Transcript
Caroline:
[00:00:08 – 00:00:22]
So welcome back to What the Pharma? where we try and apply our expertise and know how in culture, capability and change to nutty conundrums that are facing our industry and areas of stuckness. Harry, what are we talking about today?
Harry:
[00:00:22 – 00:01:01]
Okay, so each of these episodes is focused on real issues faced by people in farmer organisations. It’s not made up stuff. And I have a dilemma from Sara. Sara is a wonderful cam. Right. So she’s just changed jobs. She was working in one farmer organization, a large one, and she’s gone to another large farmer organization working in the same area. Not the exact same indication, product specific, but definitely the same area. So she feels comfortable. Yes. And her expectation was, I think that she would be able to go from where she was into this new organization, hit the ground running and be just as brilliant.
Caroline:
[00:01:01 – 00:01:02]
Knock it out the park.
Harry:
[00:01:02 – 00:01:12]
Totally. Sales are amazing and of course they were. The, the recruiting company was wowed to bits when they saw what she had delivered before. So they’re expecting that as well.
Caroline:
[00:01:12 – 00:01:12]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:01:12 – 00:02:44]
And part of her onboarding was that she did some ride alongs with other account teams close to her, see how they’re doing things to meet some of the accounts and the customers and so on. And one thing that she noticed, it really struck her was how few questions those account teams were asking of the account. So the hcp so meeting. Okay, fewer questions. And the questions that they were asking were like these ones that you get from sales training. So they were clearly some sales training. Some. Some sales training, yes. So they were clearly trying to get a hook which they could then deliver their pre prepared response to which would promote their product. Yeah, Tell Sell with some leading questions in it basically. And that worried her because it goes against her own experience about how you develop really effective relationships and get great results, commercial results and results for patients in your accounts by asking much more open, curious questions. And she’s feeling the pressure to do the same thing herself to adopt that model of more tell Cell. She’s being measured on it, it’s being commented on and so on. So she is a bit, she’s a bit stuck basically. So that’s just one person’s example. That’s Sara’s experience of operating in one way, in that getting great results for patients and for the business. But what does it look like if we kind of zoom out and look at it on a, on a larger scale? What, what are the, what are the reasons, the motivations for adopting that kind of more consultative.
Caroline:
[00:02:45 – 00:02:57]
Because it could be that both methods are fine and you can get performance and good results from both approaches. So it might be Sara just has to suck it up and join in with what that organization doing.
Harry:
[00:02:57 – 00:02:58]
But I suspect that is not what the data says.
Caroline:
[00:02:58 – 00:03:37]
Well, not according to the data. And of course we can all do our own research. We have very good helpful tools that enable us to do that. I’ve done a bit and also personal experience tells me this is so essentially, I think the nub of it all is of course you can be high performing using the approaches that have worked historically, arguably, but you can’t be as high performing. So you essentially, if you are not taking a more consultative approach in those calls with customers, two things are happening. One is you’re potentially missing opportunity in the here and now. So you are, you know, there’s incremental uplift in performance that you are missing.
Harry:
[00:03:37 – 00:03:38]
So you’re leaving money on the table.
Caroline:
[00:03:38 – 00:04:50]
Leaving money on the table, number one. And secondly, of course you are not tending to the relationship with that customer which over time is going to have a detrimental impact. Ultimately, customers have a limited attention span, a limited amount of time. They are going to be interested or bothered to engage with any company regardless of how good they are. And what you want is to be creating a situation where they would rather spend time with you than with other people because they’re going to have to make trade offs and that trade off needs to be in your favour. So the data says, yep, hitters. Here’s a couple of examples. Harvard Business Review 2.5 million sales conversations analyzed not in pharma. So broad church of different but a couple of conversations, but one or two there. Yes. Basically 40 to 60% of deals are lost to customer indecision, not the competition. So forget what your competition is doing. You’re losing 40 to 60% because of customer indecision. And the root cause of that they found, not me, them found that it was because in those calls, reps were failing to uncover what was underneath those concerns or decision hesitancy.
Harry:
[00:04:51 – 00:04:51]
Wow.
Caroline:
[00:04:51 – 00:05:01]
Presumably because they didn’t ask enough or well enough. I mean that’s slightly judgy but you know, they weren’t asking questions that helped unlock that 40 to 6%. That’s huge.
