Preach patience
When piloting your company through an uncertain time, one of the most critical things you can manage is the expectations of your employees. Employees want to see progress, and sometimes, they want to see it at a faster rate than you are able to deliver.
As the leader, you and your management team have to show progress, but you also have to show the work behind the progress, which can help employees understand the speed at which you’re moving.
“Sometimes, it’s difficult for folks because people want it to happen overnight,” Proehl says. “When you’re licensing a product, people are waiting for it to happen next week. So what we’ve tried to do is explain the process we go through. When we do license something, we go back and talk about it. We talk about how long it has taken. Sometimes it takes 12 months, 18 months or two years from the start of the conversation to finishing the deal. People need to understand that it’s an ongoing process.”
It comes back to showing employees how everything fits together and aligns with your goals. Proehl says you have to answer the question for every employee, “How does it affect me?”
“When we do our surveys, sometimes we find that it’s not necessarily that people don’t clearly understand the vision of the company, it’s that they have to see actions that reinforce the vision,” he says. “It all sounds great, but how does this affect me as an employee, and are we doing the things necessary to drive us toward the vision?”
As of press time for this article, Santarus was still waiting for a final outcome on the Paragraph IV certification, but the company has remained stable, and Proehl says employees remain focused on driving sales and remain optimistic about the company’s future. Keeping things that way will continue to be an ongoing communication task for Proehl and his managers
“You just have to keep your goals and vision in front of people all the time,” he says. “You just want to constantly remind people of what you’re trying to do.”
How to reach: Santarus Inc., (858) 314-5700 or www.santarus.com
