Finance Fundamentals for Commercial Leaders™

0:00Sharon BoneHi, Patrick. How are you today?

0:12Patrick R. CoyleI’m well, thank you, Sharon. How are you?

0:13Sharon BoneI’m good, thanks. So, what energizes you about your work that you do? All the years of experience in such in chief leadership roles as a male.

0:26Patrick R. CoyleI’m passionate about patients first, and I’m also passionate about profitability for organizations because that profitability and innovation helps fuel innovation. And in there, throughout there, is the currency of people, process, technology, and data, that has always guided me in my career. But the people are the most important part. The process can be refined and redesigned, and data comes and goes, and technology helps us get there. And there’s a lot of getting there faster with AI today. But the people part and the development that’s really critical. Development of those people.

1:02Sharon BoneAnd the development of those people. How do you, from your viewpoint, how does it impact the success of the company?

1:10Patrick R. CoyleYeah, I think a long time ago. I don’t want to quantify how long ago that was. The I think before technology advanced as fast as it did, the companies realized that the people were the most important thing to the organization, and I think at that time there was also a lack of data and a lack of that technology. So we were much more process centric, much more people centric, and I think over time that slipped, and we lost the connectivity to the people as being the driver of the company and the organization, and ultimately the profits.

What I see in pharma is the people make a tremendous difference on the patient journey, and it’s not at a time where we have more and more technology than ever. It’s the people that make the decisions on the technology, the deployment of the technology, the strategic decisions that are going to make the company successful, and I’ve seen a bit of a lack of focus on that. I think specifically past COVID.

2:16Sharon BoneYeah, wow. I really want to expand more on that because the return on investment really, at what cost? I think the human dynamics, right? It’s extremely costly nowadays, and not organizations are having a hard time connecting with their people. And males in leader leadership roles nowadays, they have a lot of stress on them already, and the hardest thing is to navigate those costly human dynamics. And from your perspective, how do you think that impacts that return of investment? Because I know that profitability is still important to you.

3:03Patrick R. CoyleYeah, I think for many years, organizations haven’t properly attributed the costs of replacement of resources and people. Right, and so I think especially around 2020, at a time where we were more home than ever and focused on our computers and our own personal lives, I think companies started really doubling down on the investment in the people, right, and their skill set, and upskilling them, and working on their mindset. But then I think pretty quickly after COVID started to resolve itself materially in the public eye, although it certainly hasn’t gone away, I think people started to prioritize their own interests and their family interests and what’s important to them.

And really, I think it’s shaped the workforce of today, which is only a few years later, but it’s quite different than the one that entered into the pandemic. So I think they were investing in all those people, but they didn’t invest in their mindset, and for the long term. And people, what they want, what’s important to them is different today. And so I think there’s going to be this great look back now and say, okay, post COVID, what is most important to the people?

How do we retain them? The opportunity cost of losing them is huge. All that development time is a sunk cost if the asset walks. And I think more than ever now, as people upskill their capabilities around the use of AI and technology, it’s going to make them much much more critical. I think you’re going to see a huge separation in the people that are driving the strategy and the decision making, and most importantly, execution for the company. Yeah, the strategy can’t be well defined by the technology, and and the implementation of that strategy is really critical to the success of the organization. So we need it more than ever.

5:02Sharon BoneYeah, and I feel so. The men I work with a lot. who lead from silos and compartments, and help them integrate their leadership across the organization. And in that process, we look at a lot of you have to look to the self first, and then how. And the number one thing is that communication aspect. And somewhere in that gap with technology, COVID, that something has happened to the communication process between human to human, and men in leadership roles. And you’ve been there before.

It is already hard enough to carry so much weight and stress on them of the family, and then the organization. I think a lot of people have a hard time seeing it that they carry a lot more than we think, and then these men in these leadership roles, it’s not their fault. It’s no one’s fault that the pendulum, the feminist movement was wonderful for women, but for men, what it did is it shrunk their voices. Women feel safe to speak. I feel frustrated.

These men, they don’t feel the psychological safety as well, because they’ve been trained since an early age in conditions, so it is such an innate response that they don’t even realize that they can’t be wrong.

