We often read about and are inspired by unique leadership achievements, organizational excellence, and flawless operational execution. All things to strive for, but not always the reality. Life in business, as in general, is not paved with easy solutions and one recipe for success. Hard choices are often required, dilemmas constantly surfacing, and difficult conversations necessary. So, despite all good intentions, with investment in strategic plans and strong organizational support, positive outcomes are not guaranteed and do not come without sacrifices. Six months ago, I took over as the head of our newly established service center in Mexico City. A truly exciting challenge to support further globalization and sustainable growth of Novo Nordisk. It offers endless opportunities to drive operational excellence, talent development, and global business integration. Today we are more than 100 employees, with great energy and high ambitions. But I cannot claim that we got here without challenges. Starting a new business is not a simple effort, even in a company that recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. Many things were implemented too fast, too fragile and without full understanding of the context. Perhaps we didn’t ask a simple question often enough— “are we ready to move to the next stage”? Ultimately, we found a need to hit pause and revisit the basics, to build a foundation that can support long-term success. Revisiting the basics led to changes, some of which negatively impacted internal and external first-movers. While this is regrettable, we also need to recognize that sub-optimal decisions do not age well. Mistakes are painful, but learnings are precious, especially when rooted in collaboration, patience, understanding, and transparency. On the back of this, I’d be remiss to not recognize all who have contributed to this project, from our first employees to our first internal customers. This is what encourages me most – our people. To do what we do, we rely on the talent, passion, and diversity of our employees. We depend on the multitude of personal experiences, perspective, and backgrounds, that show up to work every day. In the end, I am very encouraged about our future and believe that together we will create something lasting and meaningful. Something that contributes to Novo Nordisk driving change to defeat serious chronic diseases. And I hope many more people will join us on this endeavor. From personal experience, I can attest that Novo Nordisk offers life-changing opportunities, within and through the organization. Our Mexico City service center is here to stay, and we look forward to the next chapter of the project, to be written by our wonderful team, rooted in our strong company values.
Agreed, this type of endeavor takes patience and learning
Inspiring
Mikkel, congratulations for your thoughtful reflections. I do second all of them. And last but not least you all have for sure learned a lot from the take off process - sometimes the hard way, but such is life. Great success to Service Center México . !!
Very well written Mikkel. Go #NovoNordiskGBSMexico
Thanks for sharing this very authentic testimonial yes challenges are there and will continue to be but I m very confident that you and your team will drive a successful service center !!
Let’s keep it up!! 👏👏👏
Love the wise and honest reflections, Mikkel! Good luck on the continued journey ahead 🍀
Let’s continue growing together! Great reflection. 👏🏼
Strategic Project Manager at Novo Nordisk
4moIt was very interesting to read your authentic insights on this Mikkel. It takes a lot of courage to hit the pause button in a fast paced environment and slow down to do things right long term💪 I agree with you that learnings are precious. Working with an experimenting and learning mindset will be a key enabler for NN going forward 💫🌸