In part 2 of this interview with Walt Offen, we cover:
- Having courage to speak up in all settings
- Listen carefully to others; ignore rank within the company
- Instituting any new rule or policy must affect the leader equally
- Grab opportunities when they come your way, even if you do not feel ready.
- See the issue from other’s perspectives
- Understand, appreciate, and celebrate diversity of thought, personality, skills, and beliefs
- Always strive to get better and help those around you
- Do not take “we’ve always done it that way” as an acceptable answer
- Be a solid role model
- Develop self-confidence; be able to laugh at yourself
About Walter W. Offen, PhD

Distinguished Research Fellow
Global Head of Statistical Sciences
AbbVie
Walt is currently Distinguished Research Fellow. He heads up an organization comprised of Statistical Innovation, Safety Statistics, and Non-Clinical Statistics. He received his PhD in statistics from the University of Florida in 1980. His career began at Eli Lilly, spanning 31 years. He joined AbbVie in 2012. His interests include novel clinical trial design and analysis, Data Monitoring Committees, and multiplicity. Walt was inducted as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2007.
As an ending, here is an inspirational message on Jeff Bezos’ refrigerator (Ralph Waldo Emerson):
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
And remember, leadership is not only for senior management, not only for people-managers. Developing leadership skills is important for all employees at all levels in order for your organization to become World Class.
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Transcript
20 key attributes of highly successful leaders – lessons from Walt Offen – part 2
00:02
You are listening to the Effective Status Session, Episode No. 24, Part 2 of Leadership Learnings with Walt Orfen.
00:18
Welcome to the Effective Statistician with Alexander Schacht and Benjamin Pisgis, the weekly podcast for statisticians in the health sector designed to improve your leadership skills, widen your business acumen and enhance your efficiency. In today’s episode we will chat again about leadership learnings.
00:38
And these are Leadership Learnings with Walt Offen and it’s part two of a mini series together with him. So if you haven’t listened to part one, go back to the last week’s episode, episode number 23, and first listen to that.
00:58
This podcast is created in association with PSI, a global member organization dedicated to leading and promoting best practice and industry initiatives. Join PSI today to develop further your statistical capabilities with access to special interest groups, the video on demand content library, free registration to all PSI webinars and these are really good.
01:22
and much, much more. Visit the PSI website today at psirep.org and learn more about PSI activities. And there you can also become a PSI member today.
01:40
Welcome to the second episode with Walt about 20 attributes of highly successful leaders. And we have gone through the first 10 last week. And if you haven’t listened to that episode, I would encourage you to first listen to the other episode. And now we get into the second 10 of the 20 attributes of highly successful leaders. Hi, Walt again. Hi. Hi, Alexander.
02:09
Let’s go with number 11. Okay. I actually consider number 11 probably to be the most important development objective for everyone, statisticians and others. But number 11 is having courage to speak up in all settings. A couple of comments I will make here. One, I, first of all, I will say and admit I consider myself introverted.
02:37
And the reason I consider myself introverted is after a long day of work, I recharge by being home with my family or even being home alone. And as opposed to somebody who’s very extroverted who would feel like bored as soon as they got home. It’d be like, I got to go out to a bar or I got to go out to meet with a whole bunch of friends or whatever. And what I have learned to do over the years, and this is how I put it.
03:06
is to learn how to turn on an extrovert switch. And I think many can do this, at least to some extent. So for people who are uncomfortable in social settings where they don’t know anyone, they don’t know what to say to people, and they’re shy, they’re afraid to approach somebody and just start a conversation, I think we all have an ability to be able to do
03:35
develop that skill to be able to do that, to have that courage. And so I’m starting with courage in a social setting because when people get comfortable in that kind of a setting, I think that can then translate to being having more courage to speak up in a formal team meeting or whether it’s well, one-on-one is of course different, but where you’re in a team of 10 or 20 people. And
04:04
And so there are a lot of ways to do this, I think. There are many who get involved in their churches or in their kids’ sports or school, and lots of informal settings where one can just be friendly to others and talk to them, could be on an airplane to the person next to you. And the more that people do that, the more comfortable they get in having the courage to speak out. So.
04:32
I know for me early in my career, I would be in meetings and would even freeze, I think, if I was asked, can you comment on this? You’re the statistician in the room. To where now I love, I actually love that opportunity. I want to be put on the spot. I feel like that’ll actually help me get even stronger at being able to make important points in these kinds of settings.
05:01
What are kind of the attitude or where, not the attitude, where are the situations where you think people have most problems to speak up?
05:13
I think in the larger the group, the more difficult. So that’s a good question. So one-on-one, of course, I mean, somebody that’s really introverted and shy will even have trouble in a one-on-one. And like going into an interview, they have nothing to say or they have just short answers. So it can be that extreme. But I would say the larger the group setting, the more difficult. So
05:38
If you think in terms of a small team, maybe it’s a statistician programmer and data scientist. And by the way, the starting small is how one develops this capability. You’re able to speak freely and you trust the other individuals. As you get into bigger and bigger settings, so now you’ve got maybe a medical vice president and some other folks, people are less, have less courage in general than in the smaller settings.
