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Case Study

Eli Lilly and company: A transformation journey “on equal footing” (A)

By John R. Weeks and Valerie Keller-Birrer

4 pages

June 2019

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Reference: IMD-7-2079

When Simone Thomsen took over as General Manager of Eli Lilly and Company, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, the last thing her new team wanted from her was yet another vision. The organization had faced new leaders every two or three years, each with a new vision, and many reorganizations and restructurings. They were fed up and felt misunderstood. But their performance had not been good and the future was going to be even more difficult. It was clear to Thomsen that simply doing the same things, only a little better, wouldn’t be enough. A transformation was needed. Her objective was to get the company back on track and show it could grow and be profitable. Then the organization might accept yet another new vision, and, she hoped, her team might even accept to create a new vision themselves. They did, and it would require a radical transformation to achieve. They committed themselves to becoming the most humane and customer-centric pharmaceutical company in Austria, Switzerland and Germany by 2020.

Learning Objective

How to effectively lead an inclusive visioning process and inspire an organization that is tired of visions and suffering from change fatigue.

Keywords

Talent Management, Leadership, General Management, Human Resources, Management

Settings

Europe, Germany
Eli Lilly, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals
2014 to 2019

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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