Episode 75: How to Excel as a Biotech Leader with Leadership Expert Michael Allison

Do failed experiments, the state of funding, or anything else about starting a biotech company have you down? Learn some mental tips to deal with adversity on today's episode.

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Serving the entire Gulf South, but recorded in the heart of New Orleans.

Welcome back to BIO from the Bayou. I'm James Zanewicz, the Chief Strategy Officer at Tulip.

And I'm your host, Dr. Elaine Hamm, the executive in residence at Tulane School of Medicine. And today's guest is Michael Allison. He's the founder and CEO of the Adversity Academy, a global leadership training, personal development, and consulting firm dedicated to nurturing outstanding leaders, giving them the skills crucial for biotech innovators, C-suite executives, as well as investors. So he really is the perfect guest for our podcast this week. So welcome to Bio from the Bayou, Michael.

Hey, it's an absolute pleasure to be here with you guys. Thank you for having me.

Michael, we're really excited to have you here. And from the moment we heard about you, we could not wait. And before we get into how this applies to biotech, which is kind of the theme of our podcast, I'd like to dive a little bit into your history. Your journey from a US Marine Corps Purple Heart combat veteran to the CEO of the Adversity Academy is kind of remarkable. Can you share a little bit about how your military experiences have shaped your approach to leadership and resilience?

Absolutely, James. Being someone that— of a veteran and being in the leadership space for over 20 years, My military background has been the foundation with my leadership philosophy. When serving in the United States Marine Corps, especially in high-stakes combat environment, that has taught me a lot when it comes to like the leadership. And it's not so much about just the title itself. It's also about influence. It's about adaptability. It's about decisiveness, especially under pressure. And I've learned that resilience when it comes to this isn't just about like enduring the adversity, but it's also about like leveraging some of these tools and these skills when it comes to growth. For me, for somebody that served in combat, when we're like training and we're getting ready to prepare, you gotta remain calm, especially under chaos, right?

Mm-hmm.

So you gotta be able to make certain types of decision whenever you have like limited information. And for me, that comes with like leading your team. That comes with the trust, that comes with the accountability aspects of things. And I think when you are getting ready to implement some of these different types of principles in business and biotech, there's so many uncertainties and, and especially when there is high stakes and these are rapid changes and things like that. These are some of the things that leaders have to start incorporating. And that's some of the things that I've learned that from that transition, you could take some of the things from like your leadership skills in the military and carry some of those things over into business aspects too, as well.

Well, I heard 2 things that resonated a lot with me, and that is chaos and unpredictability. And I feel like that happens a lot in science and biotech. And one of the biggest challenges I see with new entrepreneurs, especially in the biotech industry, a lot of them come from academia. So they're the brilliant scientists who all of a sudden decided to spin out their technology into an actual company. And so now they kind of find themselves thrust into this leadership role with very little formal business experience. What are the leadership mindset shifts do you think that are the most important for scientists who are stepping into an executive position, or just anybody that's starting out as an entrepreneur, as a new CEO, how can they effectively lead without having that prior business training?

For someone like myself, when I was trying to get into entrepreneurship and business, I, I had some of those same questions for myself. And I thought about the un-leadership concept, especially when I saw things from all different angles of a leadership standpoint. I think about this young man that I served with, and his name was Puckett, and he was one of our most junior Marines, but he didn't wait for anything to occur or someone to tell him exactly what to do. He decided to lead. And I always looked at, you could lead from An entry-level position, a mid-level position, or a senior-level position. So there's 3 strategies that I look at whenever it comes to this particular question. And number one for me is then you have to learn how to like shift from the expert to a visionary. I do believe that—

Ooh, that's good.

I do believe that, like, so if you're a scientist, often they focus on like the data decisions and things like that. But for leaders, you need to learn how to communicate very clear. You need to start inspiring with your vision. And you need to motivate people in regards to like your teams and the stakeholders. The second thing I would recommend is that you gotta start developing the people, right? So not just the product, but the people itself, where you gotta surround yourself with people that are experts in the business, the finances, the operations, some of those things that we, we may get book knowledge or those types of knowledge. I work with some of the clients and they may be doctors, but they go to school to be doctors, right? But they didn't get the business learning in regards to how to run a business, how to market the business, and some of those concepts and things like that, which are some of the things that they got to think about. So for me, I think that great leaders empower others around them, especially when they're trying to develop themselves too, as well. And the last thing I would share is that you got to embrace some of the decision-making under uncertainty. Not everything is going to be there black and white where all of the answers is right there in front of you. So unlike some things maybe in the lab where there's There's structures, there's step-by-step, there's processes and things like that. You gotta learn how to deal with some things where there's some experimenting, there's some, uh, variables, there's some different business decision-making that's being made around some of the unknown and developing that time after time, you start developing a different level of confidence in regards to just dealing with some uncertainty and flexibility at that time.

