How to Focus on Effective Training and Development

Dr Joel Dobbs, Executive-In-Residence and Program Director for Pharmaceutical Management at the Stevens Institute of Technology, examines the challenges pharmaceutical companies face in regards to training and development of their staff and leaders.

As we look to address the issue of skills training in the pharma industry, probably the single biggest issue is time. Training and development take time and that is something that is in short supply everywhere. Many companies, including some of the largest in our industry, have had to make significant reductions in their workforce following patent expirations, product withdrawals, disappointing earnings and litigation concerns. This leaves more work for fewer people. The result is less time on the part of employees to devote to their own development through returning to school part-time or taking training courses. These added pressures can also divert management’s attention away from people development to more pressing and immediate matters. In doing so, one is sacrificing the important for the urgent.

As I talk with executives throughout the industry, the single biggest need, especially for those being groomed for positions of significant leadership, is a broad-based understanding of how the pharmaceutical industry really works. It is surprising how few people really have such an understanding. They may know their individual field quite well but have a very limited understanding of what happens elsewhere in their company.

The second is good analytical and decision-making skills. Successful leadership is first about influence and second about the ability to analyze a situation and arrive at a logical decision about what needs to be done.

A third area is leadership and ethical decision-making. A keen sense of self-awareness and a moral framework for decision-making are essential to good leadership. Can these be taught? I can’t teach someone to lead but I can teach them the principles of good leadership and I can use cases of great leaders to provide examples of what good leadership looks like. Likewise, I can’t teach someone to be ethical but I can teach them how to think ethically. Ultimately, success in both of these requires a combination of talent, desire, a willingness and ability to learn from successes and failures, and experience.

It is important to look at training and development differently. Training tends to be short-term and task or behavior-oriented. For example, training might involve learning specific procedures or regulations. This type of training may be conducted by internal training groups or by specialty training or consulting firms. I include team building exercises and some short-term (3-5 day) leadership training in this category as well.

Development has a longer-term more strategic or intentional focus. Organizations that are serious about career and leadership development may identify key employees for development and prepare individualized development plans for them. These, when done well, are tied to such things as succession planning. One of the best-known examples of this type of development is the system at GE popularized by Jack Welch and described in his book Straight From the Gut. Unfortunately, few companies really do this well. Universities and business schools come into play here as they are uniquely positioned to provide this kind of in-depth education.

One of the things we are known for at Stevens Institute is the on-site graduate programs that we hold on corporate campuses. We run graduate programs at several pharmaceutical companies in the northeast. These offer several advantages for both the host company and the student.

First, let’s look at the issue of time (or lack thereof) that we discussed earlier. Because the classes are held on the company site in the evenings just after work, students avoid the hassles and time of a commute to the university. The classes are usually held in a large conference room where they work.

Second, we have the ability to customize courses to specific needs and/or challenges a company may be facing or to integrate these courses into other development programs the company may have. We really have a lot of flexibility here.

Finally, because the audience of students are all from the same company, we can use actual business situations as cases or, more commonly, students may do final papers or research projects on actual business problems that they may be facing in their own department. This is quite common. Where necessary, our faculty may sign non-disclosure agreements if sensitive material is involved.

It is much easier to measure the value of training than it is development. The simple reason is because training tends to be short-term and task-oriented. If I can do something that I couldn’t do before, then that is valuable. If my training records reflect that I have been trained in the latest version of our SOPs then that has additional value should an FDA inspector show up and look at my training records.

Measuring the value of development requires a much longer-term view. This could be the subject of an entire article. Since we don’t have that much time, let me give you a simple but powerful example regarding management succession. When I lose a key manager to retirement or to a competitor, what do I have to do in order to replace them? If I have well-developed people internally and a well-thought out succession plan, I am in a position to promote from within – thus avoiding the disruption and expense associated with an outside search. Companies who develop their people and promote from within also have more satisfied employees, lower turnover and higher morale. That is valuable.