6:33Patrick R. CoyleYeah, and I think the that’s an excellent point because I think the last few years when we’ve been finding ourselves, we collectively it’s been a it’s been a focus on what’s important. Things are different, whether it’s family for you or hobby or personal interests. I think it’s been less and less on the focus of work, and I think that’s a combination of the employer and that pact changing a bit over since COVID, and also the people’s willingness to embrace that kind of style before.

And while companies more than ever are having their employees come back together in person, I don’t think they’ve refocused that amount of time on what are they going to do in person. They’re not the same ones that left the building, and now they’re and now they’re coming back, and I think there’s also there’s a role shift, particularly in men that I see. But there’s no training, there’s no roadmap, and especially the leaders, the men in leadership positions are going back to a totally different environment than was there before.

But for the large part, I think it’s a very difficult thing for those leaders to acknowledge and embrace, what do I do now? This is a we all talk about people embracing the AI and the technology. Huge efforts from companies to to force people back in the office and force them to use AI. But where is the forcing them to come back to realize that humanity is more important than ever in leadership, and the vulnerability to say it’s okay that things are not the same anymore. My my role has changed.

8:10Sharon BoneThat is amazingly powerful, right there. The vulnerable men they struggle with vulnerability. They see it as a weakness, where it’s actually a strength. And when we sit there, we want to lead back to an area where I don’t. From we want to empower these males, basically, but we don’t want to disempower females. We just want an equal play, a fair playing field in these leadership roles. And I think the female leaderships, of course, men. There’s a lot more male CEOs than females, but the females actually feel safer to find support groups and hire coaches as opposed to a men.

Man, to break that paradigm, it’s almost to be like they have to swallow like a pride or a little of their ego to say, “Hey, I need support. What is from your experience? What have you noticed since all of us?

9:05Patrick R. CoyleYeah, I think there’s been, and I’ve been a part of advisory and leading women in leadership training and presentations and supporting diversity efforts across the organizations in a really meaningful way. And it’s a huge part of that is gender, right, equality, but a huge part of that is just the diversity of opinions and voices, and so I think that it’s now more important for the men to focus on what does new leadership look like for them, right? So we know what the old playbook said, and then I’ll speak personally from my own example.

I was I have three daughters, so this is obviously a topic really near and dear to my heart. But before COVID, they rarely saw me. I tried to be there as much as I could, but work kept me away from the home a lot. And then during COVID, I had this huge responsibility as CFO at Eisai over me, but I was at home doing it, and for the first time in my career, I was really father and leader at the same time in the same building, and that had never happened before.

So I know for me personally, it taught me a lot about priorities and how you can do both. You can be a very successful leader in an organization, in a senior role. You can have the vulnerability to say, like I did sometimes. Okay, the kids are coming in and out of the office because they’re here and I’m here, and that’s good. It’s not bad, but I think we just suddenly rushed back to nope. That’s not okay. Father and CFO, CEO, CCO, C-suite leader has to be really divergent, and I think also too lost in there is the critical importance of of being a husband as well.

So there’s all these different roles and hats you have to wear, but I think it’s completely okay to wear that role of father, spouse, and leader at the same time.

10:57Sharon BoneWow. Okay. So something so powerful you just said, and so humbling, which really just blows me away, is the idea that being okay to say, “Hey, you guys, the kids are going in and out, and it’s okay. For a woman, it’s so much easier in leadership, and I think that is something that’s just innate, like in nurture nature. For me to sit there and be like, guys, my kids are going to come in and out. But for a man, you have to have together the kids.

There, where’s their mother? Their mother should no. But in this day and age, men want to step up to the plate and they want to lead organizations, but they also want to lead at home, and not forget about themselves and taking care of them. Like it’s okay to say, go out and even if you like golf once a week, go on and have golf and not feel the guilt. I think you nailed something post COVID that’s been draining men in leadership roles is guilt.

