[0:00] Welcome to another episode of Extraordinary Leadership Podcast.
[0:04] Have you ever wondered why some organizations are growing successfully and thriving, and why some leaders are really great in creating this environment where everybody contributes, collaborates, and performs? Well, if that is your question, that we are going to dive into these topics today and specifically talk about culture and how to build a thriving culture in an organization. And, of course, the role of leadership and how to support leaders into driving that changes, cultural changes and developing organizations. And for that special conversation, I brought today a person that I know personally and I value a lot and respect and who brings a lot of credibility and a lot of experience in that topic. Jerry Pico, who is joining us today from Munich, who is a seasoned HR leader and has accompanied many companies in organizational, cultural, leadership development.
[1:13] So without further ado, I want to say hello to Jerry and thank you very much for joining me today in this conversation.
[1:21] Thank you, Dagmara. I'm really excited to be here. I know you and I have talked about this for a while. And you and I, as you said, we've been friends and we've known each other for a while. So I'm really honored to be a guest on your podcast. Thank you very much. And Jerry, let's start with this question, which comes from, I believe, Peter Drucker, right? Who says that culture is strategy for breakfast and why would you say that's so important for organizations so yeah i kind of disagree with that so i'm going to be contrarian here and actually my my take on that is is um culture and strategy go to lunch together the reason is is that culture is important but without having a strategy culture doesn't go anywhere okay culture needs to be focused and directed in a certain direction.
[2:10] Otherwise, I mean, it can grow organically, but it may not support a strategy. So I think it's really important to have both and to have both aligned. So just to give you an example, when I began working on the culture transformation that I'm currently supporting at Daichi Sankyo, it was basically transformation was initiated created by our CEO in order to support our business strategy. So what he saw is that for our business strategy to be successful, we needed to change our culture.
[2:46] And as I said, the two go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other successful organization.
[2:53] Yeah, I think I really like this perspective because, yes, of course, culture supports the dynamic and the way we do the things. It needs to support the direction, the strategic direction of the business. So, so well said. And what would you say defines successful culture? If there's probably not one definition, but from your experience in your own words, what are the typical traits, the typical characteristics of really successful cultures, thriving cultures? Well, you know, the thing that I'm looking at, so we're about the fourth year into our culture transformation at Daiichi Sankyo. And I've led or co-led several culture transformations in different organizations, but this is by far the most successful. And there are several factors that I attribute that to. And I think one of the things that we're looking at is how do we measure the success of the transformation?
[3:46] And how do we know we have the culture that we want? How do we know that we have a healthy culture? And the way that I'm looking at that is, or the metrics that we're using is, number one, we're using our scores on our global engagement survey. So employee engagement is really a key metric. However, engagement is great, but unless you're having success in the business, it means people are happy, but the business isn't effective. So what's really nice about the culture transformation, as I said, that we're going through, we're in about the fourth year, and we started the culture transformation at the beginning of the pandemic. We had 14,000 employees. We remain profitable. We've completed two alliances with big pharma companies, AstraZeneca and Merck, and our engagement score has gone up two points each year, and we've grown to become 18,000 employees. So.
[4:40] And not only that, I think that the thing that and I can't really talk about this, but the products, the medical products that we're launching are very effective, which I think is is really important because, you know, our mission and our purpose is to improve the quality of life and to promote sustainability in the planet, which is really different that I find than a lot of Western companies.
[5:04] To close that out and sum that up for you. It's about having engaged employees and it's about being successful in the business that you want to be in. Beautiful. Like the two magic key factors. And first of all, congratulations on successful transformation, as you mentioned, and business results as well. And what would you say beneath this engagement and business results and culture? I put it all together now. What were the recent key ingredients of success, actually, in steering that engagement and cultural transformation? I think what's really key, and you kind of talked a little bit about this in your intro, is number one is leadership. You know, what I think makes or breaks a cultural transformation is whether or not leaders live it.