06:07
And then the ultimate is a room of 2000 people or whatever, 500 people, being able to go to the microphone, say who you are, where you’re from, and ask a question or make a comment or a suggestion. And for me personally, I mean, that latter part, I feel like I’ve only developed in the last third of my career. I was one who would almost never get up in that kind of setting. So think in terms of a big…
06:35
ASA meeting or statistical conference or something like that. Some are very good at it, others are not. But the way to get better and to have that courage is to just keep working on it in the smaller settings. And the reason it’s critical, many examples where a team meets, there is a statistician there, let’s say they’re designing a clinical trial, and the statistician doesn’t have the courage to speak up. So a physician might make a suggestion
07:05
statistician knows is not a good suggestion. But because they don’t have the courage to speak up, the team goes in a wrong direction and it can lead to problems down the road. A drug may not get approved. We might be preparing for an advisor or not necessarily advisor committee, but that’s another example. But maybe the team is going to go to the FDA or a regulatory EMA, regulatory authority.
07:31
And the statistician, if they don’t have the courage to speak up and make sure the team understands the perspective from that science, from the statistical science, that leads to potential failure. So it’s not just being able to be seen and so on. It’s critical. The statistical input is often only seen by the statistician. So that’s why I consider this to be so critical.
08:00
that everybody really should feel that they can always improve their courage to speak up. And speaking up can be asking questions, so it doesn’t always say, I’m going to disagree with what this other individual said. It actually might be, I agree with that, and I’ll tell you why, from my perspective. That helps the team understand that this is actually a good idea. The physician suggested it, the statistician explained why.
08:28
scientifically it’s valid and it’ll answer the objectives of the study, things like that. So it really is critical for a successful statistician, consulting statistician, to develop that courage. And it does take development for most people, I think. Most people have some shyness.
08:49
I think it’s especially also true if there’s some levels up managers in the room. That’s also right for me. So I’m getting better at it over time. But in the beginning, I would kind of, if there would be someone with a major title,
09:13
president, vice president or whatsoever, I would be completely kind of blocked out on that. And I think knowing that these are also just human beings, you know, they have a family, you know, live a life. And I think it’s really helpful to have that in mind. But it also gets back to another point that we had in the last episode is about managing your emotions.
09:42
There it was more about being frustrated or being angry. And here it’s about managing anxiety, managing fear, to not let that hold you back. Being able to recognize when you have these feelings.
10:07
What does it make with you? Your blood pressure goes up and you feel, maybe you get a red face or something like this. And I think acknowledging it, saying kind of, okay, that’s what’s happening now and trying to answer difficult question. Like, what do I really want here now? And that helps actually to get the blood into the brain.
10:37
instead of kind of into your limbs. And that helps to get your cognitive things going and that helps to overcome your fear. So I always think that I really liked this technique that I learned in the training is about, you know, managing your emotions is asking a difficult question to your brain of what do you actually want?
11:05
that helps you get back on track. Right, right. I think that’s a good point. And let me add to the point, this is as good a place as any, that everyone should feel that they can always improve and they can push themselves to improve on anything that we’ve talked about. And when it comes to courage in particular, I always encourage folks to start small. So those who have not given very many public presentations,
11:31
start with a small team of statisticians, or volunteer to give a seminar at your company or in a small team. The more you do it, the better you get. And I read a book many years ago. I’m pretty sure the author is Malcolm Gladwell. The book is called Outliers. And one of the things that I remember very well from that book is that people, and he uses 10,000 hours as an example, people who are expert at something
12:00
worked on it and practiced it for over 10,000 hours. And if you do the math, that’s like five years of every day, eight hours a day. The author uses examples of the Beatles, the rock band, the Beatles. 1963, this is, your parents may know this, that in Germany, they played eight hours every day, every week for over a year before they came to the United States and became
12:29
phenomenon that they are. And so the Beatles did it. Bill Gates, I think, was another example in the book that he was programming like crazy and just really understood how computers work and so on. And so when he founded Microsoft, he was so strong and knowledgeable. So I think of that in Courage too. I mean, I can say early in my career, when I spoke up at a meeting, I knew I was nervous. My voice showed the nervousness. But over time,
13:00
you do that more and more, you begin to develop greater confidence. And even how you speak, your voice begins to get better and you get, and you begin to have greater influence. So now people are actually really listening carefully to you. So I would say to people, if you’re nervous, you speak, excuse me, after, after the meeting, you reflect and you say, oh man, I’m embarrassed that I did not do a great job.
13:30
Keep working at it. Keep trying. Don’t give up, because you’ll get better. Yeah. And in terms of this having the courage to speak up in all settings, irrespective of kind of who you talk to, I think leads very good into the next point, which is actually kind of the reverse of it, more or less. Okay. So the next point, listen carefully to others.
14:00
and ignore rank in the company. In a way, these are two separate things. One thing that’s critical in developing leadership skills is to be able to listen to others, listen to their perspective. And I’ve taken a lot of training on listening skills, developing them. And what is often taught is it really helps when the listener.
14:28
is able to say back to the other individual what they just heard. So in their own words, say, what I’m hearing you say, is you’re concerned about this or that. And that’s really an excellent way to understand each other. So listening is not just passively listening, but it’s giving feedback and saying, here’s what I’m hearing you say, and so on. So I think listening is a very critical leadership attribute. The ignoring rank… Well, go ahead.
