Naji Gehchan: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to “Spread Love in Organizations”, a podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love.
I am Naji, your host, for a special episode in partnership with Jill Donahue for her new book “A Dose of Inspiration: 100 purpose stories from Pharma Leaders”. I am joined today by Julie Kim President of the U.S. Business Unit, U.S. Country Head and member of Takeda’s Executive Team. Julie joined Takeda in 2019 through the acquisition of Shire, where she held several diverse roles with increasing responsibility. Julie has 30 years of experience in health care, with leadership positions at global, regional, country and functional levels. Julie is known for strong, collaborative and inclusive leadership that enables Takeda to meet the needs of the people the company serves while driving innovations that will improve patients’ lives. Her global outlook, a result of having worked in many countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, as well as having lived in the U.K., Switzerland and the U.S., have helped her create teams that are diverse in multiple dimensions to enable inclusive decision-making that keeps the patient at the center. Julie serves on several boards and was named one of Boston’s 50 Most Influential Asian American Pacific Islanders in 2023, The 2022 PharmaVoice 100 list and Fierce Pharma’s list of 2020’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences.
Julie, It is such a pleasure to have you with me today!
Julie Kim: Well, thank you for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Naji Gehchan: Can you first share with us your personal story? What’s in between the lines of your inspiring career and journey?
Julie Kim: Sure, I guess if I’m going to share that story, I do have to go all the way back to my childhood for a brief moment. And I say that because I was born in Korea, and I was born to, you know, parents who had a very progressive way of thinking. So although the culture of the country at the time was very much Um, a hierarchical patriarchal society, my mother had chosen to go to medical school and practice medicine after she graduated, which was not.
And when she had me as a girl, that had certain implications. So for women in general, the idea of having a career and having a self directed life was not the norm. It wasn’t accepted. And so my parents decided to move. To the U. S. At that point, so we relocated to the U. S. When I was very little, um, and I grew up in Ohio.
And at the time, Ohio is not a very diverse place to grow up. I was the only person that looked like me, um, at school, and you can imagine all of the challenges that that brings to a child growing up. So I shared that little bit of the very beginning of my life. Because it had a significant impact on how I showed up as an individual in the in the workplace later on in life that aside, I would say that the early part of my career was really focused on the what making sure that.
I could deliver the best results, the best answers, the best solutions. I started in consulting and so it was about making the client happy by having the best solutions. And I didn’t really give a lot of thought to how I did things. Um, and unfortunately my, my mother passed away during this time frame.
And. You know, when she did, um, and I’ve, I’ve shared this story in, in other, uh, situations and other, um, podcasts and whatnot, but her, her funeral was, uh, uh, a turning point for me because there were so many people, uh, at that funeral. And I remember in having the conversation. With my dad at the time, like, I was very bothered by all the people who had come to, to something that I felt was a very personal family, um, event.
Why were all these strangers here? And, and he explained to me that they all wanted to come and pay their respects to her because she had somehow touched. Their lives, uh, and it was important to them to come and pay their respects, you know, and I, I had that, you know, moment of, wow, if I were to be hit by a bus right now, maybe I would fill the first couple of queues, not, not the whole church, because I knew I wasn’t, uh, the way that I was operating, as I said, I wasn’t really focused on the, how I wasn’t focused on the people around me per se.
I was just focused on delivering the results. So that began a very long journey of, okay, how do I still deliver top quality results, but do it in a manner that. Brings people along with me. And so that’s not necessarily on my CV, but I would say that was a big part of the early part of my career in terms of My story.
And then I would say the other piece that I would share that again is a little bit reflected on the on the CV is that I didn’t necessarily take a straight path. I had a mentor early on who said to me that when you are given the options, you won’t always have an option. But when you’re given the option, try to take it.
The option that will challenge you more. That’s the harder one. It’ll stretch you. You will feel uncomfortable. You, you might feel like you’re going to fail, but you will learn so much more by doing so. Um, and don’t necessarily be so caught up in, in, you know, going for the next promotion, make sure that you are stretching yourself and you are learning.