Harry:
[00:05:02 – 00:05:02]
It’s absolutely massive.
Caroline:
[00:05:02 – 00:05:26]
Huge. And also of course we know that some traditional tactics, just as humans, some of those traditional tactics can leave you a bit ick. You know, do we want to be talked at and told to do? I want to go into a shop and be, you know, someone come and talk to me about a vacuum cleaner when I’ve gone in to buy a toaster. No, I don’t. So a few questions up front could unlock what my actual needs are and then lead to potentially a better outcome.
Harry:
[00:05:26 – 00:05:27]
So becoming more so.
Caroline:
[00:05:27 – 00:06:07]
We get that. Yeah, yeah. Relevant. Attaching what you’ve got to offer to what they actually care about. Frankly, there’s other data out there. I think one of the other interesting ones that stood out is in our industry. So life sciences pharma. I can’t read this because I’ve got my glasses on. 88% of HCPs will be twice as likely to meet with a rep if the interaction mirrored their best relationships, which in this definition were consultative, personalised, insightful. So if it was as good as the best, 88% will be more likely to meet you again. So all of that sweat of trying to get another interaction is alleviated if the first one asks a few questions, basically.
Harry:
[00:06:07 – 00:06:10]
And we know that account teams want better access to HTTPs.
Caroline:
[00:06:10 – 00:06:56]
Yes, yes, yes. Because it’s really hard to get access. We get that. So I think the data is pretty solid that. Oh, and I’ve got another one. Hang on, this is my best one. Cochrane review actually looked at proper data, so this is robust. I would say again, you can look it up for yourselves. They talked about educational outreach visits, which is basically a proxy term for something similar to a consultative approach. And what they found was when it was tailored needs based visits, it changed prescribing by 5 to 6% more than the control, which was the standard approach. So improved, prescribed, changed prescribing 5 to 6% more. So you’re more likely to get by 5 to 6% and a change in prescribing than if you do use the other approach.
Harry:
[00:06:56 – 00:06:58]
I mean that’s like the argument to.
Caroline:
[00:06:58 – 00:07:04]
End it all, I would say. So I’m sure there’ll be people who disagree with those data. There always are. And who knows?
Harry:
[00:07:04 – 00:07:09]
Well, you can if you want, but if you want 5, 6% sales improvement then, or prescription improvement then a change.
Caroline:
[00:07:09 – 00:07:17]
In behavior, it could be, it could be anything, it could be a different. Anyway, either way it feels like it’s worth looking at and lots of people.
Harry:
[00:07:17 – 00:07:17]
Are looking at it.
Caroline:
[00:07:17 – 00:07:37]
This is not unique new news. It’s just not very consistent across our industry. And what Sara is experiencing is that inconsistency that there are some companies that are really focusing on this and doing it well and some companies that perhaps for lots of good reasons potentially or what feel like good reasons are not going down that route as yet.
Harry:
[00:07:38 – 00:08:14]
All right, so we’ve got Sara’s example, we’ve got strong evidence for we should be doing it in a. Not different for everybody, but large scale. There is multiple buckets of value. If you go for more questioning, consultative. So. So if we span out from Sara, we know that 72%. So the majority of account teams are wholly or partly using a sales rep service model. So classic tell sell traditional approach.
Caroline:
[00:08:14 – 00:08:14]
Got you.
Harry:
[00:08:15 – 00:08:20]
So we know we should be doing this. We are doing something else.
Caroline:
[00:08:20 – 00:08:21]
Yes.
Harry:
[00:08:21 – 00:08:24]
Why is that massive gap there?
Caroline:
[00:08:24 – 00:09:39]
There’s the million dollar question. And I think this is really interesting because I don’t believe for a second people listening to this are going to be going, oh my gosh, you’ve just uncovered a revelation there that we had never heard of this before. Like, I just don’t believe that people will tell us, I’m sure, what their views are, but I genuinely think for most people when they pause and have a moment, they were like, yeah, actually I can see the value in questioning. So. So why aren’t we. Okay, that was your question. So I think there are. We talked about this sort of cage and that in my mind is like the organization constraint. It’s not about the individual human, not the birds. It’s not the birds, it’s the cage. Yeah. And in that cage is a whole mix of things, but there are four that really stand out for me. So one is just historical inertia. You know, we’ve always done it this way. This is the way we know how to do it. So we feel pretty comfortable with it. And when we look at what it would take to do it differently and the risk that’s attached to that, potentially easier just to stay the same. And that’s so true of every change we ever get involved in. Historical inertia. And we’ve got decades of an industry being very successful doing it that way.
