May 4, 2020

Last week, we hosted a Biotech CEO Virtual Summit with a small group of leaders to facilitate a discussion about the biggest areas of interest and need. There were no shortage of topics to cover, but the most important and challenging remain team engagement and supporting the well-being of teams. We would love to hear how you’re doing that. From our Summit, we gleaned a number of key takeaways, including:

1. Permission: Give the team explicit permission to keep a flexible schedule (it’s not enough to assume they know – permission is important, including permission to skip meetings and/or video not required);

2. Limit Meetings: Consider keeping meetings to 45 minutes so people have time for a break, and limiting the number of video meetings daily (more on that below);

3. Survey Teams: Deploy an employee a survey to better gauge team morale and areas where you can support them better, including questions related to managing family/kids (one of the biggest stressors);

4. Internal Divides: Realize that essential and non-essential workers have different stresses and demands, and these circumstances could accentuate concerns around fairness and equality;

5. Communications: Communicate much more frequently and ensure there’s ample opportunity for open discussion (an unexpected phone call is more welcome these days!). It’s difficult to read non-verbal cues during virtual/online communications, and misunderstandings can happen easily. Lead from a place of compassion and the assumption of positive intent.

If a leader at your company has been especially innovative during this time, please tell me more!

News & Resources

• NYT: Why Zoom Is Terrible – as referenced above, it’s important to think about how much and when cameras help and/or when they are detractors

• Tips and strategies to improve virtual meeting performance – great tactics from Verizon, such as starting meetings 10 minutes after the hour and being selective about when to require video

• Red Cross: Staying Home? Perfect Time to Learn Lifesaving Skills – maybe some ‘home summer camp’ activities for kids

• Podcast: Opportunities In Healthcare's New Regulatory Era: Dr. Karen DeSalvo & Eric Hargan – leaders from HHS and Google discuss how stakeholders must balance data access with privacy protections, and opportunities for innovation and collaboration

Food Fight – keep ‘em coming!

Such healthy submissions lately! We have enough entries across categories to build out a cookbook. Stay tuned for that 😊

Today’s winner is Suzy Jones, founder of DNA Ink!

Chef’s comments: “So a popular and an easy lunch dish or snack in our house is the raw pizza. It is tastier than it sounds...

You bake a tortilla (Gluten free for me) on low temp until crisp, smear on the hummus, add a few spices (I sprinkle a little cayenne and paprika), and add chopped raw veggies – in this case, chopped kale (drizzled with Braggs Aminos to cut the bitterness), tomatoes, and pepperoncini peppers for an extra bite.

A Little Levity

• Florida Man Living in Abandoned Disney Park Says It's a Paradise – I’ve heard worse ideas… especially in articles that begin with “Florida Man…”

• Video: Day 12 Quarantine with Husband – “I’m here because I don’t think he can find me in here…” (funny story – I got this entry from my mom 😝)

• In honor of Star Wars Day (may the fourth be with you)…

Be well,

Jackie