You mentioned the military and the military, one could argue, is a highly regulated industry, much like biotech, pharma, healthcare are highly regulated industries. Um, and so it was an analogy that just kind of came to me as we were talking a bit and I was like, that's great.

Uniforms. Like, if we had to wear uniforms, like, although maybe we should. I've seen some bedraggled scientists out there, so maybe we should. Sorry.

She's not sorry. But anyway, pulling it back full circle, in regulated industries where you have to innovate, what strategies do you have for leaders in those fields? Because, you know, there are probably some direct analogies from the military to, to biotech and healthcare in that space.

Yeah, definitely. I think balancing innovation With compliance is a leadership challenge because you gotta kind of like tote that fine line. But I think if you work on embedding some of those things into your compliance, into the culture, into the start of things, rather than treating as a roadblock, then I think that's one of the ways you could start thinking about it in regards to like the concept. I would recommend the first thing is to like create a compliance that is driven throughout your mindset in regards to like the people that is there. Like, Let's embed this in how we're thinking. Leadership start viewing compliances and things like that as like, what are some of our competitive advantages? Not just looking at things from like limitation standpoint. The other thing I would look at is like where we could foster like cross-disciplinary collaborations, where we could encourage open dialogues between different departments or different concepts around like R&D, regulatory, some of your legal teams, some of those types of things. I've seen that when we was working with another company that we worked with last year, that they had to start bringing in other departments to help with regulatory things and some things when it comes to like the collaboration aspects of things. And then for me, my background also is as a project manager. One of the things I learned as a project manager is that you gotta be very agile. So incorporate the agile methodologies where you could start looking at products in development, where there, you can look at things where there's regular check-ins, there are different iterations of things as you're going along doing things throughout that process rather than waiting throughout the end.

I think that project management piece is such an important part. I didn't know that what I do mostly is project management and that it was Until she made us read a book on it.

She made us read a book on it.

She made us read a book. Yeah, because it's hard. I mean, you don't realize that. I mean, most— if you have a job, you're doing project management of some type.

Exactly.

But the way that I think about project management is I always have sort of like plan B through Z sometimes of like, if this goes wrong, I tend to think in decision trees. So like, I have that, like, if this goes wrong, I can always do X, Y, Z. But because setbacks are inevitable in biotech, and I have had many failed experiments, I have had rejected funding applications. I'm currently raising raising a Series A, so I hear no more than I hear yes, which is just a little disheartening. And it's hard to hear that, and it's hard to experience that. And it's a lot of what having a startup is, and it's a lot of what being in biotech is. So that kind of compounds it. Like, a biotech startup has a lot of failures, and some are deserved, and some just, hey, that's science. And how do you— what are some practical ways that people in biotech, scientists or leaders, that can develop that resilience piece? How do they also create a culture where setbacks aren't necessarily failures? They're also sometimes a learning opportunity too.

Yeah, I love this question. I look at adversity in regards to, it's like a teaching moment for you and it allows you to build resilience. And that's something that, that I always talk about from either my own personal life experiences or even some of my own business failures. And some of the things that I had to learn from that to build the business that I do have now, it wasn't always peaches and cream or any of those things from the beginning, right? So I look at resilience more so as it allows you to prepare for setbacks and it allows you to actually springboard you to bounce forward in regards to like learning from some of those things where you don't make some of the same mistakes over and over. For me, number one for me is like, let's deconstruct the failures. Let's look at it. Let's analyze it, see what went wrong. And then let's remove anything that was like emotionally attached to some of these things. Now let's look at some of these things logically and see what actually really does make sense with the strategy, the timing. What are some of the external factors that are actually hindering some of the things or costing our decision-making throughout that process? The second thing that I love to do is develop a response plan. So what does that look like? Instead of like dwelling on the setback, right? Let's shift our focus. Let's shift our mindset in regard to how do we respond? and shift things into action? And how do we get much more prepared to go through some of these processes and deal with some of these things much differently for the next time? And then the last thing is what I find that keeps people from progressing and moving forward is that we get stagnated, we paralyze ourselves, and we just start dealing with, with things. So how could we actually develop a growth mindset to actually have us to move forward? Yes, this is a failure. This was a setback, but how do we move forward? So if we could start creating that culture, creating that environment, Where whoever is the leader, and it doesn't have to be the top leader, it would be great if the top leader thinks like that, where all of the information could be filtered through that way. But definitely if you created a culture and an environment where, okay, yeah, we just took an L, but how could we move forward? That type of thing. And I think you create that mindset, then we could always pick our heads up and just keep it moving forward.