Harry:
[00:09:39 – 00:09:40]
Yeah.
Caroline:
[00:09:41 – 00:10:24]
Is there a burning platform really right now? Nobody’s, you know, bottoms are not falling out of sales in a lot of cases. So the sort of activation energy that’s required to get people to really do this arguably isn’t obvious. It isn’t there. I don’t think that’s necessarily 100% true, but it feels true in the way we go about day to day. I think there’s a bit of compliance requirements. We have to be able to show that we’re doing certain things in this industry in a certain way. So having something that’s a bit more loosey goose around, go in and ask some questions feels like that’s hard to manage in inverted commas and Linked to that is.
Harry:
[00:10:24 – 00:10:27]
I mean, that sounds more. That sounds like more like fear than fact.
Caroline:
[00:10:27 – 00:11:07]
I reckon it could well be. Could be. I’m sure, again, there’ll be someone who knows the ins and outs of the compliance requirements better than we do who can tell us that. But it’s certainly something that’s brought up as a reason not to. So in that bucket of historical inertia, and then the second bucket is. And it’s linked. This is all a big Venn diagram, of course, because it’s a system, not individual parts of a system. But the second bit is when we have something like counting, a way of counting in order to incentivize people or to help people be compensated and bonused. And we want to count what’s happening. So that might be to incentivise an individual. It might be to say, are we being successful as an organization?
Harry:
[00:11:08 – 00:11:08]
What are we counting?
Caroline:
[00:11:08 – 00:11:28]
We look for things that are easy to count and things that are easy to count are the inputs, so the activity. So it’s easy to count that. It’s really hard when we look for a viable instead. So what would we count instead that would actually incentivise a different type of interaction and outcome? We would argue, I think, that suddenly that becomes hard to count. So, again.
Harry:
[00:11:29 – 00:11:41]
So let’s just unpick that a bit. So what we’re counting at the moment, we’re counting, for instance, numbers of. Yeah. Numbers of calls, meetings and so on. If we are delivering the messages.
Caroline:
[00:11:41 – 00:11:42]
Yes.
Harry:
[00:11:42 – 00:11:44]
You could say we’ve done this or not.
Caroline:
[00:11:44 – 00:11:47]
Yes. Has it left our mouths? Yes, it did.
Harry:
[00:11:47 – 00:11:57]
And you could say, well, no, we should be counting questions, but that is just a bad idea because then you just go in and fire loads of questions off. Yeah. Because it’s another activity metric, basically.
Caroline:
[00:11:58 – 00:11:58]
Yes.
Harry:
[00:11:59 – 00:12:00]
Not so sure.
Caroline:
[00:12:00 – 00:14:07]
I don’t know about that. Let’s come back to that one. I don’t know, because actually, in order to start encouraging a different behaviour, you might need to start somewhere that does feel safe and countable. And so is there an argument that. Actually, I think with any measures, design or incentives design, you have to be very careful with unintended consequences. So definitely needs to be worked through. I also think there’s a little bit of. To get people going and support them with something that’s a change in behavior. Having something that’s really easy to count can be quite helpful because you can notice if you’re doing it. We can debate that in a minute. But because there’s a couple of other things going on in organizations and These are the two biggies really, because I think these are the reasons why we don’t just change the incentives and do the hard work. Because we’re like clever people in this industry. We work out a different incentive system. We could do that. It’s not a lack of brains. And I think they are control and the old chestnut of short term versus long term value creation basically and prioritization. Yeah. So control if you have things that are easy to count and easy to make visible and easy to audit and that makes it easy to track if people are doing what you hope they are doing. And just like with hybrid working and everybody being very worried about our productivity if we’re not in the office, everybody being a small subset actually, but some people being worried about that. I think there’s a similar thing going on, whether we acknowledge it or not. Low trust. So there’s a worry that if we stop counting these things, our teams won’t do them, won’t do stuff. They’ll go and sit in their back garden on a sunny day, which I think does happen and could happen. That’s okay as long as we’re delivering outcomes. But others have different views. So there’s something about that anxiety that comes from relinquishing control and potentially low trust. That if we were brave as an industry we would lean into and confront versus saying oh, that isn’t true. I think if we were really honest with ourselves, there is some of that going on.