14:57
Yeah, actually, I think, actually, I think is even more important nowadays, where we lots of the meetings, lots of the discussions are at least partially virtual. And people start to multitask, say to other things instead of kind of listening to what the other thing for me actually, again, kind of turning the video camera on.
15:27
helps to kind of stay focused in these settings and not kind of drift away and be kind of distracted from other things that are going on on your computer. So looking the others into the face and really listening to them and knowing that they also see your face helps a lot. I completely agree. And actually you bring up a point where I might call that engagement.
15:57
It’s not just, I tell you, it’s not just when you’re on the phone in a meeting, it’s even in a meeting, so many people will open their computer and send an email or, you know, they’re not engaged in the discussion. And I am one who I agree with people that say, number one, don’t hold meetings and don’t stretch them out to waste people’s time. So I think meetings are very important to be well organized.
16:25
have the discussion that’s needed, make the decisions, and then end early. If you’re done early, end early. If people follow that, then everyone at that meeting should close their laptops, be completely engaged. And so listening but engaging is really the piece of it. So they really are part of the conversation. So they’re listening, they’re saying what they think should be considered, and so on. So that is very critical. And I think that’s a problem.
16:54
more and more. We mentioned in the first episode that I encourage statisticians to go to meetings in person whenever they can. Just as you said, when you call in, you start getting distracted and you’re not really engaged. And so that’s critical in meetings that we participate in. The second part is really almost another topic, ignoring rank within the company. I believe
17:23
people don’t have to go through their management chain. And I forget where I just recently saw, I read this recently. If I’m a statistician, I’m working with a physician, I have my management and that person, you know, eventually goes up to the vice president of statistics and then the physician has their management. I mean, we should be able to talk to each other directly and we need to be able to talk to each other directly. And so.
17:49
ignoring the rank, the successful organizations are ones where everyone has the freedom to speak with anyone. And all I can say is that I have seen organizations where that is not the case, and it’s an awful place to work. It’s not a place where there will be great success. You just need to be able to talk with anyone ignoring rank. And at meetings,
18:15
Same kind of idea, you mentioned it, if you have a VP in the room you might feel a little bit inhibited, but for a successful outcome everyone should feel they are equally free to speak their opinion, give their advice, ask the questions, and ultimately it could be that the VP is the decision maker, that’s fine, but everybody should feel and needs to feel that they can speak up and ignore rank. You can disagree with the senior VP.
18:45
You do it diplomatically or in a nice way and it’s appreciated by that senior leader. Yeah, I can just remember a situation where I have been in, where I was actually after a business development project. We talked about in a very, very senior…
19:15
team about the outcome of that development and what are the recommendations to move forward. And I was in the actual team that did this evaluation and since my VP actually said something about it and said, we should do this and that. And I said, that doesn’t actually help here.
19:46
And I was so afraid in the moment. I was saying, should I hold back? Should I speak up? I was, you know, and I was actually on the phone. I was the only one that was calling in. I was double terrified. But then I actually spoke up and said, I think…
20:10
That’s a nice suggestion, but it doesn’t really help here for these reasons. The good thing is I got never bad feedback from the VP about it. So, that really encouraged me to speak up in these kind of settings because I was really sure about my case. Otherwise, I probably… And there was a really…
20:38
very few minutes left in the hour to speak about it. Otherwise, I would probably have just asked a question to give the VP kind of point to think about it again. But that was, yes, that was a pretty very frightening situation for me. But afterwards, I felt much better.
21:05
at least to some extent, depends on the other person. There are cultures in the world, in businesses or organizations, where that leader is insecure and might feel like, hey, before we actually go to this meeting, I want everyone to be aligned. Personally, I really welcome disagreement. People just need to learn how to do it in a way that’s not threatening or…
21:33
you know, critical of the personal or the individual, things like that. So I don’t want to scare anyone away from it, but I think the way you described it is really excellent. You should bring it up. If later you do get some negative feedback, I would take that feedback and how you delivered it, not in actually speaking up. I think speaking up is important. And I will say this too, if the supervisor, the VP,
22:02
feels like you should have kept your mouth shut because you made me look bad, that person will eventually leave the company. I mean, in any good company, good functioning company, that’s not who we need as leaders. They need to be open-minded. They need to be able to take some criticism of their ideas or challenges to their ideas. That’s my view anyway. And I’ve seen leaders that behave poorly, they end up leaving the company finally and things get better again.
22:32
Yeah. So let’s move on to the next point, which is also about leadership employee kind of relationships. Yeah. So this is 13. This is in. So I’ll read what I have. Instituting any new rule or policy must affect the leader equally. So I have a great, I think maybe I’ll start with that. I have what I consider to be a great example.
23:02
And it’s about a United States general who became president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. And I never read a book. I know there are lots of books about him, but I did read an article about a story where he and his troops conquered an island or a territory or whatever. And what I didn’t realize until I read this is when that happens, there are often goodies, if you will, like wine.
23:32
There are often things that when they capture soldiers, they have things like wine, food, and whatnot. And if a general feels like, well, this is going to be for my senior leadership.
