Listen "081: Seeking to Understand First, with Sandy Black"
Episode Synopsis
In this episode, I sit with Sandy Black who’s Vice President of North America Commercial Operations at LivaNova, a global medical technology company. Sandy's responsible for several departments within the commercial side of the organization including commercial data and analytics, sales incentives, commercial excellence and training, customer service contracts and pricing, as well as case management and clinical nurse education. Sandy shares her journey how solving problems in R&D led her to leading commercial teams.KEY TAKEAWAYSSeek to understand, ask questions, and don’t make assumptionsYou can't make assumptions about teams just sitting in your office. You must get out there and connect with peopleUsing questions during heated conversations can help deescalate situationsIt's OK to allow teams to fail especially when the decisions aren't business critical. It can be a great learning experience for allWhen leading large projects, it's critical to have advocates and buy-in at all levels to not only support your mission, but to help with pull-through at the ground level
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