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Leading with Purpose

Our NA Chief Commercial Officer Bob Jahr on evolving your purpose

 

Most of us are looking for a sense of purpose in all that we do, particularly in our careers. Some people know their purpose early on and I think they’re lucky to understand what drives them from the start. I didn’t fully realize my purpose until a few years into my career.

Your purpose can evolve

If you had asked me at the start of my career what my purpose was, I would have said I was driven by performance. In Commercial, you are always talking about numbers, and everything is very quantifiable. A few years into working at a larger pharmaceutical company, I had a very humbling experience. I was sitting in a Patient Council and someone said, “I don’t want to just be called a patient. I’m more than a patient, I’m a person with a name. I’m a father, a brother, a sibling, and a friend.”

Nobody wakes up one day and says my goal in life is to be a patient. It was really eye opening for me. My purpose began to shift from performance driven to impact driven. 

People want to contribute to the greater good, so help them find their purpose so that it can ladder up to the company purpose.

It’s not about when you find a purpose, it’s about what you do the moment you’ve found it

Today, I know that my purpose is to lead a team and impact people to find solutions that improve people’s lives. This is what gets me out of bed every morning. When I talk about impact, I don’t want to talk about patients as a number. At Sobi, we view the patient as a whole person and don’t characterize them just by their disease. We’re finding solutions for people.

I consistently talk to my teams about the patient as a whole person and about the patient ecosystem. The ecosystem is the person being treated along with the doctors, nurses, social workers, caregivers, parents and siblings who surround them and advocate for them. Today, particularly in the rare disease space, the patient ecosystem is incredibly informed about therapeutic areas and products. There’s a connectivity and closeness not only to the patients, but to the entire support system - I think this is somewhat unique to the rare disease community. 

We can provide a solution for a patient that that no one else can and there’s an intrinsic reward in that. It’s because of this that I’ve found a lot of purpose in the specialty and rare disease space. I also have a personal connection to it. My nieces and nephew were born prematurely and spent weeks in the NICU. They have been treated with medicines created by Sobi and needed rare solutions in order to thrive. I have experienced firsthand the unmet need and the impact that we can have on these patients and have seen the unique passion that physicians have for them. 

Share your reason and you’ll find your rare strength

I consistently share this personal driver and my reason for working with all the leaders and my teams at Sobi. As leaders, I think it’s our job to put our purpose at the center of all that we do and encourage our teams to do the same. In doing this we’re able to understand what motivates each individual person and can find common threads across functions and therapeutic areas. We create a community.

I find that asking people what excites them about being here at Sobi yields inspiring results. People bring a certain excitement when discussing what drives them. It helps others match that energy and almost always becomes a robust dialogue where you can watch people lifting each other up. People want to contribute to the greater good, so help them find their purpose so that it can ladder up to the company purpose.

Grant people grace and space

In order to lead with purpose, especially through challenges, it’s critical to prioritize. I believe that energy follows thought, so you have to clarify for people what you need from them, where you want them to go and then help them prioritize so that they can get there. I can’t control external noise, like what’s happening with our competitors, but I can share clear priorities that everyone can work towards. For example, I can say I need all of you to work with health care providers to enable the identification of 25 patients this season that are perfect candidates for our treatment. Give people a clear vision and strategy and then allow them the grace and space to get there on their own. 

So what actions can you take to lead with purpose? I’ll share with you what works for me.

  1. Be open to the idea that your purpose can evolve. Remind people that their purpose can change. This can be a true strength.
  2. Remember that energy follows thought. There’s always going to be a lot of noise surrounding this industry, whether it’s competition or internal doubts. Help others tune it out and stay focused.
  3. Ask your teams what excites them about their work. Hearing people share what excites them can help inspire others. Asking this question tends to create a sense of community. 
  4. Keep it simple and prioritize. Provide people with a clear vision of where you want them to go and give them a strategy to help them prioritize how to get there. People want to know how they can best contribute to the greater purpose. Share with your teams what you need them to do in the simplest way that you can.
  5. Grant people grace and space. Give people time to reflect and go through their own process to get where you want them to go. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to getting to the finish line, so trust that everyone will do what they need to do to get there. 

Sobi has created a space for people to lead with purpose and I think we all have the rare strength and ability to share our purpose and inspire others. When we’re all working together towards a greater purpose, it brings us all closer to the people we are creating solutions for.