23:49
that’s not going to be very inspiring for the troops. And so what Eisenhower always did is that everybody shares in the bounty, if you will. So back to our kind of a world, if there are policies, I don’t know if I have a great example, but if the senior leaders say, I don’t know what it would be, but well, maybe this is kind of an example. No smoking. I don’t want any smoking on the site.
24:18
But the VP says, well, it doesn’t apply to me. I’m going to smoke in my office. That is really bad. So any kind of policy that’s out there needs to apply equally to everyone, all the way up to the CEO. Does that make sense? I don’t know if you have examples that would help illustrate this. I’m just thinking of an example. And also, you need to make the policies in a way that they are fair and not kind of
24:47
tweak it in your favor. So imagine kind of the policy is everybody needs to fly economy. And then you go to a meeting and you realize that, oh, there’s the boarding card for your VP on the desk and it says business class. How would you feel about that? Right.
25:15
So this VP made the policy all fly economy, but he feels entitled himself to fly business. That would feel very, very bad to the people. That’s right. So I think that’s one of the cases. And I think it’s about this humility. I think if you feel entitled, then you’re not humble anymore.
25:45
So, and we talked about that in the last episode. That’s really, really crucial.
25:55
Yeah, I agree. I have another recent example that is not in our industry, but I’m very interested in the company Tesla makes electric cars. And recently, the CEO, Elon Musk, is sleeping on the floor or on a couch. And so he is there to help. I mean, one good question, is he micromanaging? I don’t know. But what he’s clearly doing is saying he’s not just
26:24
You guys have to work long hours. I want you to work overtime. And I’m going to work 8 to 4 or 8 to 5 and go home and have a nice dinner with my family. So the analogy, just to give another example, Alexander, to our field is when the crunch is there for, let’s say, creating a new drug application, the senior leader, if they kind of say to all the people on the team, you guys, I need you to work weekends. I need you to work nights. We’ve got to get this done as fast as we can.
26:54
And yet that leader says, oh, by the way, I’m taking a two-week vacation to go down to the, you know, whatever, some nice beach or something. That really doesn’t work well. I mean, that leader has to really be all in with them. And this is another one where I feel like I can do better at this, but it is important for the leader to be a part of the, to basically share in the pain. So whatever pain is.
27:23
necessary to accomplish the goal, they need to have something in that game. Yeah, I think that is where the relationship comes in. And that also makes sure that you primarily work through the relationship power and not so much on the role power. Yeah. Okay, let’s move on to…
27:52
point number 14. Okay, so 14, when I looked at this last night, what it said was do what is needed, not waiting to be told what to do. It really is the same as something we talked about in the first session. And so I changed it. And so let me tell you what I changed it to, and then I’m going to give you an example, a personal example. And what I changed it to is to say grab, it’s not worded as well as it could be, but grab opportunities when they come your way.
28:22
even if you do not feel that you’re ready. Now, I’m going to give you an example of when I was, I believe, about four years into my career. So, I was at Lilly for four years around 1984. And our senior or actually chief medical officer had a meeting, I didn’t even know, but had a meeting at Lilly with a lot of external experts in the room. And in the middle of the meeting, he called my boss.
28:50
and said, gee, could you have Walt come in here and talk about, and I don’t know what it was. All I know is I panicked. It’s like, oh my God, first I didn’t know this was going on. Second, I don’t have anything prepared. And the senior VP, this medical director, I’m sorry, medical, chief medical officer, said, that’s okay, that’s okay. Just have him come in and we’ll ask him some questions. In the end, my boss stood up for me and said,
29:17
He can’t do it. I mean, he had no, absolutely no prep time. And when I think back to that time, I wish I had gone, because I would have grown enormously. In that one hour, I would have all of a sudden come out of that, where now I can, if I can handle this, I can handle anything. And so I regret being too afraid to just let myself be exposed, if you will. So I encourage people.
29:45
Sometimes, you know, you go through your career and you’re doing a job, you do it well, you learn, and you feel like, God, I wish I had some opportunities. Sometimes those opportunities come when you least expected them or you didn’t ask for them. And I just encourage people to go for it. Just do the best you can. You people will, for the most part, people understand that you had no time to prepare.
30:08
you’re going to have many questions. In my example, I would have had many questions I would have said, I’ll get back to you. I don’t know the answer off the top of my head. I just encourage people to go for it. Use those kinds of opportunities because they’re few and far between. Yeah. If you speak about that, there’s a couple of quotes, for example, from Richard Branson about it.
30:36
Richard Branson from the Virgin Group, very often speaks about this kind of, you know, grabs the opportunity and then figure out how to do it. I think it also has something to do with taking calculated risks. Maybe you haven’t completely thought through it, but jump into the water and start swimming. Because very often kind of something that is…
31:05
maybe not 100% of a fit is much better than nothing at all. You know, so, so, um, and I think it’s also again, comes kind of managing your fear, says your fear of, you know, not getting things done completely right, completely kind of perfect. Um, I think that is very often what holds us back.
31:35
Um, and.
31:39
I always kind of have people on my team that want to do these kind of things. And sometimes it doesn’t work out. Okay, acknowledge that and learn from it and move forward. And that helps also some things and in turn to kind of the culture was dealing with mistakes that we talked about in the earlier episode.