12:02Patrick R. CoyleYeah, I think that’s a huge part of how can I be successful at work in this high stress, high stakes game if I’m focused too much at home. And I think it’s the opposite. If you don’t have a healthy home life and you’re not focused on the family or the things that matter most to you, how could you be successful at work? And I’ve seen plenty of time leaders that have a great face at work, and you know them perfectly, and they don’t have a perfect life at home.

And I think, although you have to get comfortable with that, it’s not, it’s okay to be both. Yeah. You there’s a huge movement I was watching on the news the other day of these stay-at-home dads that were people in senior roles, and the workforce shift is changing. And I don’t think it’s about replacing them, substituting them. It’s about diversification and coming together in very different ways with different roles, and that vulnerability, like you shared, that women in leadership roles have, especially at home, maybe more innate.

I also see some of them go over-indexing the women in leadership, over-indexing to not show that vulnerability at work. So there’s another interesting dynamic at play there. But I think at some point it becomes just are are senior leaders okay being vulnerable, right? Yeah. It just it’s just predispositioned maybe more for men than women.

13:25Sharon BoneAnd from your position, especially CFO, the job of the CFO is what to challenge the CEO, right? So as you’re challenging that second guessing of yourself, sometimes has to play in the guilt. Just because you have kids running in and out doesn’t mean that you can’t do your job well, but somewhere in society we have said, okay, because you have a family and you have kids, you’re not going to be good at what you do, and you love what you do. You’re good at what you do. Who’s to tell you that you can’t be both?

14:01Patrick R. CoyleYeah, and you interestingly enough, since I was CFO, I’ve learned more about the ecosystem of healthcare and the interdependencies and how things work in a way that I was, I only had one kind of purview and lens to. So I think similarly, I’ve been a lot more central to the home since then, and your the life lessons that you’re working through with your family are really critical for your work lessons for as a senior leader, and I think there’s a place for those both to converge, right?

And you and at the end of the day, I found myself giving my kids advice that I wish I had taken as a senior leader and would be totally different and applicable today. And I think to your point about the advisor to the CEO from the CFO, it’s that particularly has been a role always grounded in numbers. But my biggest realization throughout the journey and getting there, it was always about the patients. So no matter what I did, once I learned that you can help people and help patients.

Then it became less about the numbers and really how to do that first, and then the rest follows, right? And then when you do the right things with finance that you’re supposed to after taking care of that patient first, then you could focus on the profitability for the organization. But the numbers change, right? And then just like it’s okay for men to be vulnerable and the roles to shift at home and senior leaders. It’s okay also for the numbers to change.

No numbers are right there. We audit financials, we sign off on them, we file them with the SEC and other governing bodies. But when we start to to talk about that’s the actuals, we get into the forecasting, and no forecast is ever right. It’s it’s about how many degrees of wrong, but can we align to a common vision of what that outcome could be, right? And so that part I’ve really doubled down and focused on, especially in that role as CFO, is just to say, listen.

If we do this and this, it will change outcomes positively or negatively. And can we align to that? The ambiguity of that is a good parallel to the ambiguity and the vulnerability to say, I need help. I need help in telling that future because the world is changing by the minute. Right. Also, in there is lost, but before COVID, we weren’t changing that rapidly. And although AI has a huge part to play in it, it’s really how people have evolved since then.

16:32Sharon BoneOh wow! And it’s bringing the human back in humanity. And something I’ve been really exploring is out there. You say a high value man. A high value man is focused on the numbers. A man of value is focused on something outside the numbers. And gosh, you resonate with that because you the ROI increases the more you shift that value to the people, and that mission-driven, and wow! So, man, in value, it’s not that you’re actually diminishing the numbers. Nothing changes. It really uplifts the numbers.

17:13Patrick R. CoyleYeah, I think back to the numbers and the profitability for decades. Right, we’ve been focused on how to improve the bottom line through cost optimization through savings. I have this thing now. It’s very hard to spend less. It’s and what we do through the process of focusing the efforts on the wrong thing, we take our eyes off of the right thing and back to the doing the right thing for patients, and the profitability follows. The when you improve outcomes, cascades everywhere.

