Pharma Veterans

Aligning Strategy and Culture – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1252 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1252 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 Credit: Ayşin S. Credit: Thirdman Preamble This post is based on an INSEAD article by Charles Galunic. Link at the end. Aligning Strategy and Culture: Why the Real Magic Lies in the Middle For decades, leaders have wrestled with a persistent organizational challenge. Why do well-crafted strategies fail? The answer is often summarized in a familiar phrase:  “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” But this statement, while powerful, is incomplete. The real issue is not that culture defeats strategy. It is that strategy and culture are rarely aligned in the place where execution actually happens. According to insights from INSEAD research, th...

Plans vs Patterns – Gap Between Intentions and Actions – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1251 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1251 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: Airam dato-on Credit: Anna Nekrashevich Preamble This post is based on this quote from Laila Sandleen’s Book ‘The Evolution Code’. “Plans are what you hope to do. Patterns are what you actually do, and patterns always win.” Plans vs Patterns: Why What You Do Always Defeats What You Intend At first glance, this quote feels simple, almost obvious. Of course, what we do matters more than what we plan. Yet, if that were truly understood, most organizations would perform better, most individuals would achieve their goals, and most strategies would succeed. But they don’t. Because the real battle in life and leadership is not betw...

The Hidden Cost of Leadership – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1250 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1250 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: Marcus Winkler Preamble This post is based on an article from Gallup®. Link at the end. Leaders Have Better Lives – but Worse Days: The Hidden Cost of Leadership Leadership has long been associated with success, influence, and fulfillment. From the outside, it appears to offer the best of both worlds, higher income, greater autonomy, and the power to shape organizations. Yet, recent research presents a paradox that challenges this traditional view. According to findings from Gallup, leaders are more likely to be thriving in their overall lives and more engaged at work than those they lead. However, they are also more likely to experience stress, ang...

The Point of Pointlessness – And What to Do About It – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1249 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1249 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: amir selfish Credit:  Preamble This post is different from our usual conversation. It is based on thoughts from the writer Brian Eno’s diary titled ‘A Year with Swollen Appendices’. Quoted from ‘The Marginalian’ by Maria Popova. The Point of Pointlessness – And What to Do About It There comes a moment, often quietly, often unexpectedly, when everything we have been striving for suddenly feels empty. The work continues. The deadlines remain. The achievements accumulate. But somewhere beneath the surface, a question emerges: What is the point of all this? This is what Maria Popova’s reflection on burnout and Brian Eno’s exp...

  Gallup® - The State of the Global Workplace 2026 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1248 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1248 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: Fauxels Credit: Atlantic Ambiance Preamble This blogpost is based on the latest Gallup® Report on the state of the global workplace 2026. Link at the end. The State of the Global Workplace 2026: Why the Human Side of AI Will Decide the Future of Work The 2026 State of the Global Workplace Report by Gallup delivers a powerful and somewhat uncomfortable message: The world is investing billions in artificial intelligence, but the real bottleneck to performance is still human. Despite massive technological advances, organizations are not seeing proportional gains in productivity, engagement, or wellbeing. The reason lies not in...

Urban Health - The New Global Imperative– Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1247 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1247 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: Burst Credit: Malcoln Olivieri Credit: Sophie Dale Preamble This blogpost is based on recent reports of World Health Organization. Healthy Cities, Healthy Futures: Why Urban Health Is the Next Global Imperative In the 21st century, the future of global health will not be decided in hospitals alone, it will be shaped in cities. A recent announcement from the World Health Organization (WHO) following the 2026 Partnership for Healthy Cities Summit sends a powerful message: Cities are now the front line of global health transformation As more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and that number continues to rise, the desig...

 Change Within to Change Outside – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1246 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1246 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 Preamble This blogpost is based on a McKinsey article which takes insights from the book “Winning fron Within’ by Erica Ariel Fox (Harvard). Link at the end. Change Leader, Change Thyself: Why Real Transformation Begins Within Organizational change is one of the most talked-about, and among the most misunderstood, topics in leadership. Companies invest heavily in strategy, restructuring, technology, and processes, yet a large proportion of transformation efforts still fail. Why? A powerful insight from McKinsey & Company’s article “Change Leader, Change Thyself” provides a deceptively simple answer: Organizations don’t ...

Why Employees Training Pays Twice – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1245 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1245 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: Artem Podrez Credit: Christina Morillo Credit: Yan Krukau Preamble This blogpost is based on a research by Professor Christopher T. Stanton and Professor Miguel Espinosa, forthcoming in the Journal of Political Economy, as reported in Harvard Business School Working Knowledge. Link at the end. Why Employee Training Is Worth Twice What You Think Most organizations calculate the return on training by asking a simple question: did the people we trained get better at their jobs? New research from Harvard Business School suggests that question, while reasonable, captures less than half the story. Companies in the United States spend roughly $1,200 pe...

  New Centralized Role of Pharmacies – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1244 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1244 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: BYB BYB Credit: Ivan S Credit: Jose Ismael Espinola Preamble This blogpost is based on a discussion with Ms. Nishaminy Kasbekar, Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer for University of Pennsylvania Health System. Link at the end. From Dispensers to Decision-Makers: Why Pharmacy Must Be Central to Patient Care For decades, pharmacies were viewed as the final step in the healthcare journey, a place where prescriptions were filled and handed over the counter. Pharmacists were often seen as support staff, working behind the scenes, with limited visibility in patient outcomes. That model is rapidly becoming obsolete. A recent conversation...