32:08
Okay, Walt, then let’s go to number 15 now. Okay, thank you, Alexander. Number 15 I have is see the issue from others’ perspectives. This I feel is a very important aspect of leadership that in a sense one could summarize this with one word and that is listening. And listening means not only being quiet while somebody else is speaking, but really
32:37
understanding where they’re coming from. One way to really show that you’re listening is to say back to that individual what you heard, what you understand their position is, and so on. And it’s really important to be able to see from others’ perspectives. If one doesn’t do that, it gets into basically an argument that one person will just…
33:05
totally repeat what they think or what their position is on whatever the issue is, and really you never get anywhere. So I say that both in one-on-one discussions or in a team meeting where you may have an opinion and somebody else is disagreeing with you. It really helps to be able to say back to them what you’re hearing them say. And although it’s not really part of this, I think I want to also just say…
33:34
Something that I do fairly often in team settings is when I hear somebody else in the room say something that I can build on, I think that really helps as well. So I don’t just come out with a completely different comment or suggestion or idea that isn’t tied to something that somebody else has already said. And if you tie it to something somebody else has said, it helps people understand your point.
34:01
So the last thing I want to say about this one, I’m going to share an example with the audience. Many years ago, at least I would say 15, probably about 15 years ago, I was with a team from my company, from Lilly. We were at FDA and we were having a discussion about one of the projects. And in fact, it was after phase three had concluded. So we had phase two data, phase three data, and without getting into any specifics, there
34:30
disagreement from the FDA people, including the statistician and Lilly folks that were trying to describe an aspect of the data. I remember very clearly I was sitting at the table and right behind me were a couple of statisticians from FDA who I knew. One I knew very well. She leaned over to me during the meeting and showed me what she had, which helped me understand that actually…
34:59
the FDA position was correct. And so I did my best to kind of smooth that over. I spoke up and what I believe things like that do is the credibility, integrity, everything just rocketed sky high. So I feel like for me, that was in a sense a defining moment that FDA folks, I think they could, they, I think they felt they could trust me if I said something, they knew there was honesty there.
35:28
A lot of times, and so broadening this to any kind of conversation one might have, if people are always just, I don’t know, not being sincere and honest in what they say, people see through that and pretty soon that person’s ability to influence really goes down. So my point there, I guess, is to keep one’s integrity above all else, and that really will help the individual.
35:58
I think it’s also kind of looking into the things from different perspectives is also to help understand why there might be contradicting truths, so to say, because I very often, there’s lots of different kind of experiences and viewpoints on things.
36:27
point. So if you work with the physician that comes fresh out of the clinic and was head of the department there and what he said was done, it was emergency kind of setting and then this kind of sets his truth, his truth in terms of how to work together.
36:56
So, having this in mind when working with such people that are not accustomed to very cross-functional teamwork, where there’s lots of different expertise from different ends, that helps to work together with them. The other thing is also something that may make…
37:24
complete sense in, let’s say, from a stat side in HTA setting, may be pretty bizarre in regulatory setting and the other way around. So just if you think about how the Cochrane collaboration looks into things and doing meta-analysis, and then on the other side,
37:54
pre-specification of the RCTs and very, very forward-looking plan stuff. And on the other hand, you have this analysis of literature data. These kind of things come from very, very different perspectives, and understanding that helps a lot with seeing that there might be alternative ways to look into things.
38:24
and just because you may have just a very, very specific experience and that might not coincidise with other people’s experience. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s well said, Alexander. In some sense, I think almost any topic has more than one valid viewpoint. I mean, and if everyone kind of goes into a discussion or a negotiation with that in mind…
38:50
it really helps move the needle and move along and solve the problem or reach consensus, whatever. If anyone feels like their view is the only way, the only right answer, that just is not going to work. Okay, very good. Let’s move on to point number 16 then. Okay, so 16 is understand, appreciate and celebrate diversity of thought.
39:19
personality, skills, and beliefs. And I could have added more adjectives or more things on diversity. Basically, for a team, company, whatever, organization, let’s say for an organization to be successful, I think everybody has to go into that. Really appreciating people for who they are. So one thing that I didn’t put there, but I think we talked about it on one of my earlier points, is extrovert versus introvert.
39:48
Um, people should not feel like one is better than the other. Um, either extreme, uh, can be bad. So I’m going to talk a little bit about that aspect of diversity. If somebody is so introverted and what I would call extremely shy that they really have difficulty even speaking anything, that’s obviously extreme that that person needs to work on and develop and get comfortable speaking in public and so on. And then the opposite is bad too.
40:17
somebody who’s so extroverted that they just don’t listen to anyone. They’re just always talking. They can’t stop and listen. They’ll interrupt people. That’s bad. Anything else though is, that should be appreciated. It’s good to have some extroverts. It’s good to have some introverts. So when we talk about beliefs, background, you know, you mentioned Alexander on the last one, people grow up in different settings. So they have different environmental factors and so on. They have different
40:45
backgrounds that lead them to where they are and have shaped their personalities. So my point here is, and as those who have listened to the earlier couple of podcasts know that I like sports analogies, I feel like in any sport, team sport, it’s so important that the different positions have different skill sets. You need diversity. As an example, if every basketball team had
41:14
excellent three-point shooters, but none of them can play defense. None of them can drive to the basket. That team’s going to lose. Same thing in, in, uh, in a organization of any sort. If everybody is thinking along the same lines, the same dimension, if you will, uh, nobody disagrees with anybody. There’s group think, um, you don’t get the best solution. So, um, so we really should embrace and value, um, diversity in every aspect.
