In high-stakes environments like clinical trials, the strength of a team can be the determining factor between success and setback. Building teams that are not only high-performing but also resilient, collaborative, and aligned is essential. 

Steve Garguilo joins teaming experts Wendy Ammirato and Tracy Roe to share insights into what it takes to embed and nurture these vital qualities within a team. 

Steve is the CEO of Cultivate, a multi-disciplinary talent development studio with a dedicated research arm specializing in organizational empowerment. One of the company’s focuses is supporting talents and teams, particularly in high-stakes situations and scenarios. 

A long-time biopharma commercial leader, Tracy is currently the Vice President of Development Operations for Clinical Research at PPD, part of Thermo Fisher Scientific. Meanwhile, Wendy was previously the Executive Director for Clinical Partnership Management at Takeda. 

Together, they bring combined years of experience and a wealth of knowledge working in the clinical trials and research field.  

Their discussion dived into the strategies that empower team members to navigate complex challenges, drive impactful results, and thrive in demanding roles, underscoring the necessity of strong and healthy teaming in achieving sustained success. 

Here are some of the notable insights from their talk: 

Why focus on teams? 

“We don't talk about people connecting, expressing their expectations, and aligning on how they’re going to work together. We tend to spend time planning the projects but do very little helping the team form up their ways of working.” - Wendy Ammirato 

Access to information and tools is vital to the success of any team working in a high-stakes environment. Individual skills and optimizing the flow of work are also necessary, along with setting and hitting key performance indicators and metrics. Meanwhile, recent technologies have made processing and studying data more manageable and accurate. 

Yet, according to Wendy, success varies from team to team despite having the same access to these resources. She points to teaming as the key component that greatly influences team outcome, “The variability was really glaringly obvious, and a lot of it came down to the people and how they work together.” 

 Be intentional from the very beginning. 

“Hoping that you get a great team is not a strategy. Knowing what a great team looks like and what skills, disposition, and mindset they have—you can inform and bring that to life by being intentional in the beginning.” - Wendy Ammirato 

“When you're selecting that team, you need to make sure that they understand the fundamental elements: trust, collaboration, transparency, sharing the same work goals, understanding that we need to deliver and that we're on the same team—that one team mentality is critically important.” - Tracy Roe 

Successful teaming starts with intentionality from the very beginning—when choosing team members. This includes determining if they are the right fit for the team and allowing them to form, storm, and norm in a very intentional, specific way. Being intentional from the start also means understanding what the expectation is. It saves time and money by ensuring that the project is handed off to a team empowered to be high-performing. 

What leadership means 

“Leadership is shared. Everyone needs to own their own part of being a leader for the team and do what needs to be done in the moment to succeed.” - Wendy Ammirato 

“It’s all about working together—that ongoing collaboration. There’s no ‘I’ in this job, there’s ‘we.’” - Tracy Roe 

In any team or organization, people will have their titles, roles, and responsibilities. These serve as a guidepost for everyone and help determine who to hold accountable for certain things. 

However, teams are cautioned not to get stuck to such rigid structures if they want to succeed. Yes, there will always be an ultimate decision-maker and someone at the top of the chain, but they can't and won't do it all. 

See better results by focusing on team norms and community values, encouraging every member to lead from where they are. At the same time, those who earned the official title of being the leader need to learn to listen to everybody in the room before deciding. They also need to give dignity and respect to the team to tell them why they made that choice. 

 This perspective highlights the importance of having an infrastructure to help build team dynamics. Collaboration and trust are vital. Team members listen to one another and understand what needs to be done, while leaders support and assist when needed. 

 More ways to strengthen your team 

"Don't blame each other. Turn on curiosity and seek to understand what happened and what to do collectively about it." - Wendy Ammirato 

 "Being open and transparent with one another will bring the results we’re looking for." - Tracy Roe 

Tracy and Wendy provide more lessons on how to manage successful teams based on their real-life experiences. 

Wendy points out that we live in a complex, rapidly changing world, and intentionally setting yourself and your team up to be successful can help you seamlessly navigate this ever-changing landscape. There is no set roadmap, and today will look different from tomorrow. What helps is owning that reality, getting in there, and making a decision. 

Tracy echoes this by saying that the clinical trials industry is continuing to evolve, and there will always be outside factors that can influence your team and study. Transparency and alignment among all members of the team can help them survive and thrive despite the many changes that might come. 

On the Importance of Teaming 

"When you invest in teaming, you not only get better teams, but better employees—they feel valued, seen, and heard." - Wendy Ammirato 

 Empowered teams bring better results for clinical trials and other high-stakes initiatives. Cultivating a workplace culture that promotes healthy teaming behaviors helps retain talent, promote innovation, and accelerate progress. 

At Cultivate, we continue to expand its offerings and ways to support teams to be successful not just in the clinical trials space but also in other high-performing environments. Our Ready Set Team (RST) program provides a systematic, proactive, and intentional approach to teaming. We leverage the information we gathered from primary research on teaming best practices and a series of team-tested workshops to develop an ecosystem that supports people in the flow of work through check-ins, tools, coaching, and nudges. 

Teams see immediate results as soon as we start with our approach. Among the program participants: 

• 95% feel that they can apply learnings from teaming to their daily work; 

• 90% feel more empowered after their teaming experience; and, 

• 91% are satisfied with the coaching and facilitation. 

 Learn more about developing high-performing and empowered teams by visiting our teaming page here. 

 Want to discuss in-depth how we can help you empower your people and teams? Schedule a teaming call with us now, or get in touch with us here.