Workplace Community Profile: CSLI at Takeda Pharmaceuticals
"Internal community" is the business world's next big buzzword (buzz-phrase?). As the type to use 40% of this curated list of buzzwords regularly, I should know.
Internal communities, in their simplest form, are organizational support systems. There can be multiple types of internal communities within one organization, and they can have varying degrees of formality or structure.
One of the reasons I'm predicting big things for the "internal community" SEO rank? It's in cahoots with 'culture'– a member of the buzzword royal family (oh, and because COVID-19)—internal community as the input, culture as the output. When we invest in the connections people make at work, we're directly impacting the kind of environment these connections exist in.
We'll profile internal communities we admire in a series of three blog posts (more or less, depending on bandwidth). We'll break down things like their existential purpose, how they recruit participants, and how they measure success.
We're kicking off this series with CSLI, the Center for Scientific Leadership & Innovation, an internal community built within Takeda, a global, research and development-driven pharmaceutical company of about 50,000 employees. To help us tell the CSLI story, we're sitting down with Nick Heath, Senior Manager of R&D Leadership Innovation.
Nick graduated from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in 2015. He then joined Takeda’s Postdoctoral Fellowship program in Pharmacovigilance and took a full time role in Pharmacovigilance which he was in for the past two years. His current position, R&D Leadership Innovation Lead, is focused on educating, inspiring, and supporting his colleagues on the science of innovation.
Nick, what is CSLI?
CSLI stands for the Center for Scientific Leadership & Innovation, and we are an internal group dedicated to helping Takeda become an industry benchmark for learning agility and leadership excellence. In layman's terms, we're building a community that empowers Takeda employees at all levels of the organization to show up fully at work and feel that their voice is heard, respected, and appreciated.
What is CSLI's approach when it comes to building a community for scientific leadership & innovation?
We have a two-pronged approach. First, get as many people involved as possible. It doesn't matter where you fall on the organization chart. We want to hear from you (and learn from you) because your perspective and experience is unique. Second, we use research to support our "pillars" or principles: collaborative networks, collective intelligence, focused curiosity, and creative energy.
Our goal to make the world a healthier place hinges on innovation. We know that to succeed for our patients worldwide, we need a pipeline of innovative ideas, medicines, leaders to make it happen.
What is CSLI doing to bring these principles to life?
Well, we're doing a lot. Right now, to help us manage all of the CSLI-related initiatives, we're working on building out a more comprehensive project management system. That's an entire project in and of itself!
A few CSLI highlights include our bi-weekly right-brain warm-ups, our Get Curious sessions, and our Spark program.
The right-brain warm-ups* are casual, 15-minute meetings where we invite Takeda employees to take a creative break during their workday. The short exercises make it accessible to anyone in the organization, and the fact that it has nothing to do with their day to day tasks is a huge draw.
The Get Curious sessions are monthly events where we recruit a featured speaker to share their insights and learnings on a particular topic. Our most recent event featured Martin Reeves and drew over 200 Takeda attendees.
Finally, Spark is a six-month online learning & one-on-one coaching program. I know, that's a mouthful. The first cohort of 80 Takeda participants just started on September 1. The goal is to help participants bring their idea to life through a series of modules focused on discovering insights, communicating their concept, and creating momentum around their idea. We're in the thick of it now, so stay tuned for more updates in the future.
*Interested in hosting a right-brain warm-up? We have some ideas for you here.
Wow, that is a lot. How are you managing and measuring success for these initiatives?
Let's focus on Spark since that is one of our primary initiatives right now.
Before we started marketing the program internally, we made sure to set clear goals for the program to know what success looked like. Some of those goals included things like:
At least 10 participants complete the program in full, and
50% of participants remain active for the duration of the program
We also put quite a bit of work into a program recruitment & communication plan. Our pre-program communication included reaching out to managers across the organization & asking them to submit applications on behalf of innovative members of their team. During the program, our communication focused more on periodic "nudges" to keep the program top of mind for participants. This involved creating a channel on Microsoft Teams to engage with the Spark cohort regularly, sharing relevant information and resources.
We're learning as we go. Even though we're only two months into the program, we've already collected ample feedback from active participants that can help us make improvements in the future.
What's next?
Obviously the sexy way to answer this question is to say we’re focused on spreading awareness of CSLI throughout the organization, hosting and facilitating events that attract more attendees, and continuing to support & motivate our Spark participants. All of this is true. But, there’s something else less shiny & cool that we’re working on as well.
Going back to what I said earlier, building out a thorough and efficient project management process is, in my opinion, going to be a key component of success over the next few months. As CSLI continues to build momentum and popularity among the Takeda community, we want to make sure our events are consistent and valuable - every single time. This requires an attention to detail that I'm not sure we've reached yet (but I'm confident we'll get there).
With that in tow, I'm excited to continue building upon what we've already managed to create - the humble beginnings of a powerful community of experimenters and innovators across the entire organization of Takeda.
Major takeaways from CSLI’s internal community:
Establish a strong purpose statement
Have a clear understanding of what success looks like
Invest in an internal communication plan
Make sure your initiatives relate back to your purpose statement
Take the time to build out project management system
