Archives for July 2020

At time of writing, over 611,000 people have died from the COVID-19 virus.   These are people who were not expecting to die and it is reasonable to assume that a fair percentage of them held senior positions managing the world’s business.

So you might logically move to another assumption, that the world’s Boards of Directors have been busy making sure their sucession planning for critical positions is up to date and implementable on short notice.

You would be wrong.

According to a new study co-authored by Spencer Stuart and Bain & Company, picked up by Hunt Scanlon, many Boards in turbulent times put leadership succession on hold, even when the subject was high on the agenda before the crisis hit.  Every crisis comes with something “more important”.

In the event of forced succession – i.e. the death or incapacity of the executive – lack of an up-to-date plan of succession makes a necessity more difficult than it needed to be.  However, it is the issue of leadership efficacy that will endanger an organization more when a Board puts a hold on its succession responsibilities.

“Although boards are reluctant to change leadership during times of crisis, postponing succession creates risks,” says the Spencer Stuart/Bain & Company report. “It can deprive companies of both the leadership needed to navigate a turbulent landscape and the ability to identify and pursue opportunities to win coming out of the crisis.”

The report found evidence that Boards are behaving in the COVID crisis as they have in previous recessions by concentrating on near-term decisions and management stability. In April and May of this year, CEO transitions fell worldwide compared with the same months in 2019, including by one-third in Europe and Asia.

But according to the report, instead of focusing merely on leadership continuity, Boards should be evaluating near-term needs and alignment for the future and be more willing to initiate change.

To obtain alignment around a new leader commonly takes a year, making those who get a head start be best positioned for the future.  Before going through such post-crisis change, Boards will prioritize core leadership characteristics such as courage, empathy, humility, learning agility, judgment and the ability to elicit the best ideas from diverse teams.

The report concludes by identifying four areas where CEOs should focus in order to successfully steer their companies through the crisis.

You can access the complete report here: Covid-19: Is Your Board Hitting the Brakes on CEO Succession?,

 

One of the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis has been an acceleration toward the digitalisation of doctor’s meetings. In China, Tencent announced last  March that the crisis has enabled them to multiply the number of registered patients by 1.6, with a total of 18 million customers in June.

At first sight, it looks like a short term burst during the crisis, but in fact, it runs deeper. Currently, hospitals in China are back to normal operations, but patients still hide away from big hospitals.

At the beginning of the epidemic, as in many countries, big Chinese hospitals were a factor in the dissemination of the virus. Patients switched massively to lower-tier hospitals and on-line consultations. Now they are reluctant to go back into the queues of big hospitals.

I recently moderated an event on the impact of COVID-19 on the doctor-patient relationship for the French Healthcare Community in China.  The focus was on Tencent, the social media conglomerate that is now bigger than Facebook which has launched new services in healthcare, now called “Q Health” in English.

450,000 doctors registered

Q Health has become the biggest e-hospital integrated platform in China, with 450,000 doctors registered! It goes far beyond telemedicine.  It has moved the whole hospital eco-system onto the internet, including selecting and booking the best doctors, meeting doctors (starting from the first consultation, not the second one), and the delivery of pharmaceutical and medtech products directly through the e-commerce arm of the platform.

There are also improvements for the brick & mortar infrastructure. Diagnostics has, of course, to be done on-site: the platform enables the reduction of the minimum time of waiting and directs patients to the labs or clinic that is less used or nearest to their home. There are almost 300 registered smart hospitals and clinics in the country.

Before the epidemic, China was already one of the global leaders in healthcare digitalisation. The entry of telemedicine has been relatively smoother in China than in the US or EU.  Some say it is because Chinese doctors prefer to “play computer games”. Maybe. But I see a more important and simple rationale.

Twice as many patients per day

In the West, the market is well established. In China, it is not. Most doctors see double the number of patients per day than their counterparts in the West. Consultations take on average a few minutes per patient (vs 10-20 minutes in the West). So digitalisation is not seen as a threat to their way of work, but as a way to reduce the burden of the number.

In China, healthcare is undersupplied and a public service. It is frequent, even in big cities to see several doctors consulting together in the same room, without a private room for their patients. The latest data from the National Health Commission shows that 72% of beds are still supplied by state entities.

