This program for statisticians is designed to strengthen your leadership skills so you can maximize your impact at work even if you don’t have direct reports.
The Effective Statistician Leadership Program, a mixture of webinars, podcast and moderated small group discussions, will have a focus on pharmaceutical statistics and is aimed at all levels of statistician. We believe all statisticians can be leaders.
Enrolment is currently closed for this program. We plan to open this course again later this year. Please sign up below to stay current!
Do you want business partners to honor your ideas more?
Do you want to play a bigger role in key discussions?
Do you want to increase your influence within your organization?
The Effective Statistician Leadership Program can help you:
1. Learn the foundations of leadership
The program will help you to better understand leadership relevant to your role, and to build a foundation as an effective statistical leader. You will learn how to:
- Better communicate in situations where you need to show leadership.
- Build trust with the people you work with in other functions, so they follow your advice.
2. Increase your influence
You will learn how to build business knowledge and how to better influence projects and create positive change. The program will teach you:
- Why it is so important to develop your understanding of the pharmaceutical business – and how you can do this.
- How to influence your colleagues’ thinking so the organization makes better decisions.
3. Implement an action plan to improve your leadership
The Effective Statistician Leadership Program will help you to create and implement your personal action plan to continually improve your statistical leadership. The program is designed to:
- Achieve improvements in building trust with collaborators;
- Identify opportunities for statistical influence;
- Implement actions for positive change and develop a plan to enact;
- Continue your study and application of leadership concepts;
From statisticians for statisticians!
Alexander Schacht
I received my PhD in biostatistics from the University of Göttingen in Germany. I have authored more than 70 scientific manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and regularly speak at international conferences – both statistical ones like Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (PSI) and medical ones like the European Dermatology Congress (EADV).
In my 16 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, I focused on late-phase work. Since a couple of years, I head up a team of highly capable statisticians at a major pharmaceutical company. In addition, I serve on the board of directors of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (PSI) as Chairman of the Communications Committee.
About Gary Sullivan
I currently consult as a Leadership Specialist and Statistical Scientist for my company Espirer Consulting since March, 2018. Before this, I was the Senior Director for Non-Clinical Statistics at Eli Lilly and Company, where I worked for 28 years. I also worked as a technical statistician in Non-Clinical Statistics for the first half of my career at Eli Lilly.
I led the development and instruction of the first leadership course at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) of the American Statistical Association (ASA) in 2014.. I’ve provided leadership training to over 300 professionals in statistics and other fields, both at Eli Lilly and within the ASA. In addition, I’ve authored several articles and a book chapter on leadership for statisticians.
I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics from the University of Pittsburgh, and both a Master’s and Doctorate in Statistics from Iowa State University.
Program information
The program consists of six 4-weekly cycles. Within each cycle, you will receive training via different channels. Each cycle follows this structure:
- Webinar with question and answers,
- Moderated small group discussion
- Podcast episode
- Moderated small group discussion
The small groups will contain only 4 to 7 members to increase interactivity, address individual challenges and questions. They will also serve as accountability groups to follow up on the implementation of the training at work.
During the program, you will get assignments to apply the learnings into your day-to-day activities. This will ensure, that you think about, what you have learned and also apply it. The learnings from this application will be part of further discussions during the program and enhance the learning experience.
As a bonus, we have a private LinkedIn group. This will enable us to stay in contact and answer questions fast. We keep this LinkedIn group alive after completion of the program to stay in touch.
What you will learn
Each of the six 4-weekly cycles will follow one larger topic. These are:
- Communication
- 1:1 communication,
- presentation,
- virtual communication,
- email,
- communication style,
- goals of communication,
- misunderstandings, and
- dealing with challenging situations.
- Trust
- value of trust,
- trust building activities, and
- avoiding trust diminishing actions.
- Understanding the business
- value of understanding the business and
- example activities to increase business understanding
- Influence
- mindset – willingness to influence,
- how to influence without authority,
- change management, and
- working effectively with difficult business partners
- Decision-Making
- mindset – consultant or decision maker,
- analysis paralysis,
- embracing uncertainty, and
- common blind spots
- Focus and Action Planning
- goal setting,
- habits, and
- communication and execution
Why your supervisor should support you attending this program
- More and more, organizational decisions and strategy are being driven by data … how its generated and how its analyzed. As the experts in design, analysis and interpretation of data, statisticians need to not just be at the center of these discussions but also have the ability to influence direction and strategy, impact decision-making. Further, they must develop and contribute their own ideas to deliver greater value to an organization or cause. This requires stronger leadership.
- Statisticians have the raw skills to be strong leaders: We are deep thinkers, good at framing/structuring problems, able to synthesize and process information, adept at problem solving, learning agile, smart and curious, and have high integrity. This is a great foundation for leadership.
- In order to be more effective leaders, statisticians need to improve or develop other skills including communication and presence, conflict management, influence and negotiation, business acumen and business judgment, and courage.
- In order to improve leadership, a statistician must continually invest in their leadership development and apply what they learn. This course will not only provide the relevant content for statistical leadership but is designed both for study and application on a weekly basis for a period of about six months. This will instill the skills and practice and create the habit of leadership study that will serve the statistician well beyond the duration of the course.
- Finally, the positive outcomes will be numerous: value to the organization or cause, an increase in quantitative thinking across the organization, and greater visibility & reward for statisticians to name a few. Additionally, these new statistical leaders will serve as role models for their colleagues which can begin a virtual cycle of improved leadership and impact across the statistical group. Simply put, it will make a big difference – for the statistician, their function, their company, and their customers/stakeholders.
Frequently asked questions
How long do I have access to the material?
If you enroll for the complete 24 weeks (either with one or two payments), you will have life-time access to the course. We plan to offer this course on a continuous basis and will improve the content over time as well as add further material. Thus, as long as the site is mantained, you will have access.
How much time, do I need to invest?
Plan to spend about 1 hour per week for the content over the 24 weeks. The implementation of the training will happen in your day-to-day activities and interactions.
What happens to the small group discussions after completion of the course?
We anticipate, that the groups will develop enough team spirit in the 24 weeks of the program to continue self-organized far beyond the completion of the program.
What happens, if I don’t like the course?
Oh no! We don’t want that! We offer a 24 days money back guarantee. If you are unhappy with the course for any reason, let us know and we will refund your payment within 24 days. We would appreciate notification within the first 24 days of the course.
What happens to me, if the others participating in my small group drop out?
We will combine too small groups with the other groups. As long as there is at least one group with at least 4 participants, we will run the program.
When does the course start?
In the future, we’ll re-open the course periodically. Use the email signup box below to receive notifications when the course reopens.