Leica Biosystems

My engineering journey spans more than three decades and has taken me around the world, from steel to trains, to cars and trucks, and now to medical devices in the US at Leica Biosystems, a Danaher company. We are committed to delivering faster results with greater confidence to pathologists and ultimately patients who are waiting for critical answers.

More than three decades ago when I began my first engineering job, I was blowing up bolts that were to be used in Australia’s new submarines. I then examined the pressure-tested bolts under a microscope. Computers were in their infancy, and I remember how eye-opening it was being issued my first computer and trying to figure out how to graph the results. 

While the tools and technologies have changed dramatically in my 30 years as an engineer, the principles behind successful product development and engineering leadership have remained consistent.

Here are three lessons that have shaped my approach to leading teams from concept to launch.

Lesson 1: Start with the Customer

One of Danaher’s guiding philosophies is that when customers talk, we listen. That valuable communication shapes everything that we do to ensure we’re delivering solutions that are innovative, user-friendly, and enable an end-to-end digital pathology workflow.

Before I joined Leica Biosystems, I learned that great engineering begins with understanding customer needs. In my early years, I spent some serious time investigating a new steel technology that fell into the “solution looking for a problem” category.

Research can be valuable per se, but in the context of timely product development, having a clear understanding of user needs will always help you drive towards valuable solutions for customers. This is, of course, also true for medical devices, where laboratory workflows and usability are often considered more valuable than product sophistication. Adjusting priorities based on new customer or market feedback is also critical.

While technology will continue to transform how products are developed, the fundamentals of human leadership will remain unchanged: understand the customers, develop your people, and create an environment where innovation can thrive.

No development team likes receiving critical customer feedback at the eleventh hour. Likewise, misalignment can create delays that leave a product solving the problems of yesterday instead of today. 

Lesson 2: Leadership is About Building Teams

Complex products, such as medical devices or cars, are designed and built by teams, not by individuals. Sure, you need smart and talented technical people, but what’s most important is how these individuals work together. Cross-functional collaboration between engineering, quality, regulatory manufacturing, marketing, and service functions is imperative to successful product development. Leaders must nurture and support this collaboration, help build trust between the various functions and importantly, develop future leaders from within these successful teams. In a business environment, there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing a graduate engineer mature into a leader as their career progresses, whether in technical roles or as a people leader.

Lesson 3: The Product Launch is Not the End

Product launches can be exciting events, sometimes attended by executives, high-profile customers, and other dignitaries. While that may sound successful, real success is measured once the product reaches customers and is actually used “in the real world”. Receiving and learning from broad customer feedback is a critical step of any product development cycle. Post-launch issues must be managed and acted upon, which will ultimately make the product better in the long term; a true testament to our company culture of continuous improvement. A solid commercialization strategy is also a vital component. Excellent technical products can fail to gain commercial traction if customers aren’t trained on how to effectively use the product, or don’t fully understand its functionality or capabilities. That can sometimes be demoralizing for technical teams; hence the need for genuine cross-functional engagement to ensure customers ultimately understand the value that’s available to them through the product itself.

Conclusion

While technology will continue to transform how products are developed, the fundamentals of human leadership will remain unchanged: understand the customers, develop your people and create an environment where innovation can thrive.

After three decades of engineering leadership, I have learned that successful products are built through more than technical excellence. They require curiosity, collaboration, resilience, and a commitment to serving customers and patients. Technologies will change, markets will evolve and new challenges will emerge, but the lessons of effective leadership and teamwork remain timeless.