[5:59] And how do leaders know that they live it? Is through feedback and you know going deeper into your intro and in the work that you do i firmly believe that most core leadership competency is self-awareness and and i think that that's what really makes an effective leader because you have all these qualities of leadership and they vary from organization to organization and person to person but the question is how do you know someone is actually authentically living these qualities and the only way you know that is through feedback. And through self-awareness so to pull that all together you need to have self-aware leaders who are willing to put the culture and what matters the values the behaviors before their egos.
[6:46] And to be able to model that and to communicate that and one of the things we did early on when we started culture transformation is we schooled we we trained our leaders in storytelling and we We also made sure they really understood what the culture was so that people would understand what is the culture that we're looking to achieve and how we're demonstrating how they're living it. So I think that's really, really important. So you need to have basically self-aware leaders who aren't so driven by ego and really want the culture and the company to succeed. And for us, it's really important because our mission is about our patient's life. And, you know, I've worked across industries, and this is the first time I've worked in pharma. And I have to say, it's a very different culture because of what we do. So I think that there's a lot of factors. The other thing that's really important, so that's at the top, is I also think that bringing in the employees by having it be bottom-up and top-down and engaging them in different ways. So we have many programs that we do to engage the employees. We have a cadre of cultural leaders who work with the leaders to engage the employees. So I think it really needs to be a top-down, bottom-up, and it has to be led by role models.
[8:06] Hmm. So many interesting points you mentioned. It rings a bell a little bit because, well, I also work in a Japanese organization. So this bottom-up, top-down is so known to me as Taichi Sankyo is, right? I've got here in Japan. And what I picked up from what you're sharing is I think that the first thing is this alignment, right? This common and shared vision and purpose. Of course, the mission of the organization that you are in is, well, purpose and mission driven. So it's very inspirational already. And I believe that every organization that goes into that direction can define their own purpose and mission in its own way. It's one of the factors that actually keeps people engaged, motivated, and also stick together.
[8:50] And amazing that you have put efforts into bringing storytellings and effective communication by that, how to actually inspire, I guess, and transmit that values and purpose and direction, I guess, from this culture to the employees. So kudos for this progressive initiative in the business to train leaders, you know, on storytelling. And I think the second key words, obviously, that you landed for potentially longer and deeper dive is the self-awareness that you mentioned. So let's unpack that self-awareness and what, Jerry, what are the elements that really help leaders or what are the levels of the self-awareness that leaders could focus on in order to be more impactful and build a lead in alignment with that purpose, vision and direction and transpire to culture?
[9:44] It's interesting because one of the first things I did when I came to DHU when I was in my former role, just the head of leadership learning and talent for Europe, is we developed a, actually we co-developed a leadership development program with our executive team. So instead of, you know, one of the things about HR, I think it's really important, is, and this is, I had a senior executive at a company I worked for, a very index 30 company. And he told me, like I was going to speak at a conference, and he's like, would you please tell these HR people not to go and design programs for us without asking us if we want them and if we have the capacity to implement them? And, you know, so I think it's really important for human resources to partner with business to understand what they need and let them kind of participate in their own development. And so what we did is we actually let our executives with a bit of, we gave them some choices and some information and they decided what they wanted to work on. And one of the first things they wanted to work on was self-awareness and mindfulness. So we put them through a program.
[10:53] Which was a somewhat meditation, but more around mindfulness. And then the second part of the program was we actually put them through a coaching program. There's different levels of coaching programs, but we worked with the Center for Creative Leadership, and they actually went through a program where they had to become certified coaches, which was really unique. So I think, you know, developing those coaching skills and being a manager or a leader who knows how to coach is really, really important. And then once again, being self-aware and we use 360s. I think 360s aren't the only tool you can use, but I think they're good because, you know, multi-rater feedback gives people information from different sources.
[11:37] And, you know, when you're interpreting that, you need to look for themes and see what's really important and what, how people, these leaders are impacting people. And I think that's the biggest thing about self-awareness is, you being aware of how your words and your actions impact other people. And one other thing I wanted to say is that we're looking to build a culture of psychological safety where people are not afraid to fail.
