Pharma Veterans

Mentoring, Motivating, Coaching & Grooming III – Blog Post #439 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #439. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Continued from Previous…… Coaching is what we talk about next. But before we do that, one clarification is in order. Many managers use coaching and counseling interchangeably or as two parts of the same process. This is not right. These are different techniques, for different purposes and with different outcomes. Coaching is done to impart or improve skills; counseling is done to change behavior. Counseling needs greater expertise at understanding human behavior. Our managers who like to do counseling are neither qualified nor experienced at doing it. Rather than giving benef...

Mentoring, Motivating, Coaching & Grooming II – Blog Post #438 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #438. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Continued from Previous…… Mentoring, as I wrote in the previous part, was largely abolished. There are some people here and there who still keep the tradition alive, but for all practical purposes, everyone is now on his own. If you wish to learn, it is your sweet will, and you may learn what you like to learn. The fallout of getting away from Mentoring is that the learning does not follow any standard anymore. A variety of views are held by people which hardly connect with others. I am not writing this as an obituary of tradition; I am highlighting the changes that have taken...

Mentoring, Motivating, Coaching & Grooming I – Blog Post #437 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #437. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Times change because these have to change. Life is not a constant entity; it is an ever-evolving, ever-changing landscape. Human beings also keep changing in so many different ways with time. Four factors determine the quality and extent of evolution. Though these are applicable to life in general, but these are applied in more controlled manner on the professional life. Our focus in this discussion will be professional or work life. The four factors are Mentoring, Motivating, Coaching and Grooming. I would like to keep the same order due to a certain logic. Mentoring starts fr...

Staying Inspired III – Blog Post #436 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #436. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Continued from Previous…… In this last part, we talk about the subject which has drawn huge attention in the last several years. It is Employee Engagement, and it is relevant to our discussion as it is among the greatest sources of inspiration. Employee Engagement may be defined as the state where the employee is physically, mentally and emotionally engaged with the organization. Physical engagement brings hard work, mental engagement brings focused thinking, and emotional engagement brings joy and pride in achievements. Gallup did an extensive survey several years back which included interviewing about t...

Staying Inspired II – Blog Post #435 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #435. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Continued from Previous…… The beginning is important as it sets the scene and pace. As the saying goes, ‘Well Begun is Half Done’, a positive and inspiring beginning sets a highly encouraging tone. On the job, the responsibility for inspiring lies with the line managers. Lies means ‘rests’, not ‘lies’ (pun intended).  There are several things that the line managers may consider for inspiring the team members. Following proposals may be considered. Intellectual Stimulation True that most work is repetitive and routine, and that it leads to boredom, intellectual decline and laziness. The managers will d...

Inspired at Work – Blog Post #434 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #434. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Inspiration is usually associated with creative work, and it is thought that regular work does not need inspiration. I would like to contest this thinking in this blogpost. Inspiration is defined variously as ‘an animating action or influence’; something that influences or impels; something that pushes to do something; and something that arouses interest to go for something. Implicit in the definition are two things; drive, and to do better. We get inspired by stories of other people, of other times, of our times and so on.  There are fundamental differences between Motivation and Inspiration. Motivation...

Everyone Going Online – Blog Post #433 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #433. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Over One Year of COVID prevalence has impacted the world in many significant ways, which remains under discussion at all platforms. In this blogpost, I wish to highlight one aspect, which is ‘Going Online’. There are several aspects of going online. The most prevalent is ‘shopping online’ which was already there before COVID but has increased many times during the pandemic. Food was the latest addition because of closure of eating places for extended periods. Even now, indoor seating is prohibited, and outdoor seating is not universally liked due to harsh weather, be it winter or summer. Medical consulta...

COVID Vaccine for All – Blog Post #432 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #432. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. COVID vaccine has been rolled out in the US, UK, Europe, Russia and China. India is also ready to start vaccinating its population with its own vaccine. The effectiveness of these vaccines in the real world will be determined with the long-term use. As is the situation now, and it will be the same in the future, the number of countries who will manufacture vaccine will be a tiny few and they will become suppliers to the rest of the world. Let us say that out of 198 countries, probably 18 will produce for their own consumption and supply to other 180 countries. It is an extremely uneven distribution which...

COVID Second Wave and Us – Blog Post #431 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #431. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. The new variant strain of corona virus was first reported from south of England. Soon it was seen in many other parts of the world. Prior to this, a second wave of COVID was already predicted and was in progress. Together, the two factors have increased the severity and spread of COVID. US, UK and parts of Europe are seriously hit. News from several other countries is also not looking good. Pakistan is also seeing a surge in COVID cases. The public reaction is, however, that of unconcern generally.  This is the season for weddings and everyday hundreds of marriages are being consummated. On an av...

Leadership Tales I – Blog Post #430 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #430. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Leadership is probably more fantasized than understood. Everyone seems to carry a highly personal and individualized concept of Leadership in her/his mind, of which some thoughts are more common. The first thought which is associated with Leadership is ‘Power Over Others’. Power ranges from ‘autocratic dictatorship’ to ‘benevolent dictatorship’. The thing to note is that ‘dictatorship’ would be there in any case. All other versions of Leadership are nothing but a variation on the same theme. I really wish I could profile some of the old guard with whom I had some encounter, or I had the opportunity to work ...

Racial Bias in Medical Device – Blog Post #429 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #429. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. This blogpost partakes from a blogpost published in Boston Review. The link appears at the end. The article is written by AMY MORAN-THOMAS On December 17, 2020, the New England Journal of Medicine published a research letter, “Racial Bias in Pulse Oximetry Measurement,” prompted by some of the issues explored in this essay. Fact 1. Pulse Oximeter became a household name during COVID pandemic in Pakistan and everywhere else. Here, the price increased from 650 rupees to 6500 rupees and the item disappeared from the market. It is not a new phenomenon in Pakistan. The businesses are quick to take adv...

Mental Health in the Workplace – Blog Post #428 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #428. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPr ess, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. This blogpost partakes from a blogpost published in INSEAD Knowledge by the author Enoch Li. It is a very relevant and important topic. Mental Health in the Workplace seems out of place at first glance. We may think we hire the best brains in the best conditions; how can we have mental health issues? Please consider Demotivation, Frustration, Disengagement, Conflicts, Stress and Burnout; these are all indicators of mental health issues. However, mental health is not recognized in the workplace as an issue somehow. In few organizations, periodic climate surveys are done to assess the satisfactio...

Welcome 2021 – Blog Post #427 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #427. Pharma Veterans welcomes sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. We take a break from the 'Story of a Pharma Salesperson’ and move on to other topics. We shall return to it again later. Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels Image by Olya Kobruseva from Pexels Year 2021 is here. We Welcome the New Year with Warm Heart and Open Arms. I offer Prayers and wishes to you and your families and your loved ones and your dear ones and your near ones and your acquaintances. May this year be Kind and Soothing and Healing for all of us. We do have a lot of expectations from 2021 particularly. We are desperate to see the back of 2020. Our expectations may not matter much, yet be materiali...