Situation

As a result of its merger with the former Parke-Davis, Pfizer, Inc. had several global sites that operated independently. The sites varied culturally from "old school" pharmaceutical to entrepreneurial, and often regarded the other sites as competitors rather than partners. Each site had its own work processes and procedures, its own way of communicating, and its own way of dealing with change in the organization.

"We had to get the ball on the same playing field," said Sheila Babnis, Director, SOPs and Training. "We needed to stop working independently in drug team units at the site level, and begin to operate globally."

"The future state we were working toward was having a common set of tools, processes and philosophies about how we ran our business that would work for all of our sites. Then, as new companies were purchased, we would be able to integrate them within these new, common frames of reference."

Solution

Babnis' group was unable to influence change across all Pfizer's divisions, so a decision had to be made as to where training would have the most impact. She chose to bring the "horizon skills" of change management and coaching to the Development Division, focusing on mid-level managers in Clinical Development, Clinical Research and Development Operations.

"We started with a few pilot groups, introducing Facilitating Change™ (FC) and Essential Facilitation® (EF) to targeted individuals within our leadership teams whom we had identified as early adopters and influencers in the organization," Babnis said. "We wanted to help people at this level improve work processes and increase their skills, so leaders at the level above were free to work more strategically and concentrate on providing direction for the company."

While the change management programs were successful, there was tremendous pushback to the introduction of coaching training. People didn't see the value of "soft skills." But a small pilot resulted in participants who were such vocal advocates that requests began pouring in for more sessions. As Pfizer moved to a more performance-based culture, the skills in The Coaching Edge® (TCE) proved practical and immediately applicable. Participants began building informal partnerships for practicing coaching, and have formed small teams to provide a safe space to hone the skills learned in TCE.

Return on Involvement

"Because of the coaching skills, we are having constructive performance management conversations with colleagues. This gives people a greater opportunity to be successful," Babnis reports.

She also sees the change management skills as indispensable. "We in the pharmaceutical industry have to rethink how we do business. Change is constant in our environment, we have to become really, really good at doing it easily. How do we plan small change, mid-size change and huge strategic change — in such a way that people can approach it with positive attitudes and with confidence? We'd like our people to say, 'Yes, I want to make this change, I understand it.' That way we don't end up with resistance and barriers to our future success."

Babnis looks forward to using the change management technology found in FC to introduce larger change — establishing global processes and standard global systems throughout Pfizer worldwide. She said, "It's one of the biggest changes we've ever tried in the history of Pfizer."

To learn more about Pfizer, visit pfizer.com.

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