Q: What do you think are the most significant lessons you’ve learned about managing, and particularly managing change and adapting? And what do you think are some of the advances, if there have been any, in the art and science of management that really register for you?
Dan Vasella: I would say: number one, you never can do it alone. So you’re also dependent on many others. But at the same time, you should not be shy about standing for what you believe. And in the long term, one of the conclusions I have drawn is you may not please all the time. But the fact that people say, “What he says he really believes,” I think is very important. And I believe you have to be first of all very respectful of people and, I would say, the broader environment too. The respect means one needs to be also very direct and tough when appropriate, because it’s an expression of respect. And it’s often not done because people are afraid. They are afraid. It’s not that they want to be particularly nice or care so much about the feelings of the other. It’s much more that they are afraid to confront with the other realities and then the response of it.
So you have to be able to be very tough and very supportive, if supportive is needed. And you have to give others room. But that doesn’t mean you abdicate authority, because you have been entrusted with authority if you lead something and then you have to exert it. You can not do as if you would not be in charge.
And some people will tell you, “Don’t get involved in this,” or, “This is too detailed,” and I think that’s wrong. You should understand what you are managing and what you’re leading. You should know the key facts. And you should know the people and then know when you let them totally do [it] and you can go to bed, close both eyes, and sleep deeply and well, and you know things are being really done extremely well—and maybe better than you could do it. And when do you have to say, “No. This is not sounding right. It’s not smelling right. And here, I want to understand. And I go deep in detail.”
And I think these give a certain tension also in the organization because they don’t exactly know when is he going to go deep or not. And some people will say, “Well, that’s unpredictability.” And that’s very negative. You should be predictable. And if unpredictability is predicable, it’s also a kind of a pattern which people will know.
If you’re fair and fact based when you intervene, it’s not a problem, because it’s all something which you will elaborate then maybe debate—because, very often, there’s not one right answer but two or three, and you have to choose. And I enjoy choosing together, after having had a kind of a discussion.
Q: Are there tools that you have found that have made this easier than it was 10 or 15 years ago? Or is pretty much the same tough thing?
Dan Vasella: No. My evolution and learnings have been that, in the beginning, I have tried to read, listen, assimilate massively, and then really to practice, and over time to internalize certain things. And others you forget. And so with the approach we have taken, continuous learning is crucial. We have also, with Harvard Business School, regular seminars where the top team goes—I go too. I sit in on the bench and go through the course.
And the question is, when do you become idiosyncratic? How do you get new ideas? How to rejuvenate? And at the same time, it’s a fact of life that you get older. And you have young people. And they are again with more energy, more skills, different skills. Then you need to give them room, and you need to enjoy seeing others grow.
So I think what you do [at age] 40 is different than what you do with [at age] 50 or 60. And so the styles also evolve. You asked about new management techniques, and I would say I have rather the opposite reaction. I go back and I read more in Peter Drucker’s books than on the newest kind of monolithic theme, because what we have watched and observed—and I know you know this in and out—we regularly have one theme which is blown up to a book, a new paradigm. But, frankly, it is just one element which has been specifically well investigated and then, you know, exposed and sold, but it always has been present. So if you go back to the roots, I think you see that most has been said and written.
For the full interview, see -
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Governance/Leadership/McKinsey_conversations_with_global_leaders_Dan_Vasella_of_Novartis_2401
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