358-Year-Old Merck's Future Ready Formula: Transform While You Perform & Why Leaders Must Eat Last cover art

358-Year-Old Merck's Future Ready Formula: Transform While You Perform & Why Leaders Must Eat Last

358-Year-Old Merck's Future Ready Formula: Transform While You Perform & Why Leaders Must Eat Last

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Summary
 I sit down with Khadija Benhamada, member of the executive board and chief people officer at Merck Group, a 358 year old life science, healthcare, and electronics company with more than 62,000 employees across 66 countries. We unpack why leadership is a daily choice not a title, why Khadija believes you're not born a ready leader but become one through aspiration and practice, and how Merck balances two critical energies that every leader must master: performing today while transforming for tomorrow. I explore why performing means understanding customer expectations, delivering with clarity, and using AI to scale productivity faster and cheaper, while transforming is about asking more questions than having answers, building agility at scale, and creating an organization ready for whatever might come next without trying to predict the future. Khadija breaks down why great leaders eat last and put their teams first, why she doesn't count her work hours because impact matters more than time, and why micromanaging kills both energy and results. We get into the four pillars of transformation including being two steps ahead, visionary thinking, risk taking, and scenario planning, why Khadija tells her teams to hope for the best and prep for the worst, and how working for a company that impacts patients with multiple sclerosis and helps people have children creates a noble pressure to always have a plan B. Chapters 00:00:00 Leadership as a Daily Choice: Walking Before You Run at a 358-Year-Old Company 00:07:41 Clarity Versus Transparency: Managing Noise Without Creating Panic 00:09:59 Leaders Eat Last: Why Caring for Your Team Comes Before Everything Else 00:19:08 The Chess Player Mindset: Scenario Planning and Connecting the Dots 00:33:45 AI Productivity Versus AI Transformation: The Two-Speed Strategy 00:38:11 The Agent Manager Dilemma: When Employees Manage Bots Instead of People 00:50:16 Hope for the Best, Prep for the Worst: Building Possibility Over Risk
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