Pharmaceutical Executive-05-01-2006

A senior executive recently told me about a method he uses to distinguish people who have made an impression on him from those who have not. On Friday afternoons, he fans out the pile of business cards he has received since Monday morning and carefully looks at each card. If he can't remember the person and one idea about their meeting, he throws the card away. He scoops up the remaining cards and hands them to his assistant with instructions that those are the people whose phone messages he will return the following week.

Incentives are the icing on the cake companies offer to motivate their employees. Mary Kay Ash was famous for offering her team pink Cadillacs for selling cosmetics; Girl Scouts earn badges for the highest number of cookie boxes sold; and a New York real estate company recently offered its top seller a chauffered Lamborghini for one whole year. Whatever the prize, incentives are an effective and practical motivational tool.

I recently caught up with an acquaintance at a friend's cocktail party. It had been a while since I had seen him; As a musician, he spent a lot of time away, playing shows and touring clubs. But he had since changed jobs. The bills had to get paid, so he decided to put his music career on hold and rejoin the pharma company he had worked for after college.

Former GE CEO Jack Welch's no frills-and sometimes cutthroat-approach to business helped him make General Electric a $400-billion company by the end of his tenure in 2001. Though criticized for his desire to make GE a more competitive company, Welch is probably most admired for his leadership style. The CEO enjoyed tailored suits, private jets, and an eight-figure salary per year, but that didn't stop him from sitting face-to-face with a team of 15, 150, or 1,500 employees to talk about what they needed to do to make GE a better company. He knew the value of his team and customers, and he knew that strong leadership made for strong employees.

Imagine you're a college student cramming on the night before a big biology exam. You've missed some classes and need a tutor. So you call up the tutoring center and request a student to come help you. A tutor is at your door in an hour, but he's a history major, not a biology major. He claims his area of expertise doesn't matter since he knows how to teach. But you're up against a tight deadline, and reluctant to take his word for it.

In february, local news papers in the United Kingdom reported on disciplinary judgments made by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) against four pharma manufacturers. The disciplinary actions consisted of public reprimands for three companies, and suspension from the association for at least six months for the fourth company.

The key is distinguishing between what the reps know with confidence versus what they will forget.

Pharma should comply with PDRP. If the program fails, a likely result is state legislation that proves even more restrictive.