THE SHORT ANSWER
High-Performance Science Teams™ is a team-level behavioral program from Bench to Business™ and Guttman Development Strategies for therapeutic R&D teams. It addresses the non-scientific reasons discovery programs stall deferred go/no-go decisions, biology–chemistry–DMPK silos, and disagreement that surfaces after the project meeting instead of in it by installing explicit decision rights, conflict protocols, and peer accountability.
Why do drug discovery programs stall when the science is sound?
Every head of research has lived some version of this. The target is validated, the assay cascade works, the chemistry is tractable and the program still drifts. Lead optimization runs two quarters past plan. Candidate nomination slips. The go/no-go meeting ends with the most expensive sentence in drug discovery: “Let’s generate one more dataset.”
In our experience, the root cause is rarely a failed experiment. It is how the project team makes and avoids making decisions. Scientific rigor is not the constraint. Team behavior is.
Broader R&D data points the same way. In TechLink’s 2024 R&D Innovation Performance Study of 152 U.S. executives at R&D-driven companies, 21% named lack of leadership commitment and 16% named poor collaboration across the company as barriers to innovation, and only 46% said they extensively use cross-functional work to develop new products. The study is cross-industry rather than life-science specific, but the pattern will look familiar to anyone who has sat in a program review.
What does team dysfunction look like inside a therapeutic research program?
- Go/no-go drift. Kill decisions get deferred because no one clearly owns the call. Marginal programs keep consuming FTEs, CRO budget, and animal studies that the next target needs.
- Functional silos across biology, medicinal chemistry, DMPK, and safety. Each function optimizes its own milestone. SAR decisions are made without ADME or tox input until the liabilities show up late.
- The PI model of leadership. Project leaders trained as principal investigators default to owning every decision. Team members defer instead of challenging the hypothesis.
- The meeting after the meeting. Real disagreement about target biology, biomarker strategy, or the target product profile happens in hallways and side channels not in the project team meeting where it could be resolved.
- Translational handoff friction. Discovery hands a development candidate to CMC, clinical, and regulatory without shared criteria, and IND-enabling work turns into rework.
Why don’t reorganizations, new software, or consultants fix it?
When R&D productivity stalls, life science companies reach for vertical fixes: redraw the org chart, add a portfolio management platform, bring in a strategy firm. Each can help. None changes how the people around the table decide, disagree, and hold each other accountable.
A reorganization moves the boxes; the same behaviors move with them. An ELN or portfolio tool records decisions; it doesn’t make them. And a consultant’s recommendation still has to be executed by the same team whose dynamics produced the problem. We say that as consultants. It is a horizontal problem, and it needs a horizontal fix.
How does High-Performance Science Teams™ work for R&D teams?
The program applies Guttman Development Strategies’ horizontal high-performance team model — refined over more than three decades with leadership teams at organizations including Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and Mars — to scientific teams. We work with the intact project or leadership team on its real programs, not with individuals in a classroom.
| Stall pattern | Root behavior | What HPT installs |
| Deferred go/no-go decisions | Unclear decision rights | A written decision protocol: who decides, on what criteria, by when — and decisions made in the room |
| Chemistry, biology, and DMPK silos | Functional goals outrank program goals | Shared program-level goals and a target candidate profile every function signs up to |
| Leader-centric decisions | Hub-and-spoke leadership | Leader as coach; team members accountable to each other, not only to the leader |
| Hidden scientific disagreement | No conflict protocol | Depersonalized conflict: issues raised as business issues, in the meeting, with data |
| Late translational rework | Handoffs not co-owned | Accountability agreements between discovery, development, CMC, and clinical |
What changes when a discovery team operates horizontally?
These are the outcomes teams target and track through the engagement measured against their own Science Team 360™ baseline rather than a generic benchmark:
- Faster, cleaner kill decisions, so resources move to the programs with the strongest data.
- Candidate nomination packages built against a shared target candidate profile from the start of lead optimization.
- Fewer late surprises in DMPK, safety, and CMC because those voices are in the decision early.
- Stronger retention of senior scientists, who stay where their judgment is heard and acted on.
Who is High-Performance Science Teams™ for?
CSOs, Heads of R&D, VPs of Discovery and Translational Science, and program leaders at emerging and mid-size biotechs and research organizations running multiple programs through discovery and IND-enabling stages. It is designed for intact teams — a program team, a discovery leadership team, or a cross-functional portfolio committee.
How do we get started?
Start with the Science Team 360™ a short, confidential team-level diagnostic that shows exactly where decision rights, alignment, and accountability are breaking down inside your R&D organization. You get a readout before anyone commits to a full engagement.
Request a Science Team 360™ conversation at bench2business.bio.
Frequently asked questions
What is a high-performance team in drug discovery?
A high-performance drug discovery team is a cross-functional project team — biology, chemistry, DMPK, safety, and translational — that shares one set of program goals, has explicit decision rights, resolves scientific disagreement openly in the meeting, and holds itself accountable for milestones rather than relying on the project leader to do it.
How is High-Performance Science Teams™ different from leadership training?
Leadership training develops individuals in a classroom. High-Performance Science Teams™ works with an intact team on its live programs and decisions, changing how the team operates together.
Does it replace stage-gate or portfolio governance?
No. Stage gates define when decisions should happen. High-Performance Science Teams™ makes sure the team actually makes them — on time, on agreed criteria, and with every function’s input.
Who delivers the program?
High-Performance Science Teams™ is delivered by Bench to Business™ in partnership with Guttman Development Strategies, whose horizontal high-performance team methodology anchors the program.
How is progress measured?
Teams complete the Science Team 360™ at baseline and again later in the engagement, and track operating measures they choose — such as decision cycle time and milestone slippage.
Sources
- TechLink, 2024 R&D Innovation Performance Study — Executive Summary (conducted by The MPI Group; n=152 U.S. executives, cross-industry).
- Guttman, H.M. Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance (Wiley, 2008) — https://www.guttmandev.com/great-business-teams
Figures from third-party studies are cited as published. Cross-industry data is presented as directional for life science. Program outcomes described are targets teams track against their own Science Team 360™ baseline, not guaranteed results.