[12:03] So I was in Tokyo, I just told you, two weeks ago. And what I was doing there is we had a two-day meeting for our executive management team. And I kicked off the meeting with a two-hour facilitation around psychological safety. And what we talked about was active listening and asking powerful questions.
[12:25] And I demonstrated that with the COO. And it was really nice because his vulnerability allowed the entire group to relax and created an environment of psychological safety. And they had two days of very productive conversations where they could talk about very sensitive issues. So I think, you know, like I said, having engaged leaders who are self-aware and authentic and, you know, are willing to put their egos aside really helps create an environment of psychological safety where people can learn, grow, take risks and make mistakes and the company can thrive.
[13:02] Yeah, I absolutely love, you know, the way you pilot that cultural change and alignment, I would say, within our organization to that vision, values and direction by engaging, by making it proactive, right? Not imposing even. And it's already, you know, asking these questions, what do you need? It's already a first very gentle way of self-awareness and growth initiatives that are triggered. So it's kind of nicely paving a way for engagement and for standing behind that growth. Because, yes, how many programs we have in organizations, especially large size, that people just go to the box. And definitely, as you mentioned at the beginning, we don't want it for leaders who are role models and walking the talk of that culture and that cultural change. And you know, I was wondering when you were mentioning about this self-awareness and coaching, how do you think about this self-awareness and coaching?
[13:54] What did you notice started to shift with those different initiatives that support both? So embracing actually listening actively, asking perfect questions and managing most likely emotions in the moment is part of a coaching mindset and skill set, right? It's interesting because economists say there's things called positive externalities. So consequences you didn't intend but come and that are good. And what was interesting about when we went through the the coaching program uh with the executive and and this has happened in other parts too and what we were talking about when i was in tokyo last week is that one thing that you and i both know and is actually pretty well documented is that the higher you go in an organization the more difficult it is to get good feedback. And the more difficult it will be because of politics or whatever to have people you can trust and you can talk to about your business's issues and challenges.
[14:56] And what was interesting is that when we did the mindfulness training, we did it during COVID. So most of it was done virtually. It was interesting because a lot of the managers didn't think that they could have difficult conversations or connect with their employees in a virtual way. But what happened is they had peer groups of three and four peers where they went and they practiced coaching with each other and they had conversations with each other. And the feedback that I got is they had no idea that they could get that close and build that kind of a trusting relationship in a virtual environment so quickly.
[15:32] And and what happened was is they they had these cohorts and originally we were going to rotate the cohorts but then we decided with the facilitators not to because they had built such a trusting little team that they wanted to keep it and matter of fact they kept it after after the program and then back to the just for another example one of the things that i talked about when i was in tokyo last week is that i emphasized the fact that you know at the level these people are at, our executives, it's very difficult to find people you can trust and people with whom you can share your business issues. And like most businesses, we still have challenges around silos. And, you know, we have our function leaders, our business unit leaders, and, but, you know, they came together. And as mentioned, after, you know, we did the role play with the chief operating officer, the exercise that we had after that is we broke them up into groups and And each one of them had to bring a business challenge.
[16:32] To the rest of the group. And they could bring the business challenge and the members of the group could only ask questions. They could not offer advice. And the person who was presenting the business challenge could only answer the questions, couldn't defend themselves, couldn't make excuses. They could just answer the questions. So it was truly about active listening and asking powerful questions. And, you know, I think during that process, what I observed is people built
[17:01] trusting relationships that they hadn't had previously. So I think those are the things that happen when you start to develop these practices in an organization, particularly at senior levels. Yeah, and I can break on that from personal experiences because I was that leader that went through a coaching education, as you mentioned, and I could see before and after how much it makes a difference in how you build trust, how you empower people, how you even show up in a conversation and that leads to a deeper connection or building relationships. When you embrace coaching mindset and way of being and way of thinking and approach, it's by itself fostering this beautiful psychological safety, you mentioned, and trust in the relationship. And that is such a foundation in every business.
