Welch Allyn
I believe in a highly interactive, personal approach with employees and customers.
“I believe in a highly interactive, personal approach with employees and customers,” says Peter Soderberg of medical equipment manufacturer, Welch Allyn. “ This method utilizes one of my personal strengths, which is interpersonal communication, to paint the corporate vision. The way I communicate this vision is through a living, evolutionary presentation called Strategic Directions.
“It’s the job of the CEO in a company like Welch Allyn, with real product breadth and diverse global markets, to knit the organization and its priorities together through common threads and a clear vision as to where we’re headed. People are more engaged if they can relate their job to the broader purpose of our company. The more people hear the Welch Allyn vision and direction, the more they understand and relate to its purpose. The Strategic Directions presentation fits my leadership style because it provides a high-energy, open platform for dialogue.
“A few months ago we had a senior management meeting with the top leadership of one of the biggest hospital systems in the United States. We were fighting for a corporate-wide standardization of Welch Allyn equipment throughout all of their facilities. Our company was competing against two, very large multinational firms who took the approach of a ‘whole hospital’ turnkey system. Our team used the Strategic Directions presentation to focus on our core competencies, our awardwinning products, and what we had on the drawing board for the future.
“The representatives from this hospital system saw our company as the best of breed supplier for a whole family of technologies to meet the demands of their user population. We offered products that reflected an appreciation for the unique clinical users of these sets of technologies in the spaces we targeted. It ended up that we were awarded the contract as a preferred supplier for this large hospital system.
“How did our team win this huge account? We articulated the Welch Allyn core values, we demonstrated our focus on technology, and we cemented the alignment of our company with their needs.
“There’s no cookie cutter approach to what makes a great leader; it’s really more like a fingerprint. A great leader melds their own personal strengths and compensates for their weaknesses with certain basics in leadership that are often learned.
“My education has come from studying the strengths and weaknesses of leaders I know personally, as well as those I read about. I prefer to learn by observation. I’ve evolved a style that helps me learn through continuous improvement. By watching others, I’ve realized how to mobilize and interact with my team to give them meaningful authority and capability to improve my productivity and effectiveness.”