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Exclusive Life Science Feature oping a vision that fit within the company's current corporate philosophy. At Takeda this is referred to as Takeda-ism and consists of four pillars — integrity, fairness, honesty, and perseverance. To come up with the vision, Yamada and his staff first asked the following questions: • What is it going to do? • What is its purpose in the company? • How is it going to be consistent with the rest of the company? • Why is it important to the company to invest in it? To be successful in these developing markets, Yamada believes pharmaceutical companies need to be part of the solution to those nations' problems, in addition to providing new drugs and vaccines. "There has to be a sense of commitment to helping the country as a partner, not just extracting resources and revenues and walking away," he attests. Yamada then recruited a former Gates Foundation colleague, Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, to head up Takeda's vaccine business. While at the foundation, Venkayya oversaw the organization's top two priorities — eradication of polio and new vaccine introduction. Once on board, Yamada then gave THE MOST COMMON LEADERSHIP MISTAKE Fifty years ago when Tachi Yamada was living in Stanford, CA, he invited his girlfriend from Ohio for a visit. Today, she is his spouse of 46 years. During her visit, she taught him a valuable leadership lesson. "It was a sunny day, and I suggested we wash the car," he recalls. "After about 10 minutes of washing, she throws down the sponge and says, 'If you want me to help you wash your car, let me help you. If you want to wash your car yourself, why don't you do it yourself?'" Evidently, he was washing the car as fast as he could, assuming she couldn't wash the car as well as he. "That was a very important lesson to me," he attests. "I have carried it with me my whole career. If you are in a position of leadership, you have to remember that you can't do everything. You have to depend on others and delegate authority. I think where CEOs get in the way of their own success is by assuming they can do tasks better than anybody else, and therefore should only do those tasks themselves." Yamada believes this kind of thinking is unmotivating to the people working with you, not a sustainable leadership model, and impedes the attainment of objectives. His advice, "Take the fullest advantage of everybody around you who can help you do what needs to be done." Though the car washing example may seem simplistic, everywhere Yamada has gone he has seen examples of leaders making the same mistake — only on a bigger scale. August 2013 LifeScienceLeader.com 27