So for me, the transcendental part of that to life is how do we just create more opportunities, create more positivity, create better outcomes, and the rest will follow. And so instead of focusing on how do we do more with less, how do we create less, how do we create more?

18:01Sharon BoneYeah. Oh my gosh, that’s so beautiful. What is your biggest frustration right now post COVID in leadership?

18:11Patrick R. CoyleDistraction. And I think back to this whole the whole conversation about vulnerabilities and people have changed. What are they? I think there’s a little bit of still being stuck in the past, but distraction part is not. We need to distribute the weight carrying differently in organizations. So I think we need to get people refocused on what’s important. We need to invest in them. It seems, and I’d love to be wrong, but it seems like the company cares less about you than you do about them, and that has shifted.

And now people realize that, and people are saying, “Yeah, I’m not sure that they care about me anymore. And if that’s true, guess what? They’re going to show up like that. So they’re taking longer to make decisions. They’re more, I don’t know, scared cautious about doing the right thing because the implications on that it dovetails right into vulnerability. What if I expose myself? What if I expose somebody else? And what I would say to all of them is, what if you don’t?

What if you don’t expose yourself or expose something that needs to be fixed? It’s back to the creating opportunity, you can always do so much more by finding something that can be improved on your own than having someone else find it. So, if the only difference is we need to be vulnerable enough to say, “I need help, and if I need help, there are people, there are technologies, there are processes, there are data that can do that, but you still need the people. We don’t have to be scared that we’re going to be replaced. We need to be scared if we don’t do those things. We will be replaced.

19:50Sharon BoneAnd I think in the males in the leadership position in the past, it was all preached about being the lone wolf, and so. There’s a taboo about reaching out to someone like me, especially being a female who works with male CEOs, chiefs, C suites, entrepreneurs, founders in coaching, and the the and understanding that it’s integrative. We are actually bringing people together by you actually coming to me. I my perspective can help widen and open doorways with you and your people, both horizontally and vertically in your organization.

And you nailed something that be vulnerable. Try to understand it from someone else is that empathy is amazing because you resonate. If people, if someone doesn’t care about you, what are you going to say? I don’t care about them. It’s become a. Go ahead.

20:52Patrick R. CoyleNo, I was going to say just triggered something. Absolutely right. It’s the it’s showing up with the intention to listen and not just hear, and that that’s a big part of the other side of this. So many people. This is what I want to do. I got to get my point across. And when you don’t show up to listen and see what they have to say, really have a blank slate, right? You’re no matter what diversification you pushed for, you’re reducing the opportunity for that diversification to to take flight, and it’s about giving people the opportunity to speak, and then hearing really listening to what they have to say, not just hearing them.

And I think in there is that empathy that’s created. And I think one of the things that I’ve always focused on in in development of the people was a huge part of how to drive empathy. Right, it’s easier in patient-centric organizations like I’ve had the good fortune of working in in this industry because everything we do is for them. But people get lost in everything I do is for a patient, right? How do I, if I’m the one pushing the button on in Excel, how is that going to impact a patient’s life?

But we all have the ability to listen and support the people in the organization that are closer to that patient, that are closer to the creating the value, the opportunity, and so my mission is to break down the barriers between finance and commercial teams and putting the patient first, right? And putting the patient first has to be: Am I vulnerable enough to say that maybe what I’ve done hasn’t worked, right? Maybe we can do something better. Maybe the journey for that patient isn’t as good as it should be, and that’s really tough because now all of a sudden you’re carrying this burden of oh my gosh, if I acknowledge that I need to do something better, then I’ve done something wrong, and I think that the thing of people again rewarding the innovation and the creation of opportunity and improvement of patient outcomes so much more meaningful than avoidance of that to perpetuate something that’s wrong.

And the great lever for this is, like we talked about, people have changed post COVID. AI has driven tremendous changes. We need to drive this reflection in the business, like we have had a self reflection in ourselves, right? That hasn’t transcended into the business to say, what? Why are we doing this anymore? Or what if this thing that always worked doesn’t work anymore? And also this great migration of jobs that happened the last few years, whatever you’re likely doing today wasn’t yours anyway.