Beyond the deployment and the statistics, digitalisation is triggering profound changes in the mindsets of doctors. They start to see their patients as “their assets” and no more see their obligation being to “serve the masses”. We are far from private medicine as seen in the West, but awareness is beginning.

Quality reports on doctors

Entry into the digital era also enables the implementation of quality control in the consultation process. When they collaborate with internet platforms, doctors are paid a little bit more and are thus ready to walk the extra mile and be subject to reports by patients, which they would refuse in the normal context of public hospitals in China.

On the business side, we see the same acceleration of digitalisation. Wechat — a kind of integrated Whatsapp, Facebook & Paypal, but more powerful — is now compulsory for any company working seriously in China. A few years ago, the headquarters of international companies were flagging Wechat as unnecessary and dangerous because it was outside of corporate policy. Now it is the reverse. It is the common denominator for the 500 most successful companies in China.

But Wechat alone is not enough and also needs a customer relationship management (CRM) that can communicate with other channels. Life sciences companies are reducing the number of medical representatives and increasing multi-channel marketing. The sales process requires strong sales force effectiveness (SFE) mechanisms.

Some companies are also adding a compliance module to their digital systems to put their sales teams under control.  The key success factor then becomes the capacity to integrate these different modules in an operational system such as those created by Euris, a global solutions provider for healthcare data storage and management which is helping the healthcare industry to transform its approaches and processes in China.

Government pushes development

The Chinese government has played a key role in embracing and accompanying the development of the phenomenon. The first key guideline on actively promoting e-health was adopted in 2015. Medical data entered into official vocabulary in the following year. In 2017, telemedicine and smart hospitals were officially defined.

More needs to be done in terms of regulations, but the authorities let the companies develop new concepts and approaches and will regulate progressively at a later stage. This is why, from a Western point of view, we see some compliance issues. Will prescription be only the result of the doctor’s choice? Or will it be influenced by commercial practices?

Proper regulations and time will be needed to improve the process and the interaction between the platforms, the doctors and the patients.  For the time being, we can see a significant improvement in the balance between supply and demand of healthcare services that benefits the Chinese middle class.

(This article first appeared in the publication PharmaBoardroom)

The acronym VUCA was introduced by Harvard Business Review in early 2014. It describes an environment of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. Covid-19 has made this a recognized concept around the globe and an essential consideration in the recruiting process.

People who thrive in this atmosphere have strengths that differ from successful leaders in “the old normal.” Identifying and measuring these characteristics as part of the hiring process significantly increases the candidate’s probability of success.

Here are the three key characteristics successful leaders must have today and in the future:

Adaptability. Able to understand the situation and choose the appropriate steps to take. Able to accommodate whatever new comes up. Accepting new information and easily changing course, being sensitive to the current situation while embracing the potential.

Innovation. Curious and inquisitive, wanting to learn, challenging the status-quo, delivering new approaches, products and solutions. Creative, looking beyond the obvious to see opportunities and potential. Enjoying change and trying new things.

Empathy. Considering people. Understanding another’s point of view and the thinking behind it. Effectively dealing with a variety of people. Communicating effectively and collaborating by working across functional, geographical and cultural areas.

People with these characteristics are successful in an environment of change, where speed and service is at the forefront. There are other important characteristics that indicate how an individual gets things done, which also impacts how well they will fit into the organization, but these three are the foundation for success in today’s environment.

Recruiting for a leadership role without knowing if the candidates have these characteristics makes the entire process unpredictable. It is possible that the “right” person will be selected, but that may depend on good fortune, not process. Key hires, as well as important promotions, should not hinge on chance.

There are assessments available that will identify and measure these characteristics, and programs that can help individuals strengthen these, if they are lacking. Taking advantage of these tools leads to a more robust recruiting process, and a higher probability of long-term success. The stakes are high. Why risk the potential for failure when you can use tools to support your decision? Understanding candidates better is even more important when much of the recruiting process is virtual.

These tools are an integral part of our recruiting process: we have been using them for years to help our clients reduce hiring risk. They are also available to organizations who want a more robust evaluation of candidates as they do their own recruiting. We work with these organizations to define what is most important in the role, and then provide insight into their candidates. Should we talk about how we can help you ensure the best hiring decisions in these challenging times?