[17:46] Yeah, interesting also experiences that virtually we can break barriers. And I almost forget about it because, you know, most of the time I coach virtually. And indeed, some of the people that are first like, okay, does that work? You know, does it work to have this kind of, you know, deeper type of conversation? So a strategic thing, whatever it is, virtually, and very quickly, of course, they find out it does and does very, very well. And this is where, obviously, in global organizations, like you have Cutwater in Japan, you're based in Europe. I mean, we are operating all the time in a virtual space and how much trust and connection we can build through, as you mentioned, self-awareness and embracing coaching, which is so much fueling that. So thank you for sharing that, actually. And, you know, I was curious to hear what were the barriers? What were the challenges initially? Probably there were some, right? When introducing those initiatives, even driven by their needs, were there any obstacles or challenges in order to start this movement and start this direction of, you know, emphasizing this type of development in the organization and among executives?
[18:51] Yeah you know it's interesting because i think what what one of the things that they asked in the beginning was you know have you done this before does this work is it proven and i i told them i've done it in different ways but i haven't done it in this exact way but based upon my experience i knew that it would work in this environment and that they had to trust me and the thing was is you know what i explained to them is that you hired me because i'm an expert And this is where I'm an expert and you need to learn to give me that power to lead you in your development. And then what I did was, you know, I shared that power back with them. And, you know, and I said, OK, this is what I would recommend. And what I want you to do is, is, you know, I want you to talk about it and come back to me and tell me what you want to do.
[19:37] And what was what was really interesting, I remember we had a day and a half workshop for them to design or we were going to co-design their leadership development program. And you know we went through the first day they determined the areas they wanted to develop and i said the second day is like okay so now this is i think the way we need to do it and then basically what they told me is jerry you said we could design this this program and now you're telling us what to do so can you please go out and leave the room for a while and let us design the program and i was like sure this is great and you know they took complete ownership of i mean And they had parameters, but they took complete ownership and they did an awesome job. And part of the thing was, too, is that I engaged them to design part of the curriculum and to choose the vendors we worked with so that they really felt like they had control and ownership over their own development and support. Well, it's a fantastic co-creation process.
[20:33] And it was actually it was actually the first time I had done this in a development program with total co-creation. And it was a real success. Yeah, I can totally see this involvement, engagement, buy-in, which you don't need to convince people and explain how it works, but you can let them shape it together. And especially in such an intercultural context as well. So what are those challenges that you encounter, of course, being in international and intercultural environment? Did you notice differences between different cultures and how they embrace that? Absolutely. It's something we all encounter every day, and particularly the Japanese culture is very strong. And the first time I went to Japan, I went for three weeks and, you know, engaged with my colleagues. I, you know, worked very hard to build relationships. And, you know, now I go two or three times a year. And, you know, I really enjoy those relationships. But being there, you can do a lot virtually, but being there face to face really made a difference. And, you know, it allowed me and them to build a trusting relationship and also
[21:39] with my colleagues in the U.S. So, you know, we have three main regions. It's Japan, the U.S., and Europe.
[21:46] And it's interesting. Part of what we did is, you know, we've used a lot of academic research in the course of our culture transformation. So we've used Carol Dweck's work on growth and fixed mindset. We use Erin Meyer's model that she developed in the culture map, which is extremely helpful when you're dealing with cross-cultural. I mean, there's a couple of models. There's Hofstetter, but I really prefer culture map and Erin Meyer's model because she does a really great job of helping people to understand the cultural context of where people are coming from, from a variety of different cultures. And she bases a lot on shared context. And the Japanese have a lot of shared context in their culture, which means that sometimes what isn't said is more important than what is said. And then on the other end, you have Americans who have very little shared cultural context. And, you know, we were always told growing up, you need to spell everything out. You need to, you know, and the training is you tell people what you're going to train. You train them and then you tell them what you train them on, that kind of thing. And, you know, so kind of in Europe is someplace in the middle and also very mixed. So, you know, mitigating across those cultures is is really challenging. But for me, and I know for you as well, it's very engaging to kind of think that the thing is, is one of the things that you and I both share. And we talked about this earlier is, you know, a healthy sense of curiosity.
