Pharma Veterans

Major Shifts in Management Thinking Over Twenty Years – Shift #8 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1191 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1191 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Ann H Preamble This is the last post of this series that explored major shifts in management thinking and paradigm shifts over the last twenty years. There are more shifts as well that have taken place, but these ones capture the essence of change. Shift 8 – The Human-Centered Revolution: Why Emotional Intelligence and Psychological Safety Now Define Effective Leadership For more than a century, leadership was defined by a familiar set of traits: authority, charisma, confidence, decisiveness, and the ability to command. Leaders were expected to be strong, unemotional, and always in control. They set direction, gave...

Major Shifts in Management Thinking Over Twenty Years – Shift #7 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1190 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1190 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Arina Krasnikova Credit: August de Richelieu Credit: Juairia Islam Shefa Preamble This series shall explore major shifts in management thinking and paradigm shifts over the last twenty years. Shift #7 – The New Competitive Advantage: Why Collaboration and Ecosystems Are Replacing Traditional Competition Competition has been at the heart of management philosophy. Companies fought rival firms for market share. They protected their intellectual property fiercely. They built moats, defended turf, and played zero-sum games. Winning meant beating the other players on the field. But the last twenty years have changed that...

Major Shifts in Management Thinking Over Twenty Years – Shift #6 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1189 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1188 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: JESHOOTS Preamble This series shall explore major shifts in management thinking and paradigm shifts over the last twenty years. Shift #5 – The Great Talent Reinvention: From Job Descriptions to Skills, Capabilities & Learning Velocity For most of modern corporate history, organizations were built around job descriptions. These documents defined roles, responsibilities, reporting lines, required qualifications, and KPIs. They were the building blocks of recruitment, performance management, promotion pathways, and organizational design. For decades, this model offered clarity and stability. But over the last twen...

Major Shifts in Management Thinking Over Twenty Years – Shift #5 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1188 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1188 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Kampus Production Credit: Mikhail Nilov Preamble This series shall explore major shifts in management thinking and paradigm shifts over the last twenty years. Shift 5 – From Leader as Controller to Distributed Leadership: Why Psychological Safety and Culture Now Drive Performance For most of the 20th century, leadership was defined by control. Leaders planned, directed, monitored, corrected. Managers were the brains; employees were the hands. This “leader as controller” model made sense in an era of predictable markets, slow technological change, and strict organizational hierarchies. Stability was the goal, and co...

Major Shifts in Management Thinking Over Twenty Years – Shift #4 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1187 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1187 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash Preamble This series shall explore major shifts in management thinking and paradigm shifts over the last twenty years. Shift #4 – From Stability to VUCA to Antifragility: How Leaders Must Evolve for a Turbulent World For most of the 20th century and even the early 2000s, leaders operated in business environments that were relatively predictable. Markets behaved logically, competitors were known, supply chains were stable, and planning cycles lasted years. Strategy was a linear exercise: analyze, decide, execute. Change happened, but it happened in slow, manageable waves. Then the world shift...

Major Shifts in Management Thinking Over Twenty Years – Shift #3 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1186 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1186 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Lara Jameson Credit: Nataliya Vaitkevich Preamble This series shall explore major shifts in management thinking and paradigm shifts over the last twenty years. Shift 3: From Shareholder Primacy to Stakeholder Value For almost half a century, companies around the world operated under one dominant idea: the purpose of business is to maximize shareholder value. This philosophy, popularized by economist Milton Friedman in the 1970s, held that a company’s sole responsibility was to generate profits for its owners. Everything else, employees, environment, customers, and community, was secondary. This idea shaped corporat...

Major Shifts in Management Thinking Over Twenty Years – Shift #2 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1185 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1185 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Andrea Piacquadio Preamble This series shall explore major shifts in management thinking and paradigm shifts over the last twenty years. From Fixed Strategy and Execution to Agile and Adaptive Learning Organizations For much of the 20th century, strategy was treated like architecture, something solid, detailed, and enduring. Senior executives gathered every few years to design a five-year plan, complete with market forecasts, production targets, and growth milestones. Once the blueprint was approved, execution teams were tasked with delivering it faithfully. The system rewarded precision and predictability. Strateg...

Major Shifts in Management Thinking Over Twenty Years – Shift 1 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1184 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1184 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Polina Zimmerman Preamble This series shall explore major shifts in management thinking and paradigm shifts over the last twenty years. From Hierarchies and Control to Networks, Systems, and Ecosystems For over a century, organizations were built like machines, precise, hierarchical, and predictable. Managers sat at the top, issuing commands down a well-ordered pyramid. Employees were expected to execute those commands efficiently, with minimal deviation. It was a world of control, clarity, and compliance, one that worked well in an era of stability and scale. But the last twenty years have completely rewritten the ...

Novartis Pharma Exits from Pakistan – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 1183 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 1183 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Preamble This blog post summarizes the facts around the transaction, analyzing likely benefits and risks, and offering practical takeaways. Novartis Pakistan sold to IIL (Getz Group affiliate): what it means for the industry, patients and policy In May 2025 Novartis announced an agreement for its Pakistan business to be transferred to International Investment II Limited (IIL), an investment holding company affiliated with Muller & Phipps and part of the Getz Group, and in November 2025 Pakistan’s Competition Commission (CCP) completed a Phase-I review and authorized the transaction. The deal transfers control of Novartis Pharma (Pakistan) Limited fr...