Today I’d like to introduce Alun Bedding, who has worked in pharma for many years, now as a coach. His post forms part of our series on the systemic impact of coaching across industries.
When I started in the Pharmaceutical Industry over 30 years ago, I had no idea what coaching was.
It was attached to sports, where every good team had a manager and a coach. But the coach, in this instance, was mainly there to tell the players what to do. As we know, this is not coaching as defined by the ICF. It is very directive. What I did have in those early days were leaders who trusted me and allowed me to go down my path. Would I say they were coaches to me? Not exactly, but they did help me develop and didn’t tell me what I should and should not do. So, in a way, they were non-directive and inspired me. They also made me realise what type of leader I wanted to be.
Fast forward many years, and my first encounter with coaching skills was at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which was rolling out job-plus coaches at the time. I didn’t become a job-plus coach, but I thought, “As a relatively new leader, why not take advantage of this?”. My job-plus coach was excellent and allowed me to develop by having some challenging conversations. I found these conversations very uncomfortable, but they made me think, and consequently, I developed as a leader. I tried to use my early inspirations to model my leadership style, not copying but using their example. At the end of the year, I was getting good feedback as a leader.
Around the same time, GSK was also rolling out coaching skills to leaders, which we all had to enrol in. I remember the person we had running the skills training (who later became my coach), actually coaching someone without them realising. For everyone, including that person, once they realised, it was a great “aha” moment. This training was my first entry into coaching in the Pharmaceutical Industry.
I will not tell my whole story of how I moved from being a leader in statistics to a coach. If you want that story, I suggest listening to my appearance on the “Lifting the Lid on Coaching Supervision” Podcast Episode 84. What I am going to talk about is why I feel that coaching has become more popular in the Pharmaceutical Industry. This year, the ICF awarded AstraZeneca with the ICF Distinguished Organization Winner, with F. Hoffman-La-Roche recognised by the ICF with the award of Special Response to the COVID Pandemic Honorable Mention for their response during the challenging times in 2021.
So why has coaching taken hold in the Pharma Industry?
One reason is probably the need for Pharma to be more agile, and this involves leaders being more VACC leaders (Visionary, Architect, Coach, Catalyst). With this, leaders realise that by being more coach-like, they get more out of their teams. There has also been a significant increase in the use of the Leadership Circle profile and other assessment tools for assessing whether leaders are creative or reactive. The LCP encourages leaders to use more coaching skills and be less directive to be more creative and not reactive. Not only that, pharma companies like AstraZeneca, GSK, Roche, and others recognise the value of coaching and realise that having a great coach can be a real asset. It gives busy employees time to think, very much needed in a fast-paced environment that is trying to be more innovative to provide better solutions for patients.
So, what does this look like?
Some companies have experimented with full-time individual coaches, but most rely on employees being job-plus coaches, doing it alongside their day jobs. Many companies have built coaching communities of practice with approximately many job-plus coaches globally. These communities of practice look to coaches who have attained a credential or are working towards one with one of the leading coaching organisations. For example, Roche has aligned with the ICF credential for its coaching community of practice. This alignment with ICF allows employees globally to know they can access high-quality coaching without having to look outside the organisation. In addition, as teams are prominent in the Pharma industry, team coaches are becoming increasingly common within companies.
At this point, I should mention that many coaches external to the Pharma industry have worked within the industry and are now working with several Pharma companies. Although, as coaches, we know we don’t need to know the subject matter, it provides some comfort to senior leaders to understand the coaches they are using have experience in the industry.
With coaching, employees can be true thinkers and not just doers.
This thinking leads to more innovation and new thinking in the industry. It leads to true empowerment. With leaders also applying coaching skills, employees feel genuinely empowered.
So, what is the future of coaching in the Pharma industry?
I would love to see coaching be a full-time job within a company and employed in the same way something like project management or informatics support is. The primary role of Pharma companies is to deliver better treatments for patients. Coaching will support and enable the employees to think and be more creative. Leaders can lead. With coaching, the Pharma industry can go from strength to strength.
Alun Bedding PhD., ACC
Executive and Team Coach
Email: alunbedding@gmail.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alunbedding
