Perspectives

Organizations now face the challenge of staying agile and innovative.
The unboss strategy, adopted by Novartis and Bayer, addresses this need by decentralizing decision-making and empowering employees.

At Novartis, ‘servant leadership’ aims to transform the organization, fostering creativity and rapid response in disruptive moments. Similarly, Bayer’s journey shows the necessity of reshaping leadership roles and upskilling the workforce to manage complexity and uncertainty.

The unboss strategy has the potential to optimize resource use and enhance efficiency, much like the human body's energy and resource efficiency. It seeks to build a reactive, self-aware, and cohesive organization. Leaders become facilitators, enabling their teams, while task-oriented employees gain autonomy and broaden their skills including problem-solving.

Think of data capabilities as the nervous system, providing real-time insights for stories stimulating decisions, steering behaviour and engagement, while robust risk management acts as the immune system, mitigating stress, reducing fear, maintaining stability and encouraging innovation.

To avoid that the transformation ends in chaos and to achieve the benefits other than short-term savings, beyond processes and systems, it needs focus on integrating robust data capabilities and comprehensive risk management down to the individual level. Foster continuous learning and reward open communication. Additionally, upskill leadership to be more empathic and supportive, gradually shaping the culture.

Both cases, Novartis and Bayer highlight that, to fully reap the benefits, further investment in these areas is essential for driving sustainable growth and gaining the competitive edge - compared to the cost resulting from chaos and stress, it is a minor spend with a tremendous return of investment.