By Affiliate Professor Heather Cairns-LeeHeather Cairns-Lee and Professor Tawfik JelassiTawfik Jelassi
The Roche Diagnostics Belgium (RDB) case study consists of two parts: Part (A): “Changing a Winning Formula?” and Part (B): Cultural and Digital Transformation. The cases focus on the transformation initiated by General Manager, Anna-Maria Heuchel-Reinig.
Roche has a global leadership development practice of rotating leaders between new roles and countries to develop individual leaders as well as the organisation. So what happens when newly appointed leaders join established, well-performing businesses? How do these leaders navigate the transition, especially when assuming responsibility for a reputable country organisation?
In 2017, Anna-Maria Heuchel-Reinig was appointed General Manager to the Belgian organisation. As a seasoned executive, Anna was looking forward to returning to Belgium, where she had taken on a previous role several years prior. During her first 90 days, Anna observed that, while the organisation had a solid reputation within the Belgian market, there was not only a definite need for a substantial shift in terms of the organisation’s culture, but also opportunities to seize within the digital arena. So how should she go about the transition within the context she had recently stepped into?
Case A - Changing a Winning Formula, gives an opportunity to review Anna’s first 90 days as General Manager from April 2017 to August 2017.
Learning Objective
- How do leaders make sense of the situations they have been hired to lead when their sense-making is counter to the prevailing narrative?
- How do leaders navigate their first 90 days in a new role?