41:43
Yeah, and I think diversity very often is just kind of, you know, in terms of demographics. But I think much more important is kind of this diversity of thought and diversity of perspective and diversity of skills and beliefs. So it could be associated with demographics, but not necessarily. That’s right. And especially in our business, kind of when you think about…
42:12
We have really global businesses. So, therefore, we also, you know, it really helps to have a global perspective on things because problems in one country might be completely different to problems in another country. I’m just thinking about all the different health systems we have around the world. It’s knowing about these, acknowledging these will help so much in our industry.
42:43
Yeah, I totally agree. And the other thing that that makes me think of is within statistics, I think this is true across our industry and maybe it’s even true for statisticians in any industry. There are so many trained statisticians from all over the world. So, you know, at AVI, and I think this is true at Lilly too, a very large proportion are from Asia. Some are mainland China, some are Taiwan. And one thing that
43:11
I’ve enjoyed and I think it also helps develop these good cohesive teams is to learn a little bit about where they’re from and what their childhood was like, what their upbringing was like and so on, where their parents live today, their siblings, that kind of stuff. And where somebody grew up can make them very different. And you know, if somebody is just focused on wherever, whatever country they’re from.
43:40
and doesn’t realize the different cultures in different countries or parts of the world, that’s really difficult. People just need to open their minds and be accepting, which goes back to the other topic a little bit, but I think that’s very important. And it’s really a blessing. It’s just great to have people from all different parts of the world that are working in the same physical space. Yep, yep.
44:10
Absolutely. Yeah, and I see the strong connection to the other one. So I think if you’re blind for others’ perspectives, it’s very, very difficult to also celebrate diversity of thought. Right. The next one, point 17, is actually one that I really, really like. Okay. So this one is always strive to get better and help those around you.
44:41
I’ll start with just a little story that I, for whatever reason, you know, and I think maybe a lot of people feel this way. People get an advanced degree. Most of our statisticians have either masters or PhDs, and you feel like, I’ve been well trained, I go into a new job, and I don’t, you feel like you don’t need to get better. You’re at the top of your life. You got a PhD, you’re very knowledgeable on a lot of different statistical methods.
45:09
And I was that way. I really think it took me a number of years early in my career before I understood that there are things I can work on that I can get better at. Some of that soft skills. In fact, probably most of it is for many statisticians. And so having a healthy attitude throughout your entire career, I know I have grown in the six years I’ve been at AVI, having that healthy attitude really helps everyone.
45:39
And likewise, looking out for others, especially as one gets well into their career, they’ve been doing that work for five years or more. As new people come in to the team, helping them grow, helping them see, learn new things and giving them opportunities to be successful. All of that is important for a great and successful organization.
46:07
Yeah, I think especially the helping others is amazingly important. Um, yeah. And it’s, you know, first need to give to receive something and that is, um, will help so much to be a leader.
46:27
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And in terms of this striving for better, I just remember my first weeks in the farm industry after I received my PhD. There were so many things that I have never thought about. I think the first time I saw CRF collecting AE data and how to analyze it, I had no clue about it.
46:57
Yes. How do you make sense of it? And just think about today where when I started, genetics data wasn’t there. But now, I mean, you could have humongous databases of genetic information and how the heck you make sense of that. There’s many things. The bottom line is there are many things to learn throughout one’s career. And actually, what I will say for me, the thing that I was most resistant to are various…
47:25
training programs or lectures on more of the soft skills. You know, and that’s where I think everybody can always improve. They can always get better at everything that we’ve been talking about in these leadership topics, as well as other things. If somebody doesn’t speak English very well, they can work on that and improve it. And being cognizant of that is step number one. Yeah. If you, if we wanted.
47:52
go back to a sports analogy, you know, all these super athletes, they train and train and get coaching every day. Yeah. And they are, you know, they’re there and they always have something to improve. So yeah, it’s really, it’s really important to keep that. I once heard a sentence, the day you stop learning, you start dying, which maybe is a little bit too pathetic, but…
48:20
The day you stop learning, you start dying. Okay, okay. Yeah, that’s interesting. On the sports analogy, a perfect example just to make this really clear to people is every professional sport has draft day. The number one person picked is going to be the
48:48
person who in college was an absolute superstar, whatever position they played, they were like unbelievable. When they come to the, let’s say the National Basketball Association and NBA, all of a sudden they’re going to be on the bench for a while. They may play, but you can tell they don’t really know what they’re doing. And I’ve seen players that every year they get actually better and better and they’re clearly working in the off season, things like that. So, yeah.