Harry:
[00:14:07 – 00:14:08]
Yeah. Okay.
Caroline:
[00:14:08 – 00:14:43]
And the other thing which I mean it just swills around and we just accept it as a fait accompli. Oh well, it’s very short termist and we have to make sure we’re delivering the short term numbers and therefore we need to count the activity. And if we see the short term numbers going off, we have to do more stuff in order to get those short term numbers back, back on track. And honestly, I don’t know what the solution is for that because ultimately I believe, rightly or wrongly, that all ladders up to the fact that we’re being driven by shareholder value and we’re very paying attention anyway, it points to that.
Harry:
[00:14:43 – 00:15:10]
If you are quite rightly leading the organization, some kind of manager position, and you’re worried about the commercial performance and you are, as we’re talking about then wedded to believing that if we drive activity, measure that we make sure it’s happening. Lots of calls, lots of key messages being delivered, that equals better commercial performance. We started a little while ago talking about that there’s better commercial performance from Another way.
Caroline:
[00:15:10 – 00:15:13]
The other way could have come the other way. And more and more coming from the other way.
Harry:
[00:15:13 – 00:15:14]
I think.
Caroline:
[00:15:14 – 00:15:47]
I think that again, anyone can do their own data search, but I think the stats are quite convincing. I would say that the old model that has been super successful and absolutely does still work in certain situations is working less and less in more and more situations. So, you know, where there’s an argument for essentially there is a need for information, then that share of voice model or whatever label you want to put on it, you can absolutely see that that would work. So a new launch of a new product. Absolutely. You could see that that would have.
Harry:
[00:15:48 – 00:15:50]
People tell me about it. They want to know what to do.
Caroline:
[00:15:50 – 00:15:57]
So there’s already a bit of pull from the customer. They genuinely don’t know. And actually it might be quite hard to find that information elsewhere.
Harry:
[00:15:57 – 00:15:57]
Yes.
Caroline:
[00:15:57 – 00:16:43]
But in a lot of other circumstances where that isn’t the case, I think the data is showing that that model needs shifting and then it’s about our willingness to experiment. And lots of companies are doing it. So it isn’t that there aren’t pockets of this happening. It’s just not that consistent as Sarah is finding out. It’s about having, you know, at the top of all of this, unfortunately, is still a few people having the bravery to go, yeah, I think you’re gone. Even though it might affect my personal comfort and relaxedness and, you know, my ego might be up for a bruising if I get this wrong, I am gonna. I’ve got enough conviction to really have a go at doing something different.
Harry:
[00:16:44 – 00:16:51]
It feels so like black and white. And I don’t think it has to be. I mean, we’ll get back into what we could try differently in a little bit.
Caroline:
[00:16:51 – 00:17:03]
But it’s not just about the organization. And I’ve touched on now individuals. So what else is going on for individual humans, that means that we’ve got this gap between what we sort of rationally know would be useful and what we’re actually doing.
Harry:
[00:17:03 – 00:17:05]
Yeah. Okay, let’s look at individuals then.
Caroline:
[00:17:05 – 00:17:06]
Yep.
Harry:
[00:17:06 – 00:17:23]
As you said, they’re part of a system, so they’re going to be impacted by all that organization stuff by the cage and everything else. But there’s a load of belief stuff, individual belief stuff. I think that will impact individuals willingness to ask more questions, more open questions, be curious.
Caroline:
[00:17:23 – 00:17:23]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:17:23 – 00:17:24]
And not know where it’s going.
Caroline:
[00:17:25 – 00:17:25]
Yes.
Harry:
[00:17:25 – 00:17:35]
And the reason they’re like, the belief stuff is important because beliefs underpin the behaviors. And if you then try and go against your belief, you’re going to feel pretty uncomfortable.
Caroline:
[00:17:35 – 00:17:37]
Yes. And probably not do it in most cases.