And that’s what I’ve tried to do throughout my career. So when you look at my CV, sometimes you might look at. Uh, the role, um, one role to the next and go, huh, I wonder why she did that. I wonder why she did that. I, why, why didn’t she just go from this level to a higher level, to a, the next higher level within a particular function?
And, and that is a, a big part of why I didn’t, and having this broad experience across different geographies, different functions, uh, different roles. I think it’s part of what contributes. to me being able to operate at the level that I operate today. So those are just a couple of things that I would share that are not necessarily, as you said, obvious from the CV, but I think play a significant role in getting me to where I am today.
Thank
Naji Gehchan: you, Julie, for sharing those powerful stories and experiences. I want to go back to the first experience you talked about the how. So can you tell us how you are combining now this impact on people and delivering exceptional results?
Julie Kim: Yeah, so I would say that the first piece is really spending time up front with the team in terms of what the expectations are.
Are that’s the starting place, because if everyone is not on the same page, here’s where we’re trying to get to here are the expectations here, the parameters, the time frame, et cetera, then it’s very difficult for people to be self motivated and to to drive forward to achieve objectives. So that needs to be clear for the team, right?
We talk about purpose. You talk about objectives. You talk about expectations. You make sure everything is clear up front. Then you have to let them know that I’m here to help. I’m here to support. I can work with you if something is new and it’s not clear. But otherwise, I’m going to let you find your path.
I’ve got my experiences. And, and I might have an idea of how I would like things to get there, but I’m not going to make everyone conform to my way and my experience. Because I think you shut off so many opportunities for innovation and creativity and improvements, to be honest, when, when you do that and selfishly a bit of learning.
So that’s, that’s the second piece. Being able to step back and giving your team the space to create on their own to learn and to find their way. But as I said, at the same time, making sure that they feel supported. So if they do get stuck, if there is a roadblock, you are there, I am there. To help remove the roadblock or to help show them.
Okay. Well, here, let me help you. If you’re stuck and you, you, you don’t have a clear path forward. So you can’t leave them completely alone to, to, to struggle a little bit of struggle is okay. But you also have to be there to support so that you can help them be successful. So I would say those are a couple of the things that I do to allow them.
The work to happen in a way that, um, uh, leverages individual strengths, individual creativity, but also provides enough support so that they can, uh, progress in their own learning.
Naji Gehchan: I loved how you’re framing it. And really in the beginning, you said something about being focused on the what, and in the what it was always providing the best.
The best solution. Uh, and then the how, uh, later on. So a lot of times, and even for people more in the expertise path, I would say in our industry, right? The, the, what is really important, like the excellence and what we’re delivering is really important. Uh, and I see sometimes executives having a hard time just letting go, as you said, and accepting that, you know, it.
Might not be exactly how you would do it, but it’s okay, actually. It’s not that it’s wrong. It’s just different because you let someone else was also brilliant to it instead. So how did you manage to get to the stage where. Really, you let go and you trusted your team, what was it only because you didn’t have time to do it anymore, or did you really do this work?
And so the fruit of this diverse, you know, outcomes that might happen. How did you get there?
Julie Kim: It’s hard for me to say that there was one pivotal moment. That got me there. I can give you a few different examples of things that helped me, um, move to, to this approach. I would say one thing is, uh, you know, I’ve had the, the fortunate, um, opportunity of having really good managers in my past and.
They did this for me, right? So one way is you, you learn from working with really strong managers. Okay. I really like how they did that. Let me try. So that that’s one piece of it. The second, um, I was attending a leadership meeting.
Over a dozen years ago, um, and they brought in a speaker and his name is, uh, Benjamin Zander and he and his wife had written this book called the art of possibilities. And one of the things in there talks about. Giving people in a right. So you give people trust to begin with in the story in the book.