49:17
Yep. Yeah, just wanted to add to that. Okay, a little bit related to that is actually number 18, isn’t it? Yeah, I think so. Let me say what it is. So 18 is do not take, quote, we’ve always done it that way, unquote, as an acceptable answer. That is, don’t be satisfied with the status quo. I think it’s a little different, at least how I intended it, in that if…
49:45
If you’re, let’s say, in a team and there’s a discussion on how do we accomplish this particular goal or whatever it is, maybe it’s regarding a clinical study, too many times I’ve heard people, and it’s usually the people that have been at the company for 20 years or whatever, will say, we’ve always done it this way, it’s worked, we’ve been successful in the past, why change it now? Now, I will also say, this has two extremes too.
50:14
for somebody to always want to constantly change things, I don’t think that’s good either. But I don’t think it’s acceptable to just be comfortable with the status quo and just continue doing things like you’ve always done it, because technology in particular gets better and better. There can be more efficient ways of doing things. So that’s kind of what I meant there, is leadership is something that the people who exhibit leadership skills see
50:44
different better ways to do things, or at least they think there is a better way. And so they will talk to others and really understand the problem well and together that team can improve whatever it is. So that’s what I intended there. Yeah. And I think it’s always also good to understand what are the assumptions behind why it was successful. Are these assumptions still valid?
51:13
Is the environment the same? Is the technology the same? Are the limitations the same? That is, I think, a very, very important thing. If these things change, then what you have done before might not be even valid anymore. Mm-hmm. That’s true. Okay. Let’s go to number 19. Okay. 19, be a solid role model.
51:42
I do consider this to be very important. This is not just for managers. I don’t know if we’ve talked much about the difference between management and leadership, but this is for anyone. Be a solid role model. There’s a saying that says, treat others the way you would like to be treated or the way that you would like them to treat you. It really fits and it’s a very important part of leadership.
52:08
I have an example, I guess let me go to that right now. This to me, I’ve actually watched this video, it’s about maybe 10 minutes, 8 minutes long, but about a year ago, there was an Air Force general who addressed his troops because there was some racism. I don’t know exactly the extent of the racism, it may have been name calling, it may have been worse, but there was racism.
52:37
And so what this general did is he got everyone in a room and you can go on YouTube and I actually have how I find it. It’s no room for racism in this general’s air force. If one were to put that into YouTube, I think you’ll find it. Or you can go to the show notes and then you will find it there. Yeah, very good. Okay, it’ll be there. And
53:02
If you listen to this guy, I mean, the passion in his voice is incredible to me. And I got to believe everyone in that room understood where he’s coming from, understood that he was right, that he will not tolerate racism in his unit. And so that for me is one, I know there are others too, where it’s a perfect example of somebody who is an excellent role model.
53:31
all of us as part of leadership can really strive to be a role model. It could be, just to keep on the same theme, it could be that one of us sees, whether it’s sexual harassment or racism or something like that, is to not just kind of walk away and say, is to be a leader and really help to make things better. So that’s, so this applies broadly. This is
54:01
You know, maybe another example I can give is, and I’ve been in this setting, you can be in a meeting where you see two people that are really kind of getting mad at each other. They’re sort of fighting verbally in a meeting, is to not just leave a room after the meeting and figure, well, hopefully they’ll work it out, is to actually step up and maybe talk to them each individually, try to help them see each other’s perspectives. And that’s leadership. That’s being a role model.
54:29
And I think it’s also about being consistent in that. So always doing it that way. I remember a quote from one of the leadership trainings I attended. And it was a very senior person from the company. And he said, as a leader, you can’t have a bad day.
54:57
Yeah, that’s interesting. And I remember that so vividly because I thought, wow, that’s a really bold statement. And I think it’s to have control over your action, to be consistent and control over your emotions. And don’t just let it go. Of course.
55:27
It doesn’t say that every day will be a good day. It’s just that I think it’s about the attitude. Going into the day and going through the day, reminding yourself to stay present, observe yourself, and be this role model over the day. Yeah.
55:55
And that’s really good, Alexander. And it ties in nicely to an earlier topic, which is nobody’s perfect. So when, when a leader has a bad day, being able to apologize, being able to, you know, the next day or whatever, say, I’m sorry that I reacted that way. Or I said that I was wrong. Um, and I apologize, I’ll do better. You know, so that, that, that totally takes away that bad day. I mean, uh, in fact, that even.
56:24
in some ways can strengthen a person’s leadership abilities because none of us are perfect. All of us are going to miss say something, we’ll make mistakes one way or another. And just being able to say, I’m sorry, that’s on me. You know, I’ll work harder, please forgive me. I was just in a meeting the other day. I mean, in fact, two days ago, where
56:54
we got invited to a particular session, it was an all day meeting on a specific topic, very late and a couple of folks were not even in the office so they couldn’t come, they were traveling, it was literally a week ahead of time. So he apologized. Anybody that might have been angry with him or angry at the situation that we weren’t invited sooner, just immediately it’s like, okay, he knows it was an error, an oversight.
57:23
we’re all really happy to be working with this guy. So, yeah, anyway. Yep. Yep. That’s very good. Maybe it has actually something to do with the last thing itself, with point number 20. Yeah. Yeah. So, 20 is develop self-confidence, be able to laugh at yourself. And yeah, it is related, but let me say a couple of words about this.
