Pharma Veterans

Us and Our Governance III – Blog Post #451 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #451. 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…… We are discussing major areas of concern in our country. Education Extensive experimentation, adventurism and profiteering have been the hallmark of our education system.  To begin with, medium of teaching was Urdu and mediums of instructions were local languages. English as a subject started at grade six and continued onwards. English as a medium of teaching was restricted to college and university education. Missionary schools used English as medium of teaching, but these were few and accessible only to a tiny fraction of students. Education was uniform and promoted e...

Us and Our Governance II – Blog Post #450 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #450. 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…… Why are we where we are? One does not need higher education in sociology, anthropology, political science and economics to understand. Of course, such education may come in handy to prepare formal reports with proper statistics. Those of us who have lived in this society and are still desperate to continue living here till death do them apart, can see the major areas where things consistently went wrong. Some of these are mentioned below. Corruption Corruption has continued to live in the land of the pure since its inception. It is amazing to note that many people who had bee...

Us and Our Governance I – Blog Post #449 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #449. 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. Couple of days ago, the social media was abuzz with the news of a brilliant student Zara Naeem, who has secured the highest marks in ACCA globally. A proud moment indeed for her, her family, her community and the entire country. Today, while going through the Twitter feed, I saw a picture of a beaming family. The daughter of a traffic warden of Sindh became the first female fighter pilot in Pakistan Air Force. Historical achievement, we must say. Another news said that a new book by Dr. Zubaida Saraang is being hailed as the ‘Best Book on Eye Diseases’. Dr. Zubaida comes from Gilgit. Muhammad Ali Sadpa...

Management Pitfalls in Pharma Sales II – Blog Post #448 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #448. 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…… We are discussing common management pitfalls that are seen among the Pharma Sales Management ranks. Rushing to Judgement – Managers are usually (over)confident about their judgement ability. They believe they can quickly observe, process, synthesize and make a judgement. It is mostly a perception, rather than a reality. The managers, however, tend to rush to judgement. If it was limited to judgement, the situation may be less dangerous. Problem is that the decisions are based on judgements. If the judgement is flawed, the entire set or series of decisions will ...

Management Pitfalls in Pharma Sales I – Blog Post #447 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #447. 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 Pitfalls is a topic that has been taken up by numerous authors on numerous occasions. Those are highly accomplished people with a wealth of knowledge and experience. It would be unfortunate if I copy/paste some of their findings here. My core industry is Pharmaceuticals, and I would rather go through my own long years in the industry to point out common pitfalls among leaders in Pharma Sales. The leadership starts when a salesperson/medical rep is promoted as first line manager. The title may be any, but the position is first line management. Leadership responsibility increases...

Leadership in Tough Times – Blog Post #446 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #446. 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 end of 2019 was the beginning of the huge turmoil called ‘COVID19’ which quickly ran through the world, melted economies, disrupted lives and grinded leisure activities to a screeching halt. Leaders at all levels, businesses, corporates, conglomerates, states and countries had to deal with fast changing, rapidly evolving events of enormous impact on everyday basis. No doubt that the leaderships were challenged and stretched to the limits. Business leaders had to deal with financial jolts, unpredictable supply chains, interrupted revenues and health and safety of staff. Country leaders had to deal...

Why Should We Read I – Blog Post #445 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #445. 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…… A teacher in our college days used to tell us repeatedly, ‘Read – Read – even if you read crap, it is still better than not reading’. We heeded his advice and read whatever we could lay our hands on. Fortunately, we also got to read some classics by the most acknowledged writers. My observation is that the higher literature revolves around characters and their lives. As life does not have a predictable plot, so are such books. They go where the characters go. The beauty and torture both lie in the characters. There are happy moments and sad times, and there are emotions all along...

Why Should We Read I – Blog Post #444 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #444. 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 had had several posts about work-related topics. It is a good time to take fresh air and talk about the lighter yet deeper things in life. Reading is one such activity. Personally, I started reading story books as a child and then developed a relation with books which continues with life. In fact, it becomes more precious, more valuable and deeper. I discovered Brain Pickings (https://brainpickings.org) by Maria Popova few years ago. She puts in enormous effort to publish weekly (now twice weekly) newsletter which is a literary roundup of a kind. I would highly recommend subscribing to her newsletter a...

Value of Analysis in Decision Making – Blog Post #443 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #443. 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. Analysis is defined in any of the various ways. • The separating of any material or abstract entity into its constituent elements • A method of studying the nature of something or of determining its essential features and their relations The essence is that analysis requires looking at something in great detail and from every possible angle. The purpose is to understand the components to the maximum possible extent, their interplay and relations. Business decisions require lot of analysis in every department. One example shall help to bring the point home. A Pharmaceutical company deci...

Mentoring, Motivating, Coaching & Grooming VI – Blog Post #442 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #442. 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 look at the last topic: Grooming. Grooming is a multifaceted activity. Grooming is done across several parameters which may be broadly divided into personal grooming and professional grooming.  Professional grooming has some common elements which run across all professions, while some may be profession specific. Grooming is desired to make every member of the team useful, productive and pleasant to be with. Another important point is that personal and professional grooming are not entirely isolated; these are closely interre...

Mentoring, Motivating, Coaching & Grooming V – Blog Post #441 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #441. 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…… Another important question about Coaching is dealt with below. If Managers spend too much time on Coaching, it will disturb other important work There are two answers to this line of thinking. One, a manager has two main areas to focus: business management and people management.  Business management includes territory designing, customer selection, product selection, calling frequency, target setting, achievement plans and following up. This is an ongoing process which is done every day. People management is also a running theme which includes wor...

  Mentoring, Motivating, Coaching & Grooming IV – Blog Post #440 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #440. 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, as expected, generated quite a bit of interest. Some questions are very relevant and should be answered before moving further. If Coaching is so Important, why Managers don’t do it There are two reasons for it.  One, most managers do not understand the importance of coaching. They did not receive coaching from their seniors and therefore they are actually unaware of the benefits it may accrue. It is our usual style in all walks of life that we learn in a haphazard manner, or through hit and trial. The most visible example of this...