Creating a no fear sort of culture, I think is really important because it encourages people to try different things and be a little bit more experimental and innovative. But I also think it prevents some of the things that we've seen of the really negative side of like forgery and like you're afraid to show a bad result. So you, you might be tempted to show a little better light or you use a different statistic to show— I mean, statistics can be dangerous sometimes in that they can kind of show the data to be whatever you want it to be. But like it also, if you don't have that fear, you don't worry about that piece of it. And so I think that's such an important part of it.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

And Michael, you mentioned shifting focus just a minute ago. And so I'd like to shift focus to partnerships. And I think partnerships are really key. And one of Elaine's key partnerships So I'm gonna give a little shout out to her. You know, she has a tough day at work, but she comes home to her home partnership where her husband's a sommelier, and he is not just a sommelier, but he is a James Beard nominee this year. Shout out to Ian Bennett.

Nice.

So giving him a little props, he just got nominated this year. But those partnerships are key, whether it be at home in your personal life or in your industry or across industries. So often for our listeners, they're academia to corporate or with the AI tech to biotech. What kind of advice do you have for leaders who are looking to really build long-term, mutually beneficial collaboration and partnerships in this space where everyone wins?

I look at partnership as something that is very key. It's more relational. And I think about that as someone that has purchased a franchise and sold a franchise. And what was that like to actually get into bed with a, with somebody that you're about to do business with for a very long time and get into a relationship with them? And I think the key to a successful partnership is alignment with the vision, alignment with the values, how we are actually going to execute this. So I look at things where I'm gonna start off with trust. The strongest partnerships is around that partnership where it's not even just transactional, but can I build something here with someone that I could actually do this with them for the long term? The next thing is that I'm gonna see, can I create a clear value proposition here? Ensure that both sides understand what they're bringing to the table and how we could complement each other as we're going through this partnership. And then the next thing is, how do we Communicate with a whole lot of transparency. I think if you're going to get into business in a partnership, and if there's not going to be any level of transparency where I can't trust you, there's always going to be doubt. There's always going to be some sort of hindrance in regards to, are they really telling me the truth? So how can we communicate with transparency? And what does that look like in regards to like the frequency of that? Because you got to understand what is good for us to communicate. Is it once a week, once a month? If I don't hear from you in like 3 months, what does my mind start going to places or anything like that? You understand?

Yeah.

So we need to understand—

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

We need to understand what that looks like. So that's the last piece I would add to that. Yeah.

Basically it boils down to that communication and being genuine, which I love.

Yes.

That's, that's how I try and operate. And some, you know, sometimes people love it, sometimes people hate it, but they always know where they stand, which is good.

And that's what I need. I need to know exactly where I stand with people. And that's not always, you know, when you're in the beginning stages of relationships, Business or otherwise. I mean, it's hard to kind of— you're feeling each other out, but like biotech entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs in general, I think just when you're raising money or trying to get revenue, there's a little bit of a desperation piece that can come with it sometimes of just like, if it— because you're just, you're constantly worried, like, if I don't show revenue or if I don't raise this round, like, people are depending on me. I'm going to have to let staff go. I'm going to have to close the business. And so you just tend up taking a check or doing a deal or doing a partnership that isn't a good fit. And I have found through the hard way of doing that, of just— It wasn't a good partnership. It wasn't a good fit, but we made it work because we needed to, and it hurt us in the long run. And that's such an important piece of that trust. If we had really figured out, is this the right fit and not just taken a check, you know, I think that would've been a very different relationship. So, I really appreciate that trust piece. It was a hard lesson to learn. So. Well, I wanna go back a little bit as sort of like the resiliency piece. And it's funny that James mentioned the wine bar that my husband owns. And by the way, just because you mentioned his name, this might be the only podcast episode he will listen to. So, um, this is how I get him to listen to it. We opened our wine bar. I love good wine. Yeah. I mean, I do too. And he, this is one of the reasons to marry Assam is that during the hard startup days, he brings home wine to me. So that helps too. So that helps deal with adversity. But when we were looking to open our wine bar, we literally opened the week before COVID uh, week of COVID like the week, like the city shut down, we had to open and we could have never prepared for that. I mean, of all the things that I put in my business plan, Massive pandemic was not one of those. I did not have insurance coverage for massive pandemic. And so, what are some ways that you can proactively, as a leader, prepare for adversity? Are there things that you do? Are there mental models or frameworks that, or habits that you have that can help sort of that preparation piece, even though you can't always perfectly predict when things are gonna happen?