[23:13] And, you know, when when you're curious and this is something I talked about in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago, is that, you know, when you're mindful and you're curious and you're empathetic. These are the qualities that, allow you to want to learn about other people in other cultures. And, you know, if you can maintain that sense of curiosity and openness and empathy, then you can really learn to engage with different people in different cultures without being judgmental. Because I think that's the big thing that gets in the way. The other thing I think that is challenging is, and it's not so much cultural, but it is a challenge, is silos.
[23:52] So, you know, one of the things that we realized We did a deep dive diagnostic when we started our culture transformation. And it wasn't only regional differences, but there were a lot of differences between our functions. Learning to collaborate better, learning to trust more. So this is part of our cultural evolution that we're going through. I love cultural evolution. And again, I think three things that, you know, when you were sharing three kind of buckets of exploration that shows up. One is I can totally resonate with this high and low context culture and challenges having been for 13 years in a Japanese organization with a global footprint and so Swedish and French. So having a comparison to how, you know, obviously European flair versus Japanese flair. And yes, there are a lot of differences. And I think, as you mentioned, curiosity, empathy, openness is such a fundamental in building relationships and trust. And also this point where you were mentioning that immediately connected with you know even the inner work and coaching mindset again because curiosity is basically a focus right so we can kind of choose to be curious or choose not to be curious and that is already driving where the conversation goes we can set that intention and how we can train our mind and train our focus to be curious and always look for something that is new maybe in that conversation instead of being judgmental and I know that.
[25:14] This shift versus, you know, I need to convince someone, I can be curious about their behaviors and so on, has been a really fundamental shift to some of my clients as well. And I could see, like I mentioned before, how that fostered psychological safety, trust, relationships, and, well, helping people to grow.
[25:33] And the second thing, when you mentioned the keyword empathy, empathy and compassion, openness, I mean, they are all, of course, not the same, but in the same range. And this is such an important in leaders nowadays and in obviously creating those thriving cultures, I call it, and succeeding in business. And again, here, I think there is a direct link with the inner work and rewiring ourselves as well from limiting beliefs and some conditioned autopilot reactions. I think really what it comes down to is mindfulness and, you know, learning to be present, which, you know, I can say personally as, you know, as a parent, especially, is really challenging.
[26:20] And, you know, and I think, you know, part of that is, you know, also getting back to the Stephen Covey saying, which I love, is that, you know, people don't listen to understand, they listen to respond. And, you know, the challenges there is that people just aren't listening. And people can tell when people aren't listening. And, you know, it doesn't matter what words you use. What matters is, you know, what your expressions are, what the tone of voice is. And, you know, this is really where mindfulness comes in. And, you know, being able to look at someone while you're having a conversation with them and getting a sense of how you're impacting them. You know, you can see if, you know, you're boring them, if you're making them angry, if you're making them feel insecure, or if you're making them feel psychologically safe and relaxed and comfortable, if you're paying attention. Otherwise, you know, you could just be going off as particularly as a leader, you know, on whatever you think is an important idea at the time and not paying attention to whether people are really able to take that on.
[27:22] Absolutely. So it's this combination between intention and impact and what kind of impact I want to make, what kind of leader I want to be, what kind of legacy I want to leave, all those kind of exploratory questions, which is at the end resulting in an intention of how you want to show up. The second is, yeah, I would say embodying that identity. I usually refer to identity because it's this identity shift. It's not only a mindset work, it's really stepping into that. And totally agree with the presence and with the mindset. And that's also where our ability to quiet the mind and understand that this inner dialogue showing up while we're conversating with people and how to not get into this trap so that we can be, as you say, present, which is a premise, of course, of coaching conversations, but in any effective communication and obviously conscious. So, yes, I love the exploration of the different angles and different depths we go. And you mentioned one other thing before, which is silos, which is obviously in driving culture changes and, of course, organizational development, growing the business. It's essential. And you mentioned about this different level. So what helped you to...