Harry:
[00:17:37 – 00:18:12]
Probably. Yeah. Be super reluctant to do it. Hesitant to ask more questions and to take that step into what feels like the unknown. So this psychology around time pressure, we know that it is super limited the time that account team members, CAMS and MSLs and so on get with stakeholders in the account. Sometimes they’re arranged appointments or calls, sometimes they’re literally chasing them down the corridor. Mega time scarcity, chicken and egg about. Well, if it was more valuable, would they get more time anyway? And some of the things that come about when you feel that time pressure, how do people react?
Caroline:
[00:18:13 – 00:18:13]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:18:14 – 00:18:22]
Like that task urgency, I think really linked to the measures stuff. So I have to do these tasks in order to.
Caroline:
[00:18:22 – 00:18:25]
That’s a belief that is really forced by the system. Yeah.
Harry:
[00:18:26 – 00:18:31]
Versus say relationship depth and focusing on how well you are engaging.
Caroline:
[00:18:31 – 00:18:32]
Yes.
Harry:
[00:18:32 – 00:18:44]
Your customer. Yeah. And what can also happen during that time pressure is really rationally we do mental shortcuts and we default to things like scripts and checklists.
Caroline:
[00:18:44 – 00:18:48]
Yeah. Which is also reinforced by the system because that keeps everybody safe.
Harry:
[00:18:48 – 00:18:59]
Totally. And I mean. And that’s really positive actually. Checklists are wonderful. There’s brilliant examples from it, from healthcare, from pilots, all that kind of stuff. We’ll talk about that another day.
Caroline:
[00:18:59 – 00:18:59]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:18:59 – 00:19:06]
But in this case, working through a checklist in a meeting is going to get in the way of being curious and.
Caroline:
[00:19:06 – 00:19:06]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:19:06 – 00:19:17]
So some of the reactions to feeling that time pressure then I think there’s a load of other stuff about fears connected on beliefs with what you will hear back if you ask the question.
Caroline:
[00:19:17 – 00:19:19]
Yes. So what might they say?
Harry:
[00:19:19 – 00:19:50]
Yeah, what might they say? Right. So belief that they. They will ask for the moon on a stick. You know, if I say, you know what, you know what it. What are the most important things for you in caring for this patient group? And they would go, yeah, well I’d really love to be able to give them 24. 7 monitoring. And then pharma person going oh shit, now I’ve got to deliver 24. 7 monitoring. Can’t do that. So a. I don’t want to. So I don’t want to feel the obligation. I’m worried that if I say no, it will destroy the relationship.
Caroline:
[00:19:51 – 00:19:53]
Okay. So no equals. They can.
Harry:
[00:19:53 – 00:19:56]
No equals. Yeah, well, you’re useless. I’m not going to meet you again.
Caroline:
[00:19:56 – 00:19:56]
No value.
Harry:
[00:19:57 – 00:20:04]
Yep. I mean that no thing is I was collected some connected. Some loss aversion I think so the fear of losing trust or credibility.
Caroline:
[00:20:05 – 00:20:05]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:20:05 – 00:20:09]
If you can’t Deliver on kind of what they’re asking for.
Caroline:
[00:20:09 – 00:20:09]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:20:09 – 00:20:12]
Or even not being. Not having a prepped answer.
Caroline:
[00:20:12 – 00:20:12]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:20:12 – 00:20:13]
I think that’s the other thing.
Caroline:
[00:20:13 – 00:20:14]
Yep. Yeah.
Harry:
[00:20:14 – 00:20:31]
When. When you’ve got a leading question. Yeah, yeah, we’ve got a leading question. You’re basically setting yourself up to know, to be able to position something. Yeah. But if you’re taking that step into the unknown, another. It’s actually another part of the. The time pressure thing that. Or a belief around open questions taking a long time.
Caroline:
[00:20:31 – 00:20:33]
Yeah. Oh, okay.
Harry:
[00:20:33 – 00:20:34]
So you lose a bit of control.
Caroline:
[00:20:35 – 00:20:35]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:20:35 – 00:20:43]
As well. Because I’m gonna ask this and clock’s ticking and I’ve got to deliver my lines and my word, they might take 20 minutes to answer.
Caroline:
[00:20:43 – 00:20:43]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:20:43 – 00:20:56]
And then what do I do? I’ve totally lost control of it. And there’s probably like a load of others. But basically, I think it. There’s just a lot of fear attached with doing something differently when you don’t have the experience.
Caroline:
[00:20:57 – 00:20:59]
Control. Don’t have control.
