Case Study: How Novartis Empowered Employees to Make Their Ideas Happen

Oct 1

We all have ideas—but too few of us turn them into reality. In an organizational setting, that can translate to billions of dollars in missed opportunities. And for a company like Novartis, it can mean missed opportunities to save lives.

At Cultivate, we know that innovators need both a roadmap and organizational support to bring their ideas to life. That’s why we created our Advance Your Idea platform, an interactive learning curriculum designed to help people generate, advance, and make their ideas happen.

Novartis deployed a customized version and set their employees up to finally take action on ideas they were sitting on.

In this case study:

Our Offerings
The Spark
The Solution
The Results
What’s Next?
Now It’s Your Turn

Our Offerings

The Spark

Every idea needs a champion. At Novartis, that was Todor Milkov, Head of Market Access. Charged with building an innovative culture for Novartis Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Malta, Milkov faced organizational challenges that had stifled creativity and ideation. But like many in his position, Milkov found himself running up against brick walls.

Associates at Novartis Bulgaria saw Milkov’s culture change efforts as a standard corporate initiative, all talk and no substance. That didn’t surprise us at all. Employees bring with them the baggage of all their past employment experiences and “innovation” experiences, and let’s face it—many organizations don’t do a great job encouraging their associates to speak up.

Milkov wanted to show his associates that Novartis was different. He knew he needed help to give his employees the tools and the confidence to speak up and share their ideas, so he reached out to Cultivate.

“We create a space where you can start any kind of idea without any kind of criticism.”

— Todor Milkov

The Solution

Enter Unbox. Working closely with Milkov, we first worked to understand the learning objectives that would make an impact at Novartis. We documented what was getting in the way of employees making their ideas happen. We then adapted our Advance Your Ideas curriculum to create a unique solution that combined self-paced learning with 1:1 support.

The program’s online tool guides employees through action-based missions and expert coaching helps them generate and implement an idea for change within their organization. Instead of being met with immediate critique, associate’s ideas are taken seriously.

Creating a program like Unbox is the beginning of the work, not the end. In addition to designing and mapping out the program, we worked with Milkov to promote Unbox and to provide support throughout the process, from marketing the event to interviewing participants.

Thanks to the direct support associates received from our experts, they started to gain trust in the Unbox project. Throughout the program’s implementation, our support ensured that Milkov had the resources necessary to bring Unbox to life with fidelity.

The Results

Unbox created an outlet for the pent-up creativity within Novartis Bulgaria. As it turned out, there was plenty of it. Out of 300 employees in Bulgaria, 80 registered to participate. They’ve already taken over 200 actions, and five of their ideas have been fully implemented within the organization.

And these ideas weren’t simple ones. Dima Angelov wanted to improve the entire patient access journey for one specific product. This required navigating regulations, municipalities, and a complex network of stakeholders. With hands-on support from our coaches, plus company buy-in to pursue the project, Angelov finally had what she needed to make it happen.

“It’s not so much about the ideas, as it is about the energy we have to implement them.”

— Milena Ficherova, Medical Science Liaison

Clear, decisive support for associates’ innovations has been a game-changer for Novartis Bulgaria. Associates now know that their ideas will be met with an open mind and that the organization values their input and wants to empower them to reach their full potential. Beyond innovation alone, that engagement leads to increased morale, increased cross-functional collaboration, and a renewed commitment to the organizational mission. When employees feel proud of their work, they feel proud of their company—a virtuous circle that lets everyone win.

The Unbox movement is continuing to grow within Novartis—and not even a global pandemic can stop it.

Georgi Arsov’s idea revolved around implementing telemedicine to create better access to healthcare in Bulgaria. The main obstacle to this plan? Bulgarians’ strong preference for in-person relationships with their care providers. But as it turned out, Arsov was simply ahead of his time. Once COVID-19 hit, his idea was suddenly no longer a pie in the sky, but a necessary area of expansion.

“The program is brilliant. The first time I heard about it, something clicked in my mind and said, ‘This is mine.’”

— Georgi Arsov, Sales Manager

What’s Next?

Novartis Bulgaria didn’t have a particularly unique challenge—but their willingness to embrace a new way to solve it led to a uniquely effective cultural transformation. With our expertise and support, Novartis Bulgaria showed its employees that their voices mattered and overcame associates’ fears of speaking up. Suddenly, a whole new level of organizational talent was unlocked.

The positive impacts of a program like Unbox echo through an organization for years. Once an open-minded and innovative culture is established, it echoes throughout the organization and is passed on to new employees.

We’re now working with Novartis to help them go beyond just empowering people who want to make ideas happen to actually work with management and other stakeholders to create more opportunities for innovation.

It’s impossible to fully measure the value an idea-oriented culture can bring an organization. But it’s easy to imagine the consequences of failing to create that culture.

Now It’s Your Turn

Innovation doesn’t have to just be a buzzword. You don’t have to just have a bunch of ideas sitting off to the side collecting dust.

You can empower people inside your organization to take action on their ideas, and to learn the necessary skills to be able to apply that action-oriented mindset time and time again to new ideas as they arise.

Is your organization in need of an innovation boost? Let’s talk.

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Case Study

A Curious Cultivator https://www.linkedin.com/company/cultivateall/