[28:38] Align more those different and break through the silos, I would say?
[28:41] What I would say is that's a work in progress. And, you know, we're still sorting that out. But I think there's two things. One thing is the infrastructure. So this is something that we're working on now. So we've worked on developing the culture, but now we're building out the infrastructure. So basically the people practices, the technology infrastructure. So, you know, we you know, when we would talk to people from the U.S. Or from Japan, you know, on teams or something, it would say external because we have all different systems. We have different HRIS systems. We have different IT systems. So, you know, we're aligning all of that now. And part of that alignment. OK. And, you know, this is something that I think is very, very important. It's probably not very intrinsic. It's more extrinsic as far as motivation, but aligning incentives and rewards. If you incentivize a business leader to maximize the effectiveness of his or her business unit to focus on.
[29:41] Okay, if you incentivize her to maximize the effectiveness of their business unit and business units in the company and the company as a whole, and you create a balanced incentive there, then they know that it's not just about the incentive itself, but it's about the mindset. It's not just about your business okay it's about the whole company and that one part of the business doesn't doesn't really thrive without another part of the business so i think aligning the incentives which we're in the process of doing to allow people or enable people to still be able to achieve their goals because that becomes part of their goals as opposed to having the goal itself be siloed so and the other thing that goes along with that is the incentives where people are incentivized based upon multivariator feedback.
[30:34] OK, so, you know, it's like it's not only are you effective in achieving your goals, it's it's how are you doing it in a way that's consistent with our values, with our behaviors and what we want to achieve culturally. And if you are, then you'll be rewarded. And if you're not, you won't.
[30:50] So I think that's really important. And then, like I said, just continuing to have our leaders give I mean, leaders at the very, very top give our executives that message. This is what we need to do. We need to collaborate. Don't focus only on your business, but focus on our whole business and achieving our purpose and mission. Yeah, I love a couple of those things you mentioned. And of course, that starts first with the mindset again. We think ourselves as we and not I. And it is actually kind of a DNA in a Japanese culture. And also a lot of European cultures. American culture is very individualistic. True. There is, however, a difference between the level and degree of this we between Japanese and European, I found in my experience.
[31:36] I love that you actually mentioned about this collective incentives and performance indicators. This is what I remember also from my experience back then in Japanese or European culture, especially focused on how do we achieve results has been so much different. So in order to kind of transpire the culture and values of an organization, one of the organizations I've been in is exactly like yours, put it in the performance evaluation and incentives, which is, I would say, smart way into, you know, supporting way, apart from, of course, leadership development and role modeling from leaders and all of that. But in motivating everybody and being very transparent as well of what is important to us versus some other organizations who were lacking this how do we do that, focusing only on results, doesn't matter how, which obviously resulted in not aligned and, you know, psychologically safe culture. But I think it's just not, you know, when you have people who are just focused on results, that creates a toxic culture. And, you know, it works for a short period until whoever the leaders are get their bonus and leave the company. And then, you know, you're left with a bit of a mess. You need to look at what's sustainable in a culture.
[32:50] And I think that's also one of the things that, you know, our company, in particular Japanese companies, look at have a much more holistic and long-term view of what achievement and results need to be than just over the border. But that's not important, but it's not the key driver.
[33:07] Yes, I can totally agree.
[33:09] Resonate with that experiences and it's from different lenses. It's like a lot of companies are stuck in a certain consciousness level. It's a certain way of beliefs that in order to drive performance, it's just about working hard, pushing hard and all of that, which is actually a limitation. That's why we have mental health issues, burnout issues. We only prioritize that and we need to evolve. You mentioned the keyword evolution. I love it because it's about a human evolution as well as about a consciousness evolution towards more purpose-driven organizations, values and collaboration-driven organizations where actually, and growth-driven organizations, because where we obviously embrace coaching culture and mindset, we help others to thrive and unleash their potential. So that is far more successful in the longer term and sustainable, as you mentioned, that just focusing on pure, I would say, shorter term delivery and performance that so many organizations still focus on. So, Jerry, we have gone on a journey, I have a feeling, from so many different angles about, you know, what is culture, what is key ingredients in successful cultural transformation. I love very much the examples you mentioned about, you know, inclusively involving leadership into designing it as well as bottom up. What would you like to leave the listeners with? There's a lot of theories about culture. You know, do they develop organically? Can they be changed?
