Navigating these difficult times: the crucial role of Values and behaviours

There’s no doubt that we are all facing challenging and uncertain times on an individual, family, work and societal level. Our purpose at AstraZeneca is to push the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medicines and we’ve all been faced with a sobering reminder of why our work is so important over recent weeks.

So how do we stay focussed on our purpose when faced with the infinite opportunities of What Science Can Do in challenging and uncertain times?

I believe our company Values play a critical role in keeping us connected, both to our purpose and to each other. Now more than ever. Our Values are our shared beliefs and for us they’re far more than words on a page.

Last year, to help bring our Values to life, we collectively introduced a simplified set of behaviours. Involving my 70,000 colleagues in the creation process through a crowdsourcing exercise was a huge win. It resulted in a set of behaviours that are easy to remember, easy to hold ourselves accountable to, and that motivate each of us be our best.

Our Values and behaviours were crucial as we drove AstraZeneca to return to growth in 2018 and they continue to be just as critical, if not more so, to our future. I am really proud of our ongoing response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, which came about by following our Values of ‘We Do The Right Thing’ and ‘We Follow The Science’. It has seen us donate 9 million face masks to support health workers around the world and is focussed on developing new diagnostic testing and discovering a treatment to prevent COVID-19 disease.

Following our Values of ‘We Do the Right Thing’ and ‘We Put Patients First’, we’ve also introduced a new internal global volunteering policy as we anticipate that many of our colleagues will look for an opportunity to help efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is really important that these individuals, whether they are qualified medical professionals or not, are fully supported in helping their local communities as well as contributing to our ongoing purpose.

With our employees working remotely whenever possible, we’ve also been following our Values of ‘We Do The Right Thing’ and ‘We Are Entrepreneurial’, to leverage digital capabilities to ensure we can continue to recruit great talent, which is essential to ensure we can continue to ‘Follow The Science’ and ‘Put Patients First’, while adhering to local health guidance.

I’d love to hear how you’re rising to the challenge too – please share your thoughts below.