57:53
self-confidence, some people are, I don’t know if anyone’s born with it, but some people definitely developed that earlier than others in life. I consider myself one who developed it more later in life. But I think everyone’s capable of developing it to at least a certain extent. And so, what that means is that if somebody, I don’t know, maybe criticizes you and says, you did not do a very good job there,
58:22
you can actually stay calm. You can say, I appreciate your feedback, things like that, rather than becoming defensive and just trying to argue why you were right or whatever. So self-confidence is a lot about being able to take criticism and actually thanking the individual for giving you their perspective. If you’re being…
58:51
criticized and things like that. The laughing at yourself, I want to say a few extra words on. One is not taking yourself too seriously, I think is important in any setting. I mean, honestly, if any team has an individual who is super serious all the time, and let’s say frowns if somebody makes a lighthearted joke, people are laughing, you know, that’s sad. I think everybody needs to be able to, everyone should try.
59:20
have fun in the workplace. But laughing at yourself is really a strong part of self-confidence, being able to poke fun at yourself, be self-deprecating. And so, the story I want to tell here is I am one who believes a sense of humor is a very important leadership skill.
59:48
Because it has such a beneficial effect on everyone, it can let them ease. I mean, a team might be in a crunch, like we have 24 hours to respond to this FDA request, and everyone’s nervous, and it’s oh my God, I can’t go home tonight, because we gotta get this done. Having a little, breaking the ice with a joke or whatever, and even poking fun at oneself can break that and make everyone actually achieve that particular task at hand.
01:00:17
And the story that I’ll tell is, and Aleksander, you may be, you may remember this or may have been a part of it. I don’t remember who, but when the leadership program at Lilly was developed many years ago now for statisticians, we had a deck of cards, I think it was like 60, 70, maybe even more. Each card had a different leadership aspect. And one of them was sense
01:00:47
what we had at Lilly were groups of maybe eight tables of eight or 10 people. And we would go through and try to pick the 10 most important ones. And I was the only one that kind of felt like, I think the sense of humor is pretty important and, uh, and it didn’t make, it didn’t make the cut. So at least I got it on my, I got it on my top 20. Um, so yeah, so I, I, maybe that’s all I need to say, but I, um, but I think, I think that’s something that everybody can.
01:01:15
work to develop and you find fun in work and everything goes so much better. I think it’s actually a sign of self-confidence, if you can laugh at yourself. And also where it helps amazingly is to be more approachable. So I think especially for if you’re also a
01:01:45
get more senior in the organization. If you can laugh at yourselves, that will help a lot for people that are less experienced or in the lower ranks of the organization to be able to speak up to you. So I think… You’re more approachable. People are comfortable in coming to you. I know we talked about that earlier as well.
01:02:15
on one of the 20 topics is that an effective leader is one who others do not fear to come to with their problems or with a problem. And absolutely right. Well, we are now on ending the 20 and we have an amazing two hours of content. I’m so happy that you were on this call.
01:02:43
with me and shared so much really, really valuable things. I very, very much enjoyed the discussion with you. I did as well. I did as well. Thank you. You have some final thoughts, kind of key takeaway. Yeah, let me end with a couple things. One that I just want to make very clear to people, I…
01:03:11
and I’ll say it this way to start, is even me, I do this too. People say, well, the leadership team has met and have decided X. And I actually feel like we should really call it the management team because leadership is for everyone. So I know I’ve said this probably more than once already, but everybody listening to this should not feel like, well, you know, I’m an individual
01:03:41
to my job, my role, and so this isn’t for me. Leadership is for everyone. And some people can be really, really effective managers, but they’re not very inspiring. So they’re not really very good leaders. And vice versa, some people can be leaders and not be good managers. So the one thing that I probably have said before that I just want to reemphasize is that for somebody who does have supervisory responsibilities,
01:04:10
Their challenge in leadership can be more difficult than someone who does not, because when a supervisor tells one of their employees that they need to do something, the person’s gonna do it because that’s the boss asking you to do it. Leadership is about inspiring somebody to say, what do you think? I think we can achieve this. I think together we can improve this process. We can do this better. We can solve this problem.
01:04:38
So leadership is inspiring and so it’s for everyone. And so the second thing I just wanted to read this just literally, it’s probably now two weeks ago, I read an article about Jeff Bezos, who is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, who I’m sure everyone has heard about. And it said that what he said in this, I guess it was kind of an interview that I read.
01:05:06
is that he has an inspirational message on his refrigerator. He says he reads it every day. Every day when he opens the refrigerator, he sees it. And it was only a little later that I learned that this is actually written, authored by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a very famous poet. And so let me read it. It’s not that long, but I think it really hits me. I haven’t put it on my refrigerator yet, but I might. And here it is. It’s, he says,
01:05:35
To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition.
01:06:03
know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.” And I think that’s great. You know, a lot of people, there have been a lot of people have discussed, you know, what does success mean? Does it mean having a huge house and, you know, a million dollars and all this kind of stuff? And I think this definition is really excellent and it’s what we all strive to do.
01:06:32
I’ll just leave it at that. Great. I absolutely have nothing to add here. Thanks so much. Okay. Okay. Thank you as well. I really appreciate it. This podcast was created in association with PSI. Thanks for listening. Please visit thee to find the show notes and learn more about our podcast, Boost Your Career as a Statistician in the Health Sector. If you enjoyed the show, please tell your colleagues about it.
01:07:02
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