Don't be Right. Be Successful

How many times have you heard that the most crucial part of a start-up success is not the idea itself, but are both the people and how they are able to implement the idea to make it become a successful "product"...true (and if you haven't heard it yet, well that's how it is...). In the biotech world, where the complexity of the drug development process is so overwhelming, the capacity to take the right decisions is even more critical

...but what does this exactly mean?

I have spent the last two decades not only working both in biotech start-ups and big Pharma corporations, leading drug development teams and programs, but above all analyzing human interactions, communication, social and power equilibria, hidden motivations, decision making processes, individual perceptions, and can say for sure that most of the time projects and companies fail because people jeopardize their own chances of success, by actually BELIEVING they are acting in the benefit of the company and the stakeholders, while they are in fact doing the exact opposite. I am not talking here about plain incompetence, and not even about intentional, deliberate wrong-doing. I am talking about behavioural and human dynamics, assessment biases, and of course Ego. One of the biggest reasons I have identified that leads to failure is that actually people fall in the paradox to do the wrong thing BECAUSE they want to be perceived as competent, and are convinced to have the right answer...how this?

The mechanisms that can lead to such an outcome are multiple, complex and unique, so it is not possible to give general rules, and would come across as unprecise and confusing. Every specific system, composed by specific people and specific structural frames, needs to be analysed individually. This is one of the core skills of smartdrug, and I will make some of those specific mechanisms the object of my future blogs.

And yet, there is One cause I want to talk about today that I consider at the origin of most wrong decisions, and it is a very human aspect. I am talking about the Need to be considered capable, knowleadgeable, useful, right, and the convinction to be. This desire to be right is strictly related to, and in my opinion derives from, the Need to be appreciated, wanted and admired for what we can do well. And consequently, to be Successful. Paradoxically, such Need to be right, appreciated, and succesful, leads in many cases to doing the wrong thing. To keep on backing decisions that leads to Failure, because most people rather endorse a wrong decision than admitting they might themselves have been wrong in the first place, and correct the direction.

There is an even further element to such biased mechanism. Due to such Need to be right, and since each of us has individual and different skills and knowledge, it can in many cases originate the self-convinction that what we know and what we can do well HAS TO BE what is needed for the company/project/job...everything else would be a too hard Truth to accept. Too humiliating for our Ego. An unacceptable personal offence.

...but what if it wasn't? What if what we know, what we can, what we want to give and be admired for, is not what is needed in that specific contest for the success of that project, of that company?

Unthinkable.

In most cases, the Need to be considered competent, knowleageable, necessary, is stronger. The bias to know the right answer is stronger than the wish to be Successful at the end. Or better, we do not want to admit to ourselves and believe that there might be a contradiction between our own contribution and the desired, successful outcome. That our input might actually be counterproductive. What we know, what we can give HAS TO BE what is needed. There is no other option. The benefit of doubt does not cross our mind, because such an option would mean that we are not essential for the business, that we are not right, and this is an even harder Truth then the possibility to fail later on. And in order to impose our "Truth", in order to have our knowledge established as "what is needed", we rather take the wrong path. With desastrous outcome. We chose ourselves, our short-term reputation, our Ego, instead of the general, long term Good..and we fail to realize, that the second option would actually be better for us too, that the general, long term Good would after all be better for our reputation, and our pockets, too...

We jeopardize a succesful outcome because we do not want to believe, accept, conceive we are doing so.

There are various origins and causes to this behaviour, from education to personality, from society expectations to cultural imprinting, from unacceptance of being unperfect to perception of self and values.

There is no shame in not being Right, there is much more in doing the wrong thing in order not to have to admit not to be right.

It is hardly possible to distrupt such unhealthy mechanism from within a company. The interests at stakes are too high, the biases, the hidden Agendas, the lack of transparency prevent to find a solution to an hard-to-identify problem.

An external, not otherwise involved, diplomatic and unbiased Voice is essential to make it possible, to go back and chose the best direction. Someone whose interest does not lie in being Right, but in making you Successful.

Smartdrug, wants to help you recognizing such mechanisms and biases within your company, remove the obstacles that prevent you from taking the right action, and make sure you take it.

Clearly and objectively identify, analyze, explain, without personal conflicts and with high emotional intelligence.

Smartdrug mission is to fill the Gap between knowing the right strategy/behaviour/action/direction, and actually Act on it, do what it takes to make it happen.

What makes smartdrug offer unique, is that we use appareantly unrelated disciplines, such as the understanding of the humand mind and our scientific know-how, in order to grasp and explain complex interrelated systems. We are both subject matter experts in drug development, as well as human systems analysts: we understand psychology and untold motivations, but we also connect them with the specific content and technology requirements, we see how scientific and psychological biases interact and correlate, and can clearly define the consequences for your development plan and way forward. We not only see the Problem, we clearly define the consequences and can help you change the trajectory.

I will address and explain much more in detail the biases and the origins of unhealthy dynamics in my upcoming blogs. Some exemples can be: -the unverified personal conviction that your stakeholders of reference think in a certain way and expect a certain behaviour from you (even if it is not true) and the willingness to please them...ending up doing the wrong thing by believing it is what is required (but it is not...) -the belief that others see things the same way as you do (even if it is not true, and not double-checked), making you feel empowered in your wrong strategy and perspective (...others think like you afterall...), leading you to push for decisions in the wrong direction (...and than discover your stakeholders actually believed the opposite, but it is too late...) -the experience paradox: relying on someone's reputation and past successful experience failing to accept it is too narrow and not applying to the current problem...ending up chosing the wrong solution because the expert said so -hidden agendas and true motivations: when a person's endorsement for someone else's bad proposal originates by the wish to gain influence and power by being liked by the owner of the wrong idea. -when one person's desire of being right is strumentalized by others in order to self-protect and not being blamed for their own errors and fears.

Such mechanisms have an incredible cost, specially in an already extremely complex environment such as drug development, where a wrong decision has a very high probability to be fatal for the company at a later time point.

An external look and fearless voice at the right moment can make the all difference. Smartdrug value proposition does not only resides in entlarving such mechanisms, but in neutralizing them, in making their effect and consequences (wrong clinical design, misinterpretation of FDA requirements, exploding manufacturing costs...) very tangible thanks to our deep knowledge of the biotech and drug development world, and above all in making sure the necessary action is taken. Does this resonate with you?

Do you need specific, concrete case studies? Get in thouch with us! Stop being Right. Be Successful instead!