Case Study · Strategy & Change Labs
Turning Strategy into Action
How did a pharmaceutical multinational translate a global strategy change into priorities and behaviour changes for a division?
Context
A strategic shift with operational impact.
A pharmaceutical multinational had announced a global strategy change with direct impact on internal ways of working and collaboration with external partners.
The global supply leadership team needed joint reflection time to assess how the change affected their work and to co-create specific intervention strategies for their division.
Audience: 13 team members
Location: Zug, Switzerland
Timing: September 2024
Facilitation setup: one facilitator
The Challenge
Making the strategy usable.
The direction was already defined. The work was to translate it into a shared understanding of what would change in practice: collaboration, priorities, responsibilities and progress tracking.
The workshop focused on three goals:
- Create a common understanding of the impact on team collaboration.
- Align critical focus areas for steering the transformation.
- Define success criteria and processes to measure progress.
Workshop Process
From reflection to first priorities.
During the half-day workshop, the team created a shared perspective on existing strengths and capabilities, diagnosed the areas impacted by the transformation and agreed on mission-critical focus areas for the first 100 days.
01
Shared perspective
Existing strengths and capabilities were identified as resources for change.
02
Impact diagnosis
The team diagnosed the areas most affected by the transformational shift.
03
100-day focus
Mission-critical focus areas were agreed on for the first execution horizon.
Key Output
Start. Stop. Continue.
The team aligned on concrete tasks and behaviour changes to implement the strategic transformation.
Start
New routines, decisions and behaviours needed to activate the change.
Stop
Patterns that would slow execution, create friction or dilute focus.
Continue
Existing strengths and practices worth protecting during the transition.
From Workshop to Execution
Ownership was distributed across the team.
At the end of the workshop, every team member signed up as a change champion for one of the identified mission-critical focus areas.
Their task was to coordinate the workstreams, involve all relevant people and track progress. After the workshop, personal 100-day change plans were developed at sub-team level and aligned with the division head.
Impact
Commitment became easier to execute.
Clearer focus
The team aligned around the mission-critical areas needed to embed the change into division plans.
Stronger confidence
Personal strengths were matched with change initiatives, creating trust in the people leading the change effort.
Faster deployment
The Start–Stop–Continue output supported quick deployment and progress tracking in the broader organization.
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