The story is he gives his class, um, an A at the beginning of the semester, and he tells them to write an essay in terms of what they’re going to do to earn that a through the rest of the semester. And then he tells all of them, okay, so now you have an A, so show me that you did, you know, do the work that you said in your essay and the A is yours to lose, basically, instead of you have to, to earn it.
And so that was a really. Um, I would say a powerful aha moment for me before that. I was definitely a person that said, okay, you nausea, you have to earn my trust. I need to see you do X, Y, and Z before I will trust you to do something. So I was like, okay, well, let me, you know, again, try the reverse. And I’ve had some managers show me trust.
And I know how it makes me feel, right? I, I wanted to do 150 percent uh, more for that individual because they gave me that trust versus someone who says, Okay, Julie, I’m just going to give you this piece to do. And then once you show me that you can do that piece, well, I’ll give you a slightly bigger responsibility.
So that was the second piece. And then the other component around that is. Um, and I said a little bit the desire to keep learning and the humility to know that even though you think you’re a smart person, there’s always going to be someone who’s smarter and there’s always going to be someone who has a good idea and those good ideas can come from anywhere.
So I would say it’s a combination of all of those things that that have brought me to the place of. Being able to let go being able to, um, you know, learn from the team and allow them to experiment and create and give them the support say, you know, look. You might make a mistake here or there. That’s okay.
That’s how we learn. Right? So all of that put together, I think, is the way that you create the environment that people feel safe to do what they need to do, uh, and experiment, learn and grow.
Naji Gehchan: Certainly. Um, you talked about also the beginning, uh, purpose. objective expectations and the importance of setting them.
Uh, so I’d love to know how you, specifically on the purpose, since we’re in an industry where we’re waking up every day to make life better for patients. Even in this industry, several times with my teams, with people I, I talk to, it’s sometimes hard to remember that With all the hundreds and tons of things we’re doing every day operationally, right?
Like, it’s easy to forget why we’re doing what we’re doing. So I’m interested in how do you make this purpose live on a daily basis for your broad organization?
Julie Kim: Yeah, I, you know, I agree with you in terms of our industry. It’s It’s relatively easier than some other industries to have that purpose that, that, that drive to you because we’re all focused on the patient and making a positive impact, um, for them.
So I think that is not any different, um, in my organization, uh, I would venture to, to guess in any other pharma, um, organization, but it is being able to bring it to the forefront. On a regular basis. So, you know, within our organization, we have something we call P. T. R. B. Patient trust reputation business.
And this is our decision making framework. Is it the right thing to do for patients? Does it build trust with society? Does it support a positive reputation for the company? And then, you know, Does it help build a sustainable business? And it’s always in that order. And so you’ll hear this vernacular in our discussion when we’re debating something.
Okay, but is this really? PTRB, are we forgetting the P or are we forgetting the T or et cetera, et cetera? So part of it is in the language that we use and we’re able to always bring it back to the patient. And the second thing is bringing some of those stories to life, especially when you get into a heated argument and you know, maybe you’re trying to trade off OpEx and and it’s really, you know, you’re deep in the numbers.
You have to have sometimes the the wherewithal To pause and say, okay, but look in the end, right? Remember who we’re doing this for. And is this actually going to help us achieve that goal for this patient group? Yes or no, right? So it’s in little ways. Um, and then it’s also in, in, in bigger ways, like, you know, bringing patients into speak at a town hall, um, you know, playing a patient video before a cross functional meeting kicks off.
A variety of different ways to make sure that we bring that purpose to the front.
Naji Gehchan: You know, one of my favorite questions and it’s reminded me while you were talking about it was, would a patient really care? I, I used to ask it a lot for my marketers and say, you know what, you’re debating opex, as you said, or even sometimes like colors or what can we have on a, you know, on a leaflet or whatever, like what a patient really care at the end of the day.
And this is how you always would bring it back to patients. I want to pivot now to, um, what something you’re passionate about. And I think you, uh, shared, uh, early on your story and, um, and being, um, in, in Ohio. You talk a lot about inclusive leadership and you’re passionate about inclusive leadership. So I’m interested to learn more.
