with operational support and an access to a broad network of healthcare investors, key opinion leaders, corporate players and other entrepreneurs.”
    • Life Science Angels: From their site: “Life Science Angels is sponsored by several premier service organizations. Many offer our membership special services tailored to the life science industries and emerging and startup companies.” Their application process requires in-person presentation.
    • Mass Medical Angels (MA2): A self-described “seed stage investor group exclusively focused on life science and healthcare investments.”

Picture Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Nick Youngson

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