Lesson 3: Building Trust Through Action Drives Success.

As a Project Manager, when I returned from parental leave, I was handed a running study—a big one with high stakes and high risks. It was very demanding, and the relationships between the Sponsor, the CRO, and vendors were tense. Not everything was going well. Clinical trials involve a lot of red tape, and when a study is at risk, you want to think quickly on your feet to move past it, but the execution is slow.

Right away, I felt the delicate position we were in. I decided to schedule one-on-one meetings with both of the main leads, who had grown somewhat frustrated over the past months. To earn respect and trust, appease all stakeholders, and make my life easier, I decided (with the support of my hierarchy) to ask both leads to give me three things they wanted done in three days. The short turnaround time was my way of getting achievable goals from the two leads. Luckily, this one time, they wanted the same things. I dropped everything and went to great lengths to ensure those three things happened—and they did.

From then on, we went through hard times and good times, but I never let them down, and neither did the two leads. The frustration level remained manageable, and everybody worked hard to keep it that way. When you build a team with trust and respect, you produce empowerment. It’s like rowing hard in a storm, with the person next to you rowing even harder. My career evolved, and I left the project before its end, but we delivered the study successfully. My company gained more business from that client. A few years later, the medication was approved and introduced to the market, reaching millions of people and improving their lives.