A one-on-one conversation with CMR Institute’s new President and CEO about how the organization is evolving to provide learning leaders with the tools they need to succeed.
During her 20-plus years with CMR Institute, Sharon Lustig has made it her mission to help sales and training leaders in the life sciences industry reach their ambitious goals. Over the course of her career, she has led the organization’s account management, marketing, client development, and technology teams, giving her an unmatched understanding of customer needs. In July, Ms. Lustig became CMR’s President and CEO, succeeding Michelle O’Connor, who retired after 31 years of steady leadership and a strong commitment to educational excellence.
In this Q&A, Ms. Lustig offers her insights on how to build value in learning and development (L&D) and what leaders can do to ensure their teams are prepared for the challenges facing the industry.
What are the most significant challenges for leaders in life sciences training today?
Ms. Lustig: L&D leaders face many challenges today including budgetary and other resource constraints, addressing regulatory changes, employee and learner engagement, and optimizing technology. In many ways, these challenges are symptoms of an underlying problem – the ongoing difficulty that learning leaders have in proving L&D’s value within their organization and getting a seat at the table. Despite all the advances we’ve seen in technology, including new learning platforms and better data analytics, it is not always easy to convince other business leaders that learning impacts revenue and resources are necessary to maintain forward momentum.
Keith Keating covers this chief concern for L&D leaders in his book, The Trusted Learning Advisor. One key takeaway from this book is the importance of understanding the drivers of your company’s decisions and being able to articulate how L&D supports the organization’s goals.
How is CMR Institute meeting these customer challenges?
Ms. Lustig: By providing valuable and reliable assets and services, CMR supports leaders’ ability to spend their limited time moving strategic initiatives forward. With our comprehensive library of continuously updated, customizable resources, we alleviate the burden for learning departments often challenged with an unexpected or urgent training request. We either have it or can quickly build it with our significant resources so they can spend more time and effort on strategic initiatives.
By harnessing the top experts in subjects like market access, leadership, oncology, and other topics, we develop innovative content and resources that help our customers create efficiencies and demonstrate their value to their stakeholders.
In essence, CMR becomes a force multiplier for learning leaders, enabling them to present a better and more effective value equation that their leadership will readily support.
What are some of your key goals for the CMR team moving forward?
Ms. Lustig: As a not-for-profit learning partner, we’re focused on leading the conversation about the ways that knowledge can and should enhance healthcare. We want to be responsive to our customers’ needs and will continue to provide value through the timely, expert-vetted resources included in our learning library. As importantly, we will help our customers truly activate learning experiences to raise their learners’ confidence, credibility, and value to their organization and customers.
Our content creation capabilities, which focus on activating learning, will continue to grow as we meet this important need of our customers and the industry. We’ll expand our application resources and workshop development capabilities to ensure ongoing learner application. Our team will continue to innovate, tapping into new technologies and partnerships that will further expand the value of our resources to our customers and learners.
As we develop our strategies for the future, we will continue to rely on our highly respected Board of Directors as well as our Advisory Board of industry leaders, who provide regular feedback on our content and delivery roadmap. Together, they offer invaluable insights into the new challenges that customers face, allowing CMR to proactively respond to customer needs and thrive as a mission-driven organization aiming to advance knowledge to enhance healthcare.
Do you have any leadership lessons to share with other sales and training leaders in life sciences companies?
Ms. Lustig: I’ve learned many things as a leader in the last few years. One is to always be growing – we need to lead by example and invest in our own thought leadership, skills and abilities.
Another is to foster curiosity in your team members and peers. Give them the skills and the trust to be curious about new ways to meet their goals. You don’t have to be the smartest one in the room; you must be the one that helps them identify short- and long-term impacts and choose the best path forward. This builds confidence and enables them to align initiatives with organizational strategy in big and small projects. This type of continuous development is vital, and building trust through delegation and hands-on coaching is essential.
Leaders must empower their teams to be next-in-line leaders and help them also take responsibility for demonstrating strategic value across the organization.