A lot of these CFOs are beholden, CEOs are beholden to these decisions that were made in the past, right? And what I say is that past walks with you like a zombie, unless you bury it and let go of it. Yeah, say let’s do something different. You can’t change the past.

23:43Sharon BoneYou can’t. And oh my gosh, that was beautiful. It’s it is like a zombie bearing it, but it’s the courage to actuate bravery. Depending on your internal value system, I always amazing human being Brené Brown talk about. She always said too many values. You can’t get a line. She always said two values, and she gives that this sheet of values, and talk about being empathetic too. You read through her sheet, and then how you come up with your own personal values and how it aligns with your organization, which also you go sync with your home life, right?

And if you the two values you put pick, you can apply to all those other words, right? If organizations maybe just looked at a different way of seeing where the value is, it would automatically, without saying, “I need, I want to put the people first. I need to put the people first. Because when someone says I need to do this, most of the time they’re not going to do it. They know there’s a need there, but they’re not going to do it. They’re not. They don’t have that courage to take that step forward. They rather fall backwards into their safety net.

24:53Patrick R. CoyleIt’s comfortable, but that what I have been preaching about for years now, even before AI was mainstream, was that evolution, and the and I saw technology because I have a background in technology before joining pharmaceuticals, and iteration and technology improving reliability, improving controls and efficiency of process. All these things are driven by technology, so I saw things improving, and I always said, if a robot can take over what I’m doing, then a I’ve done a good job in documenting it, but b I got to move on to something higher value.

And I think we’re in that age right now where we have to do that reflection and say, okay, the thing I used to do before is no longer needed in the same capacity. However, I there are other things that I can apply that experience to, that I’ve had that that are really critical for success.

25:50Sharon BoneWow, yeah. And so, what are your goals coming ahead? Any goals that you have set that you want and aligning and changing, helping bring this change about, and

26:07Patrick R. CoyleIt’s helping the people, right? Bless you. Focusing on the people and putting the human back, like you said, in humanity, and the AI is going to accelerate so fast in the next six months, but it’s who’s looking at it, who’s fact checking it, who’s determining if the application is appropriate, who’s then selling it, who’s putting it into strategy, who’s doing the change management of the people. That the change management for senior leaders to be part of their core responsibility is one of the most important skill sets, and I think something in the past was more or less an HR soundbite is now the most important thing.

Back to the technology deployments, back to the hiring, back to roles changing and evolving. How do we walk? How do humans walk other humans through that? And then how do you know men who are in senior leadership positions listen more to women in senior leadership positions? How do we get more vulnerable to say we just need to do this very differently? The future is now, and the past has already changed, right? Us forever. So we have to really embrace that.

27:20Sharon BoneYeah, and I want to leave it on this note. What are the what’s that saying? Doing the same thing over and expecting the same results is just insanity. It’s that simple.

27:31Patrick R. CoyleYeah, and it’s funny because I had researched that a little bit because I thought that it was more documented, formed over time. That, and I think it’s so appropriate, right? Is just the whatever got you. Also, whatever got you here is not going to get you there, and it’s going to change by the minute. And so, I want to leave on this, right? We have an excuse, right? The world is changing so fast that it’s okay to say what worked yesterday or the day before does not work today, and it will not work tomorrow, so we have to live in this iteration space where it’s just okay to be vulnerable and creative and throw this away.

Right? Didn’t work. Tried it. Used to work. Let’s do something different because the people are what matters. But we have to bring them along with us. It’s more important than ever to have that vulnerability and that empathy cascade down through the organization, and when I was doing these weekly and then semi-weekly and monthly meetings as a CFO at home, more and more people came outside of finance because they wanted some they wanted somewhere to go, and although there’s more technology than ever. People still are yearning for that place to go. We have to take them there.

28:47Sharon BoneOh my gosh, beautiful! I’d like to respect. Thank you so much. I appreciate having you on here. Your words of wisdom just resonate with me. Thank you.

28:57Patrick R. CoyleThank you, Sharon. I really appreciate your time and all the listeners’ time. And I’m hoping we can change the world together.

29:03Sharon BoneI hope so too.

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