Inspiring employees
Soon-Shiong says as a CEO, you aren’t just a businessman, or a scientist, or a number-cruncher. You are also a teacher.Employees become passionate about their work by learning about their jobs and how their jobs affect others. You cangive them charts and graphs to show them how their work fits into the big picture mathematically. You can show themhow their work fits into the next big product your company is going to produce. All of that works on some level.
But one of the best ways you can give your employees a sense that their work is producing real results is to relay tothem the stories of the people they are helping. In some industries, it might be your company’s product helping peoplein another company thousands of miles away to get their jobs done. At Abraxis, motivation comes in the form of cancersurvivors and others who are winning the battle with life-threatening diseases. “You need to believe in your conviction, that what you are doing is really affecting and changing lives,” he says. “Youneed to find the people whose lives are actually changed by your innovations and share their stories with your team.“At Abraxis, we are very fortunate and blessed that the patients actually call in and share with us experiences thatchanged their lives. Some patients had breast cancer and were told that they only had a few months to live, and some ofthem had full [treatment] responses. These are the things that really motivate us.”
Showing Abraxis team members how their ideas become life-changing treatments is the most powerful motivator Soon-Shiong says he has.
He says you have to create a feeling among your employees that there is a real need for what you are doing as a company, something that creates a purpose beyond the profit-loss ledger. “I think there needs to be a recognition that there is an urgent, unmet need for what it is you do,” he says. “That ishow you guard against complacency.”
Soon-Shiong says that monetary rewards are a significant part of the equation when it comes to motivating employees, and employees do respond to financial gain. But as the CEO, you should dig deeper to find what beyond moneycan motivate your team. “We offer both stock options and a competitive salary as compensation,” he says. “But that’s not what drives somepeople, certainly not a lot of our people. For some, the satisfaction of making a difference is the great motivator.”
HOW TO REACH: Abraxis BioScience Inc., www.abraxisbio.com