Harry:
[00:21:00 – 00:21:04]
Yeah. And you don’t have the conviction yourself that it will lead to the better results because you’re not. Sorry.
Caroline:
[00:21:04 – 00:21:11]
Okay. So you’re making a sacrifice by letting go of some control, but you’re not convinced you’re going to get any benefit from that sacrifice. Yeah.
Harry:
[00:21:11 – 00:21:24]
So load of gaps between what we know what we’re doing and we’ve explored some of the organizational individual bits around. Why is there that gap? What could people do to bridge it?
Caroline:
[00:21:25 – 00:22:44]
Well, people are doing stuff to bridge it. So probably the most useful thing is to rather than us just come up with a load of random ideas, actually share some of the things that are happening in pockets, in small pockets. So redesigning KPI’s incentives, compensation. So actually redesigning that whole scale based on what is the behavior you want to cause and incentivizing and supporting and enabling that. And sure as surely taking out counterintuitive incentives that work against it. Because we see a lot of people saying, well, the organization’s saying they want me to do this, but actually the incentive down here, they’ve got a lovely macro objective about customer experience or, you know, whatever it might be. But down here the incentives are actively pulling in the opposite direction. And either that leads to paralysis. So literally I am stuck because I’m being pulled in two directions at the same time and I’m stuck here. Or it leads to gaming the system. So workarounds which has risk attached to it, of course, and also has inefficiency attached to it. Like everybody wants to be more efficient in their business. I don’t know a single company that doesn’t. But we’re creating inefficiency by having that disconnect. So redesign your incentives would be one.
Harry:
[00:22:44 – 00:23:03]
And I mean, I have a live example where a load of cams have left because they are in the middle of that pool and it is exhausting. So they’re getting at the same time from their organization. We really want to be massively customer centric, engage them through questioning. We do believe it.
Caroline:
[00:23:03 – 00:23:04]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:23:04 – 00:23:07]
And not being willing to let go of the in field metrics.
Caroline:
[00:23:08 – 00:23:08]
Yes.
Harry:
[00:23:09 – 00:23:10]
And people going, I can’t do this.
Caroline:
[00:23:10 – 00:23:28]
Yeah. It’s impossible to navigate. Yeah, it’s impossible to navigate. And I think there’s also this assumption that that is. So there’s two assumptions that sometimes happen. One is that you can have the. And yeah, so we’ll introduce some new metrics, whatever they might be, to encourage that new behavior, but we’ll also keep that security blanket of the old ones because that’s what we’re used to.
Harry:
[00:23:28 – 00:23:31]
And the belief that that will be better somehow and is better.
Caroline:
[00:23:31 – 00:23:35]
Sometimes it is. But not in this case. I honestly would die on a hill for that.
Harry:
[00:23:35 – 00:23:36]
Yep.
Caroline:
[00:23:36 – 00:23:36]
Not in this case.
Harry:
[00:23:36 – 00:23:37]
Yep.
Caroline:
[00:23:37 – 00:23:53]
But the other thing I think that happens is people go, okay, well that’s a massive change program if we want to change all of our sales incentives. But what if we just hived off a small part of the organization, a brand, a. A market, a team in a market.
Harry:
[00:23:53 – 00:23:56]
A stakeholder for a team. Yeah.
Caroline:
[00:23:56 – 00:24:25]
And had a go and see what happens. And you know, is it feasible to have a pilot of incentives? Are there HR issues there? Is there things potentially, if it’s in your contract. Yes. But for example, in the UK it’s more than likely not in your contract. It’s more likely a non contractual agreement, in which case there is a potential. So like you could have a go, start small, have a go, see what happens. Especially if the conviction is tentative rather than high that this is the direction they want to go in. So that would be one.
Harry:
[00:24:25 – 00:24:27]
Can I suggest a method of having a go as well?
Caroline:
[00:24:27 – 00:24:28]
Please do.
Harry:
[00:24:28 – 00:24:29]
So it’s not just kind of a.
Caroline:
[00:24:29 – 00:24:31]
Is this one you’ve seen or is this one you’ve imagined?
Harry:
[00:24:34 – 00:24:41]
Depending how good my memory is. Have I made it up or I’ve actually seen it? No, I’ve definitely seen it. Okay, so the 90 second open question.
