Lime’s work with the executive team at a leading life sciences company enabled them to shift from a collection of competitive high performers to a highly effective, mutually supportive team. In doing so, the leaders were able to make a courageous strategic decision and execute on it; a game-changer for their company, it lead to them leapfrogging the competition and succeeding in being acquired at a very attractive valuation by a global firm.

After sustaining several years of 60% annual growth, a life sciences company was facing fierce competition. While the leadership team recognized the need for a new source of growth, they struggled to decide whether to invest in a risky, but potentially game-changing technology.

One of their primary blocks was competition among the high-performing individual leaders and a tendency to defer decisions up to the CEO rather than engaging debate with each other.  As a result, they were siloed, consistently took the ‘safe path’ when making decisions, and were finding employees disengaged.

OUR CONTRIBUTION

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THE OUTCOME 

Not only did the senior team increase their own effectiveness, interviews indicated they were also able to truly motivate and inspire the organization at a critical time in their business. The CEO stopped dominating decision-making and the quality of participation in senior team meetings improved dramatically.

Organizational climate improved significantly.  The team aligned on the higher risk, higher reward innovative strategy. In doing so, they beat their competitors to market, changed the market dynamics in their field, spurred a new phase of growth, and were able to get acquired at a very attractive valuation 18 months after the work with Lime started.