I love this question too. No one could have predicted what was gonna take place with COVID-19. Absolutely not. I just, recalled when COVID-19 hit, I just got into the franchising business. We had a construction company at that particular time.

Oh, wow.

And the company was deemed one of those essential companies or businesses. So we were allowed to operate. And that was the beauty with that. For a company that is completely designed to go and painting houses, doing constructions and things like that, we would have been completely screwed. So we was labeled as one of those companies to actually carry out our business. What I wanna say though is this, being someone that served, I always recall that we would always talk about prior planning prevents piss poor performance. We always talked about these Ps.

Yeah.

And it never came into effect so much until we was actually there in combat and was faced with different scenarios, different things was going on. Seeing that we were able to be adaptable and flexible was one of the greatest blessings or assets that I was able to carry out and apply in different businesses and things like that. As in, like, you can think about some of the things that we do now, just like this podcast, right? Where we could do it not even in person, but we could do it through Zoom or through virtual and things like that, which are some of the things that we're adopting now. But this is one of some of the things that I work with business leaders and I share with them, and it's to apply or adopt the pre-mortem approach. This concept is where you could envision from, like, worst-case scenarios before it even happens. And number one, I would recommend is that you should identify risks proactively. So anticipate potential failures. We could build up contingency plans into advancement. Then the second thing I would recommend for you to do is then develop a crisis response strategy. So have some predefined action steps where you could actually look at things from a different standpoint, especially whenever you have certain types of setbacks. And then the third thing that I would recommend for you to do is then Create a culture where psychological safety. So when team members feel that safe is discussing some of the things that's tied to risk, where they feel safe, where they could talk about potential problems and how we could adapt to any adversity if it strikes. So, and I say that last part because oftentimes whenever like a company is hit with certain types of adversity, who is the one that thinks about all of the weight, everything that they're dealing with? It's primarily the leaders of the company.

Mm-hmm.

And more so, the employees are going to think about other things as in like, am I going to lose my job? Or what about my benefits? What are these types of things and stuff like that? So how could you have this where it's a culture where everybody's thinking about some of the same things and also where you could empower them and share some of this information with them too, as well, in regards to like, if this happens, these are some of our contingency plans. So we're not looking for jobs, they're scurrying and trying to think about some of these other things too, as well.

That's great. Premortem. I've heard that my executive coach, Rob Beeler, had told me that phrase. I always think in medical field, we always think, what happened? What happened? What are we gonna do next time? But that premortem, I, it's such a good— I mean, I don't wanna get macabre about it, but like premortem, thinking about like, if this all went wrong, what would we do? That's like a really good way of dealing with that.

You have made her decision tree brain so happy, Michael. Like, she's just like, she's ecstatic and—

Premortem.

And I think, you know, The interesting thing is, for many of our listeners, probably a large part are outside of the main areas of Boston, San Francisco, San Diego. You know, they're in the other parts of the country. Resilience is everywhere in startups and biotech, but it's exceptionally so in those other regions, or like where you are. It's a key trait you have to move forward by virtue of where you are or what you're doing. In areas like the Gulf South or other areas that aren't major clusters, you don't have direct access to concentrated capital or concentrated resources Or perhaps those decision tree plan Bs, Cs, or Ds you made run out and then you're at mortem. Mortem happens instead of shit happens, mortem happens. And how do you approach that then? So say you plan, you've done your pre-mortem, but the mortem happens and something is different. How do you coach people to approach setbacks like say a failed clinical trial, a funding rejection, a regulatory roadblock, which is really the same as setbacks in any other field?