Caroline:
[00:24:41 – 00:24:42]
Okay.
Harry:
[00:24:42 – 00:25:02]
And this is. This is a really good one. If I think if as an individual you’re not sure about it, so you can say you are cam and you’re meeting a client and go, right. I really want to share some updates I have about this study or whatever. So you’re saying, I’m going to do the delivery, important messaging, but first I’d just like to ask you a question about something.
Caroline:
[00:25:02 – 00:25:03]
Okay.
Harry:
[00:25:03 – 00:25:04]
Okay. So you do a bit of contracting.
Caroline:
[00:25:04 – 00:25:05]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:25:05 – 00:25:16]
And then you ask your open question, whatever it is, and then for 90 seconds, don’t say anything. So you’re just listening. You’re just listening.
Caroline:
[00:25:16 – 00:25:18]
I’ve got high anxiety about that.
Harry:
[00:25:19 – 00:25:48]
It’s not that bad, honestly. You’re just listening to them and then you know when they’ve had the chance to speak, and it might well be that they give you an answer in 30 seconds also. Fine. Or they might go on. And that’s often probably a good thing because they’re giving you insights into something. But you could interrupt them and go, brilliant. Thank you so much. And this is what I found was interesting about that. Just bit playback doesn’t need to go off into a discussion and then go, and now I’d like to share these updates with you. Is that okay?
Caroline:
[00:25:48 – 00:25:48]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:25:48 – 00:25:57]
And it doesn’t take very much time. Means that 90 seconds. Yes, but for some people, 90 seconds does feel like an age, but as I said, it’s only if it’s being filled by the other person speaking.
Caroline:
[00:25:57 – 00:26:05]
Yeah. And I wonder how that customer would feel about that interaction versus one where they are essentially talked at.
Harry:
[00:26:05 – 00:26:26]
Yeah. For a long time. And I think people are reassured in a conversation if you know where it’s going. So particularly if it’s a big shift, like you’re used to meeting cams, it might not be that individual and getting talked at. And now you have somebody coming in, going, just posing these big questions. It might be a bit disconcerting.
Caroline:
[00:26:26 – 00:26:27]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:26:27 – 00:26:36]
So that halfway household. I am going to do the bit you’re used to, but this is stuff I believe is relevant to you and I’d like to ask you some questions.
Caroline:
[00:26:36 – 00:26:38]
Yes. Love it.
Harry:
[00:26:38 – 00:26:40]
So that’s that. I mean, that’s another way you can give it a go.
Caroline:
[00:26:40 – 00:28:27]
Basically, I was about to say, I’m gonna have a go. And then I immediately spoke over you. So that’s work to do on myself there. So the other bit that I think is interesting is, like, quite often with this stuff, we train it. So we kind of do training on how to ask curious questions, or that’s not necessarily training that we know how to do. And other people are very good at doing that. So. So there’s the skill bit, which is great. But what we perhaps don’t always think about, which we could do, is then thinking about how the first line manager is supported to encourage the application of that skill. So you do the training, off you go, go and ask questions. And we’ve trained you how to do it, hopefully not with a formulaic approach, but with something more about building people’s confidence. But where do those, where does that get then supported on an ongoing basis? Because it’s not a one and done thing like building that capability is going to take a lot of practice if you’ve never done it before. As we said repeatedly, some people are already doing this and very good at it. So I think there’s something around being really thoughtful about what are you putting in place for the FLMs, which might be a change of brief saying your job is different now it’s about supporting that capability build. And what we’re going to measure you on is how well your team’s capability has improved. Not on some of the historic ways that we’ve assessed success of first time managers. So that’s something people can do. And then linked to that is where else in the system have we got. So we’ve talked about incentives, we’ve talked about managers, but where else in the system have we got sort of reinforcing mechanisms that maybe are going to act against that direction of travel or could conversely really support it. So for example, what prompts are you getting from your CRM? Are they prompts that are helping you ask good questions?
Harry:
[00:28:27 – 00:28:27]
Yes.