[34:35] And, you know, I'd say the one thing is, is that if you want to change a culture, you need to have a clear direction of where you want to go. Be clear about where you want to go. What's the purpose? Once again, it has to support the business strategy. And, you know, you don't just change the culture because it feels good, because that's also not sustainable because you need to have, you also need to have financial success to run a business and to serve your clients. So, you know, what is it that you want the culture and then what are the values and behaviors that you need to achieve this culture? And then, you know, once again, having the leaders to role model what it is these behaviors and values look like in practice and, you know, to openly talk about it and to create an environment where their employees can talk to them. And you need that for it to have communication throughout the organization. And so, you know, this is how you build a strong culture. The other thing is, is that changing a culture takes a lot of time and patience and it's a lot of work. It's really important to have a clear vision and clear leadership about what it is, because otherwise you can get lost along the way. And I've seen that. It's funny. I was talking with some people at a place where I used to work, where they did a culture transformation 10 years ago. And now they need to do a new culture transformation because the old one didn't really work. And I think it's, you know, partially because people didn't live it. They didn't stick with it. You know, it was kind of words on a wall.
[36:02] And, you know, we all don't really impress people. It's what people's behaviors, what leaders' behaviors are. And, you know, peers, colleagues, you know, how do they treat each other? You know, one of our core behaviors that we developed for the culture transformation is to be inclusive and embrace diversity. Another one is to collaborate and trust. So these are the things that we really wanted to develop. And then the other one is to develop and grow. So these are our three core behaviors. And, you know, this is creating and it's not specifically about,
[36:37] you know, doing some business function. It's about how we grow as humans. It's about how we develop our culture. Can we be inclusive? Can we learn and grow and develop? Can we create and trust?
[36:48] And, you know, these are the things that in a holistic way are helping us to build our culture. So I would say, you know, there's a lot of factors there. But the most important is to have direction, have leadership that's actually leading it. I mean, the thing about our culture transformation is it's not an HR initiative. It's a business initiative led by our CEO and modeled by our CEO and the executive team. So this is and this is a huge difference because I think for HR to take leadership of a culture transformation is a mistake. I think business needs to lead it and HR needs to support and enable it. You know, you can really get into fatigue, change fatigue after three to four years. And, you know, you really need to understand that it's an ongoing, as you said, or as I said, evolution until you, you know, the thing is, is does it ever really end? Or is it an ongoing journey, you know, where you keep evolving? I think it's more the second because the growth never ends. And, you know, thinking about our listeners who can be executives and senior leaders from small or big organizations, some maybe HR leaders, I'm just thinking one key takeaway is that, what you mentioned at the beginning, that whenever we talk about culture first, let's think about where do we need to go? What's the direction? And...
[38:10] Coupling that strategy, direction, strategy and culture is essential because it's literally the culture is like the backbone, I would say, of fuel, enabler, in other words, of implementation, execution of that strategy and direction. So one and one goes in hand. And it's important thing to look at whenever either you want to change something in your organization or elevate organization to the next level or even your team. So that's kind of a three essential beginning focus points, I think, for every leader. Obviously, when you talk about a larger context of a whole organization, bringing and aligning stakeholders, number two. And of course, HR is a business partner for that. Facilitating rather than leading, which I really much like. And I think the third very important is that you need to role model this behavior. This is, I think, several times mentioned in this episode. And it's a very important message, I think. It's not only saying where you want to go, but being it.