Definitely. Great question. in resource-constrained environments must become masters of adaptability and strategic positioning. And I believe that they could do so by leveraging data to pivot quickly.

Mm-hmm.

When you have data, that gives you some of the historical things and some of the things that you could actually look at. So failed trials provide valuable insights. So you can use that to refine some of your strategies and improve some of the outcomes. The next thing I would do is actually diversify your funding sources, right? So Explore some alternative funding models like strategic partnerships, some grants, some corporate collaborations, some of those things you could actually look at. And then the next thing is embrace a marathon type of mentality. So innovation in biotech takes time, right? So when you look at some of these things, I think some of the best leaders actually play the long game. So when you look at it from that standpoint, then you could adjust your approach while staying committed to whatever your vision is that actually This is why Elaine has a couple companies and a couple side hustles.

She is diversified.

Diversification, baby.

Yeah, that, that and the wine bar, just drugs and alcohol, you know. Well, but that diversification has really come up a lot of diversification of funding sources because, you know, there's a lot of things going on at a federal level from federal grants perspective. And as for this corporate collaborations where our office comes into play, what James and I've been trying to do is like, what are ways that we can diversify where we can get funding for our scientists to carry out their research? carry out innovation. Innovation can occur anywhere and from a multitude of different funding sources. So, I love the diversification. It's definitely a motto I have, just in case.

You never know.

Let me wrap this up a little bit. If you could leave our biotech founders and scientists and executives that I know are just, they tune in every week, not my husband, obviously, but—

But he will this week.

Yeah, this week, this time. What would be—

Tune in.

Yeah, I know, exactly. Gosh, my mom does listen. So, there is that. Hi, Carol Hamm. What would be one key leadership lesson? Gosh, you gotta give the shout out to the mom, right?

You're gonna get me in trouble with my mom. Hi, Beverly Zanewicz. Now I'm in trouble.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say, yeah.

Michael, you need to say hi to mom so you don't get in trouble.

Hi, mom. Hi, Beverly. Oh my gosh, I love this. All right, I gotta focus. Okay, seriousness now. All right. What is one piece of advice that you want our listeners to take to heart? What would it be?

Can I give you 3?

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yes.

All right, cool, cool, cool. So I think resilience is your greatest asset and great leaders, leadership is not just about avoiding adversity. It's about embracing it as this catalyst for growth and transformation. And then the second thing is that leadership is about adaptability, right? It's not just about your authority as in you wanna just carry that on your title, your shoulder, or anything like that. It's about some other things too, as well. And then the last thing I think is the most important, successful leaders don't just fear failure, they actually learn from it. And I think from my experience, all of my life experiences, my business experiences and things like that, that has helped me with tremendous amount of growth throughout my years, just seeing what it has helped me empower other people, the people around me, the cultures and environments so much. So especially those are some of the key takeaways I believe leaders could take away from this conversation.

And I think that's one of the great things about conversations like this, where we're pulling people who aren't necessarily in biotech, but have so much to offer people in the space. We often learn the most from people outside the spaces. And it's funny that Elaine has a wine bar on the side, and some of my best friends are like master bartenders or that kind of thing, master craftsmasters. And one of my best friends, Abigail Gula, and I will sit and trade back and forth and how a lot of what we do is very similar. It's like your job is interacting with people and trying to convince them to do certain things and get them to look at something from a different perspective. And I think that's a lot of what we learned from you, because skills that aren't thought of as scientific really are necessary to be successful in science and healthcare and biotech and entrepreneurship. And I think that anybody who got something out of the free advice you gave us today should consider, you know, going to our show notes and engaging with you and the Adversity Academy and like bringing you on to help their companies. I feel like you have a lot to offer. And I really want to thank you for taking time out.

Yeah.

For being so generous with your time, with your advice. And, and sharing that with our listeners.

It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I love having conversations like this. I love whenever I get to pour back into people and share my value, cuz these are some of the things that are at my core that I truly believe in. I've seen it face to face in regards to my upbringing. I've seen it face to face with some of the companies that I've worked with. I've seen it, what it looks like when you're in combat, faced with adversity and different challenges and things like that. And I actually know that this stuff works.

Well, as always, we will have Michael's contact information and informational links hosted in our show notes. Make sure you check them out. learn more. And thank you, Michael, once again for joining us.

It's an absolute pleasure, guys. Thank you for having me.

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