In my conversations with various CEOs in the life science industry, I’ve found lately that the same question has been coming up: if you could go back and pull your younger self aside for a few minutes, what would you tell them? What would you say to your pre-CEO self? What would you want them to know?
To answer this question requires you to think back, twenty years ago, or thirty years ago, or back to whenever you were just starting out, and really understand in which ways you are different from who you were then. What decisions did you make, and why? What do you wish you’d done differently?
It’s an interesting question for me to ask because I’ve found that the answers are always different. All of these people are CEOs who have seen great success across their careers, but they all came from different walks of life and they all had to sacrifice different things to get to where they are today. They all see themselves differently.
Unraveling one’s career journey, and being able to see them through their own eyes twenty or thirty years later, helps show you who they really are and what truly matters to them. It helps you understand where their culture, values, and success all stem from. So with that in mind, I want to share some of the insights I’ve gleaned from CEOs I’ve interviewed over the last year or so. I hope they’ll inspire you to look at your own journey over the years, and I invite you to reach out to me and let me know what you think.
Valdo Bosanac: Be nicer sooner
One of the values life science leaders are bringing to the healthcare industry is their desire to truly help people – not just their end-users, but the people they interact with everyday along the way. This is because, once you’ve been successful, you begin to realize the importance of making sure everybody in the room is heard, everybody is considered, and everybody wins, at least in some way. In any conversation, whether with another company executive, with a supply manager, or with your own team, it’s never a one-sided transaction.
The younger version of you wants to own the world and do everything by yourself. Many CEOs find themselves more tough in negotiations but as you evolve through life and through business, you begin to better understand the value other people bring to things.
As Vlado Bosanac, CEO of Advanced Human Imaging Ltd, put it: “The difference between me twenty years ago and me today is that the younger me was concerned with how many people would use my product because of the revenue it would bring. Today, I want as many people to use my product as possible because I know it will help them.” This is what inspires his advice to his younger self: to be nicer sooner.
Mike Rea: Let your team be your strengths
Most of those in business have had journeys along the lines of not accepting their weaknesses. We are often told that good leaders should turn weaknesses into strengths. We know that nobody can succeed in business without support, but we don’t often realize that this applies to ourselves and our individual abilities as well.
When I asked Mike Rea what he would tell his pre-CEO self, he mentioned that he had spent a lot of time in his own youth trying to find ways in which his weaknesses could be viewed and converted to strengths instead. Throughout his business growth journey, he came to realize that rather than turning his weaknesses into strengths, he should try to instead find a place where those weaknesses had real value.
In Mike’s words: “If you choose your team wisely, they can fill in for the things you aren’t. So stop seeing your weaknesses as strengths you are missing, and instead start seeing your team as people who can become your strengths.”
So find a place where you can, in your own skin, add value to a team or organization. Get to a space where you are comfortable with your weaknesses and strengths and comfortable with how you fit into the team of people around you. From there, you can start seeing that exponential growth you’re chasing.
Francois Nader: Make it worth it
Some things in business are always going to come and go. If you’re a CEO, your life and the people in it probably changed a lot throughout your career. Because of this, it can sometimes feel like we’re focusing on the wrong things. Alternatively, maybe they’re the right things, but we’re focusing on them for the wrong reasons. I liken this to the idea of not seeing the forest for the trees.
When I spoke recently with Francois Nader, he told a story about how he once fought really hard for a promotion, but once he got it, he suddenly realized that he felt an odd sort of void inside him instead of the fulfillment he expected. He found himself asking, what was the promotion for? Was it worth it?
Although Francois says that he ultimately ended up leveraging that promotion into something bigger and better for himself, he recognizes that in the lead-up to the promotion, he was approaching it from a very self-focused perspective. He was asking, “What will this promotion do for me?” rather than, “Where can I contribute?” or “What value will I bring in this role?”
Shifting your perspective from being focused on the role to being focused on your contributions can go a long way in furthering your development as a young business professional. So if something doesn’t feel worth it, then find a way to make it worth it to you, or else, you have to find something else that needs your unique voice and vision.
Nick Dyer: Be the oxygen in the room
Many CEOs get to a point where they’ve built their company from the ground up, there’s a great team around them, everything operates smoothly, and suddenly they aren’t really sure what their role is anymore. They find themselves letting others run the show, doing what they need to do with little to no direction. It feels like their role has somehow become an amalgamation of a lot of little intangible, informal pieces, rather than clear tasks and duties.
Something Nick Dyer stressed to me was, “If you’re a CEO, you have to at some point get comfortable with the fact that you don’t have a task role anymore. You’ll go where you need to go, be who you need to be, support people where possible, be a servant to those who need you, and lend a hand where necessary, and that will become your whole job. And that’s okay. It’s okay to be an intangible leader who just goes where he’s needed.”
On this note, the phrase I try to live by is: Let the greatest among you be the servant of all. It sounds counterintuitive, but being a servant to others, being able to provide for those with legitimate needs and who are entrusted into your stewardship, is one of the most important roles you will ever play in your position as a CEO.
Waqaas Al-Siddiq: There is no such thing as the perfect hire
As a CEO, it is your responsibility to create and cultivate the best team that will help you see continued growth and success. Often, you will go through multiple employees for each role before you finally find the one that works. But finding the right person is only half of the process, and there is no such thing as the “perfect hire”.
As Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq says, “If you find someone with the right alignment of intensity, urgency, and ownership, then you already have the best person possible. From there, you have to continue to work with them to turn them into what you need.”
You are always going to have to help someone become the perfect fit, because no one will be exactly what you need them to be right off the bat. So don’t be frustrated with yourself or your team because they need training. Instead, take the opportunity to apply your knowledge and direction to turn someone already great into someone perfect.
Maria Maccecchini: Relax and enjoy life more
The last piece of advice I want to share with you today is one that I feel might just be the most important. If there’s anything I’ve learned about CEOs, it’s that they work. And work. And work. And they’re successful, and yes, it’s because they worked hard. But a quote that really stuck with me from my recent conversation with Maria Maccecchini was, “Looking back, I think that if I had worked a little less and enjoyed myself a little more, I’d probably still be in the same place today.”
In fact, the advice she’d give herself as a 20 year old is the same advice she’d give herself today. You’ve put a lot of work, time, and energy into getting yourself where you are now. It’s never too late to take a step back, breathe and let yourself enjoy life.