I was at JPM last month. Over six days, I probably had 50 one-on-one conversations and meetings in a variety of settings: restaurants, bars, conference rooms, coffee shops, and several hikes and long walks between events.
Every one of those conversations included some discussion of the human factors involved in the workplace.
Maybe that’s not surprising. People, environment, and workplace culture play a big role in determining not just job satisfaction, but company success overall. And given the work I do, people are predisposed to opening up about what’s really going on.
Candidates tell us far more than they tell their boss what they really think about their companies — often even more than they share with close colleagues. They talk about what frustrates them, what motivates them, where leadership is falling short, and what makes them stay, despite the challenges.
What strikes me, though, is that when I attend formal panel sessions, whether at JPM or other industry events, very few of them focus on humans and company culture in any meaningful way. It feels completely disconnected from the conversations I am constantly having.
I assume this disconnect has to do with the perceived “softness” of culture and human factors. They’re not as clean or measurable as funding rounds, clinical milestones, or commercialization strategy; they don’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet or a slide deck. So they can feel less real, less urgent, and harder to manage.
I get that.
But if we ignore these things because they don’t show up cleanly in quarterly metrics, we miss the major driver of execution and value creation.
These things are labeled soft, but once the funding and science are in place, the culture you create and reinforce as a leader directly impacts your organization’s ability to execute.
This is not news. The data showing that stronger leadership and healthier cultures correlate with better performance, higher employee engagement, and robust financial outcomes is clear.
What To Do?
#1. Urge your associations and conferences to hold more panels digging into culture.
There is not enough exposure to ways in which culture can be built and sustained; panels like these provide an opportunity to learn from peers. Sure, most CEOs and senior leaders can say a couple of sentences describing their culture. But hearing others discuss their successes and failures helps deepen understanding of which levers to pull and which things to watch out for.
The companies that win long term are not the ones with the slickest decks at JPM. They are the ones where leadership can clearly articulate how they make decisions, how they resolve conflict, and how they hold people accountable.
#2. Know that culture is highly dynamic and evolves from the environment and a myriad of factors that influence it.
What are the unspoken rules? How does information flow? How much trust exists? How are decisions made? How willing are people to speak the truth?
Do people challenge you in meetings, or do they nod and complain later? Does bad news travel fast or get buried? Are cross-functional teams collaborating, or protecting turf?
Culture is not something you can set and forget; people will align their behavior to whatever the system allows. If you’re not paying constant attention, it will evolve on its own, and not always in ways you expect or intend.
#3. Assess any internal issues you’re having.
What are these telling you about your company’s culture? How do the actual conditions compare to how people SAY it happens? Connect the dots. Find the friction.
Don’t dismiss complaints as isolated noise — patterns matter. If three different functions describe the same bottleneck or leadership behavior, that’s data. Treat it with the same seriousness you would treat concerning blips in your supply chain.
#4. Understand that individual leaders behave differently in different cultures.
I’ve seen people labeled as rock stars become problems in a different culture — and vice versa. Pay attention to the variables in the system that have enabled (or dis-abled) someone’s success — the differences may be quite material.
And before you totally blame a “difficult” employee, it might be a good opportunity to assess the culture, to make sure there are no contributing factors.
#5. Take your time as a new leader.
I know you want to make your mark. But culture is a living, breathing thing; take your time understanding what you are now a part of. Listen, observe, map it. Find the (often) hidden greatness as well as the potholes.
Then try to understand how the addition of your style and approach is affecting it. It will not stay the same (which can be a good thing), so be aware that you are definitely impacting it.
Final Thoughts
In biopharma, we obsess over the science. As we should. But once the science is credible and the capital is secured, the differentiator is almost always execution — and that’s driven by people.
If we treat culture and leadership with the same rigor we apply to our science, we will see fewer avoidable failures, stronger teams, and more companies that deliver on their promises.