Caroline:
[00:28:27 – 00:30:09]
Or are they prompts that are telling you to deliver specific messages? Is it about having an aligned objective which potentially you could cross functionally with this sort of thing around? Not our objective is to deliver XYZ message, but our objective is to uncover something and understand it better with this particular customer or within this particular account. So we have an actual written down objective that is about insight that requires us in order to get that objective met, ask great open ended questions, for example. So it’s reinforcing that what good looks like for this business, for this team, whatever it might be, is different to what it was before. So I think those sorts of things are helpful even in things like brand planning, thinking about, you know, what are the customer jobs to be done as part of, you know, as a whole in your brand planning process. That is a moment where we really actively think about that can be helpful. And that brings me on to the fourth one and I would argue you may disagree, others may disagree that this is the most critical and it is the old chestnut, leader role modeling Leader role modeling. So it’s the difference between leaders standing on a stage and saying, I absolutely believe in customer centricity and customer experience and this is going to be our future. And la, la, la, la. And them doing it and then showing up asking different questions themselves. So they go on a market visit. You’ve got your senior bigwig going on a market visit. And it is the difference between them showing up and saying, right, let’s have the dog and pony show. I want to see your numbers. I want to see this, that, and the other. Show me some of your hypos and, you know, your talent and I’ll have lunch with them and that’s the end of it. And going in and saying, actually, before we get into any of that, PowerPoint.
Harry:
[00:30:09 – 00:30:10]
Yeah.
Caroline:
[00:30:10 – 00:30:26]
Just talk to me a little bit about what’s going on for our customers right now. What are you sensing? What are they telling us? What are the problems that matter to them at the moment? Are we seeing difference? Just ask a different question that shows your interest and attention is being paid to the customer.
Harry:
[00:30:26 – 00:30:28]
You can be sure that will spread like wildfire.
Caroline:
[00:30:28 – 00:30:29]
Spread like wildfire.
Harry:
[00:30:29 – 00:30:30]
Yeah.
Caroline:
[00:30:30 – 00:30:51]
So there’s that and then there’s obviously then. And again, I say it’s obvious, doesn’t happen consistently. And it could. Is then showcasing in your town halls and your awards the asking of good questions and what that’s uncovered and how that’s helped the business. So it isn’t just, you know, Simone asked a good question.
Harry:
[00:30:51 – 00:30:52]
Yeah.
Caroline:
[00:30:52 – 00:31:03]
It’s Simone asked a good question that led to this insight that then allowed us to offer something different that has then unlocked this opportunity. It’s that story that we need to amplify.
Harry:
[00:31:03 – 00:31:17]
Yep. So I’m hearing role model what you want to see, then get out of the way. So get. Remove the organizational constraints on that behavior. So the things that KPIs that are stopping you and that kind of stuff.
Caroline:
[00:31:18 – 00:31:18]
Yes.
Harry:
[00:31:18 – 00:31:27]
I mean, I’m going. I’m thinking back to Sara and what a missed opportunity is through her. You said the word talent. Let’s use the horrible corporate term talent management.
Caroline:
[00:31:28 – 00:31:29]
I’m indoctrinated.
Harry:
[00:31:29 – 00:31:35]
And you know, during recruitment, asking Sarah, like, you’ve been super successful, what are the keys to your success?
Caroline:
[00:31:35 – 00:31:36]
Yeah, yeah.
Harry:
[00:31:36 – 00:31:44]
Like. Yeah, well, it’s about engaging. Awesome. Right? Well, we need to make sure that there are no barriers in the way to you doing that.
Caroline:
[00:31:44 – 00:31:54]
Yes. Because that’s what we’re hiring you for. Actually, we’re not hiring you because we want to Borg you into the way that we are hiring you to bring in that capability rather than we are.
Harry:
[00:31:54 – 00:31:59]
Going to recruit a top starter or football team, but then we’re going to chop off their foot.
Caroline:
[00:31:59 – 00:31:59]
Yeah.
Harry:
[00:31:59 – 00:32:01]
And expect them to perform in the same way.
Caroline:
[00:32:01 – 00:32:05]
100% that strange. 100% that.
Harry:
[00:32:06 – 00:32:35]
Let’s wrap it up there then. Okay, so if you want to know more about the references and the data that we talked about, look in the show notes. If you are convinced about the what of this, but you are curious about the how, get in contact. Give it a call. Give us an email. Go to rubica.co.uk check out the previous episodes of What the Pharma? and look out for the upcoming episodes. You can follow What the Pharma? on wherever you get your podcasts and then you won’t miss them. See you next time.
