When David Holveck became the president and CEO of Endo Pharmaceuticals Holdings Inc. in 2008, he arrived in the cockpit midflight.
The pharmaceutical manufacturer had built up an immense amount of momentum in the previous years, surpassing $1 billion in revenue in 2007. With the company achieving new levels of revenue growth each year and employing more than 1,000 people, any leader in Holveck’s position would have had a difficult time convincing the management and work force at Endo that anything needed to change or continue evolving.
Yet that’s exactly what Holveck set out to accomplish.
“From a leadership standpoint, it was a matter of recognizing our success but not allowing that success to be the driver for the future,” Holveck says. “How do you take that formula for success and translate it into a new vision point?”
Holveck knew that inertia becomes a kind of self-feeding monster, allowing companies to coast along on the current wave, losing its collective grip on the survival-of-the-fittest mentality that made the company successful in the first place.
Holveck needed to pull Endo out of its comfortable groove and force the company to once again focus on creating and innovating for the future — but do it in a way that still leveraged Endo’s established success.
To drive the company forward, Holveck needed the engagement of his management team and employees in forming a well-defined vision for the future. That meant focusing on strategizing and communication and making the future a personal matter for all Endo employees.
“The more that we can translate the elements of change relative to the personal side of the employee, the better off we are,” Holveck says. “That takes a period of time, and it means that you really have to be involved and in the mix, not just doing ceremonial presentations. Access and involvement throughout the company is a critical element.”