[39:07] It's like be the change you want to see from Gandhi always wants, right? So that essentially is about taking ownership for your growth, for your development as a leader that can only role model and inspire others to do the same. Thank you very much, Jerry, for being here, for sharing with us the successful journey of the organization that you're in and how greatly you were leading that together with other stakeholders and how that beautifully evolves.
[39:35] It's a once again you know i'm kind of in a lead role but it's a team and you know we're we're so it's not just me there's a lot of people who are working very closely with me um one of the thought came to me as we were closing as well uh doug mara is that you know and when you talk about cultural evolution the the thing to understand is is that we don't live in an in a static environment okay and as we have seen particularly in the last four to five years you know we are affected every day by events that occur around the world and you know and as individuals as leaders as teams as businesses we need to continually adapt in order to thrive and just very quickly going back to one of the statistics i use in one of my linkedin learning courses you know i think it in i think 50% of the S&P 500 companies over the last 20 years are no longer there. So it doesn't matter how big a company is. I mean, there's many, many examples of there's nobody that's too big to fail. If you don't adapt, if you don't have a culture that thrives and learns, then eventually you will become extinct as an organization. So I think it's why I think culture is really, really important and it needs to be aligned with strategy.
[40:53] Yes. And that is why also it connects beautifully with the inner work and with the coaching mindset, because that's part of this evolution. And thank you for mentioning, because indeed you have two LinkedIn learning courses, right, available for people. So one of them is about, can you remind us, one is about organizational change. Can you talk a little bit about them? Two of them, right?
[41:15] Creating a culture of change. So, and, you know, it's funny because that's about, the course is about six years old. And it's been translated into 11 languages and it's been watched over 300,000 times.
[41:31] And it's interesting because, you know, what I talk about in the courses is that not only for organizations, but individuals is that, you know, if you learn to embrace change and thrive with it, as opposed to fearing it and denying it and running away from it, that's how you learn and thrive. And if you run from change And if you fear change, it will eat you. It will consume you because the world is not static. And then my other course, and thank you for asking, is creating a top talent program, which is what we did at several organizations, but most successfully, once again, at Daiichi. And it was, you know, it's really a way to identify and enable and empower the people who can have the biggest impact on their company.
[42:17] Amazing. So thank you for mentioning that so that, you know, listeners can go on LinkedIn and find Jerry Pico and those two LinkedIn learning courses available from wherever you are in the world and whenever you want to do that. And it's great that, you know, it's nine languages. I wasn't aware about it. So it sounds very, very successful. And that's your contribution from your experiences and your work into that. So I think it's a great legacy for you as well and way of contributing outside of companies that you serve. And I guess LinkedIn is a great place to connect with you, Jerry. That would be great. Although I have to say one of my idiosyncrasies is that if somebody wants to connect with me, I'd always appreciate it if they personalize their invitation and tell me why they want to connect with me. Such as, you know, I saw you on Dhammar's leadership podcast and I was inspired to reach out to you. Okay. So when you reach out to Jerry, remember that? It's a very valid point. Otherwise, you might not have an acceptance.
[43:17] Very transparent, you know, communication. What is expected? So thank you for sharing that. Thank you, Jerry, for the time spent together, for contributing to, well, enlarging the awareness of what is really needed in culture transformation and the role of leadership development and what really is behind the scenes. And I hope to see you soon when I'm again in Munich and to in-person follow up on how this change is going on. Thank you, Dagmar. And one thing I'd also like to say is I just want to acknowledge the leadership at Daiichi Sankyo for placing their trust in me and my colleagues to support them with this culture transformation. So it's really been a gift and a great opportunity for me and a lot of people to be able to work on a successful transformation like this.
[44:02] So, and thank you for your time today. Thank you very much. And wishing to all the listeners today, I hope that you took as many insights and, you know, new ideas of what can help you to steer, to drive cultural change in your organization. What's the importance of doing even so and where you can take ownership as a leader. And if you are an HR business partner, I think it has been also of value for you to see what's the best way to drive your organization and support the businesses in a culture of transformation. So thank you very much for watching, listening. And if you like this, of course, subscribe and share with others and see you next time.