How do you define this and how do you link it to business impact too? Yeah.
Julie Kim: I, I think a simple way that I think about inclusiveness is about Giving people a voice. So, again, having grown up in the environment that I did, I was often the outsider. I was often not given a voice. I was often made to feel less.
I was often made to feel that even if I was given a voice, it wasn’t heard or it was less. Of a voice. So again, that context, I think, helps to, um, create the appreciation for wanting to give everyone, uh, a voice that should be in the room. So this is not about, you know, um, having 100 person meetings so that everyone can can have their say, right?
But that’s that’s dysfunctional. But when you are looking at whether it’s a meeting or particular topic, Making sure that the stakeholders all of the relevant stakeholders do have a voice so that it’s not just the loudest person in the room gets to say what they want to say, and everyone then aligns to that or that the leader.
It’s making the space so that the different voices can be heard so that we can then have a robust debate and dialogue about the different views that are represented in those voices, and then coming to a decision. And there’s plenty of research on That will show you when you have those multiple voices to inform a decision, the decisions tend to be better.
And you then that’s where the performance piece comes in. That’s where those, you know, high standards come in and being able to drive that. That excellence. And so that over time has happened. So being able to demonstrate that you can deliver high results, excellent results comes from, for me, having these diverse voices being heard, being accounted for, and then making decisions based on.
I
Naji Gehchan: more than relate to this. So thank you for sharing it. I’m going to give you now one word and I’d love your reaction to it. And the first one is leadership.
Julie Kim: My reaction to leadership. I think leadership is something that is sorely needed in the world today. Let’s just say in a, in a broader context, uh, leadership, I think is something that is earned.
It is something that, um, everyone can do in terms of leading them self, but leadership at an enterprise level is something that is earned. It is not something that is ordained. You might be made CEO, or you might be made a leader of a particular team. But if you really want to be, um, to wear the leadership, uh, mantle, you need to earn that from the organization.
What about growth mindset? Growth mindset to me is a little bit about what we’ve talked about earlier. It’s about allowing, um, individuals to experiment, to try different things, to make mistakes, to learn from that and to keep growing. It’s to reframe and look at what is possible instead of saying why all the things can’t happen.
Belonging.
Belonging to me is, uh, you know, if we go back to what we were talking about a little bit before, that you have a voice and that you are heard and that you are welcomed because of it.
Naji Gehchan: The last word is spread love and organizations.
Julie Kim: Me, this is about caring and I think caring is something that I remember earlier in my career. I was told that you shouldn’t care. That is a sign of weakness. It’s not about caring. It’s about just delivering the results. And I would say that today, that is the worst advice that can be given.
And absolutely, you should care. Care about yourself. Care about your team, care about your stakeholders, your, your organization, and that caring to me is about is how you spread the love.
Naji Gehchan: I love this, Judy. And obviously, if you care, you’re going to hold yourself and your people to an even higher standard and deliver even more.
So I. Totally relate to that. And that’s the idea of all this, this podcast, bringing incredible leaders like you who are doing it and who care for their people and the patients we serve to deliver exceptional results. Any final word of wisdom for healthcare leaders around the world?
Julie Kim: Healthcare is a very difficult, complex area. It is not something that, uh, We can be successful as a single organization or a single set of stakeholders within the whole healthcare ecosystem. I think everyone would agree that the healthcare ecosystem is stressed at the moment and we all need to work together in order to make it a more sustainable environment.
And so I would just ask that we continue to reach across. And work with each other, um, from, let’s say, a multi stakeholder approach to try to make sure that we can build thriving, sustainable healthcare ecosystems globally.
Naji Gehchan: Well, thank you so much, Julie, for being with me today and this incredible chat.
Naji Gehchan: Thank you all for listening to SpreadLove in Organizations podcast. Drop us a review on your preferred podcast platform
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