In the late 19th century, George Eastman (the father of Kodak) envisioned to “make the camera as convenient as a pencil”. And his company practically did it through a series of innovations over about a century. They made the first portable dry [...]]]>

A Kodak film photographed with my smartphone as I am writing this post.

I have just learned this morning about Kodak heading straight foreword to bankruptcy.

In the late 19^th century, George Eastman (the father of Kodak) envisioned to “make the camera as convenient as a pencil”. And his company practically did it through a series of innovations over about a century. They made the first portable dry camera for consumers, the first “home movie camera”, the color film, the first automatic snapper. I also learned that they invented actually the digital technology in 1975 (“the film less camera”). See a beautiful story here.

However, what appeared to be their discovery ended up being their killer too. Slow to monetize their digital discovery (it took them 19 years until they came to market with digital camera because they did not want to cannibalize the film business) they kept losing market in the last two decades in favor of camera makers and even new entrants in the image market. Even worse, the photo camera market is shrinking rapidly as many consumers are satisfied enough with their smartphones and consider un-necessary carrying another device just for photographs. Sadly, what appears to be “as convenient as a pencil” ended up being as convenient as a phone and computer and radio and clock and lots of things together. Is it bad? Or is it just life. Everything will sometime come to an end.

Some thoughts:

1. Is not as important to have great ideas as it is to work on them and put them in practice. And do that all the time with the risk of failure.
2. Where will be your products in 1-5-10-15 years? Who will integrate them into something else? Will you?

“It was actually with a lot of… bread!”

Give me a break… all sandwiches are with bread! We do not remember the bread; it is seldom memorable! We always remember what is inside. Bread [...]]]> “What was the last sandwich you had? Was it with ham? Or maybe cheese? Possibly fish? Or… salami… egg… tomatoes???”

“It was actually with a lot of… bread!”

Give me a break… all sandwiches are with bread! We do not remember the bread; it is seldom memorable! We always remember what is inside. Bread looks more like the package for the actual content.

It is so with sandwich feedback! Once people receiving feedback understand what is all about (your feedback giving style) they do not care about the package. They skip the positive at the beginning expecting the bad later on. And they do not care about the end because they know you made efforts to make it look nice.

Much more effective is giving bread (meaning good, positive) with every possible occasion and serve the un-pampered truth whenever the case; but hopefully seldom. Un-pampered does not mean rude, impolite.

Giving “bread” you create a positive and trusting climate and gain what I call the right to give constructive feedback. They will swallow much softer and more meaningful the ugly when they are sure you care about them every moment.

I had the best summer in more than 10 years. From April till August I was doing something outdoorsy every single weekend. Really rewarding for my nature.

Tw0 weeks long skiing holidays in Zillertal, by far the longest winter skiing holidays in my life.

Went, together with my wife, (and showed daughter) on our [...]]]> Life

I had the best summer in more than 10 years. From April till August I was doing something outdoorsy every single weekend. Really rewarding for my nature.

Tw0 weeks long skiing holidays in Zillertal, by far the longest winter skiing holidays in my life.

Went, together with my wife, (and showed daughter) on our steps 13 years ago in Pelion, Greece.

Visited Danube Delta in May, what a miracle of nature!

We managed to renovate (and “bring” to this century) my grandmother house.

I started to run marathons (trail running): EcoMarathon Cross (14.2 km) – 1:41:34; Tusnad Half-marathon  (23.2 km) – 2:31:42; Apuseni Marathon (39.5 km) – 5:17:32; Ciucas Trail Running (42.2) km – 5:50:53; Piatra Craiului Marathon (41 KM) – 6:13:50. I managed to get back to my weight in my twenties. Meanwhile I also started to eat healthier.

I also lost my mother’s sister which was a tough moment to live and had an impact bigger than I thought. Except my grandmother, who turned 90, I sadly have none of the “adults” from my childhood.

I met with people I have not seen long time: school mates, professionals from my early career, just great!

Spent end of the year in the slowest possible mode since I left home as teenager. Not bad actually.

Delicious moments of 2011

Skiing behind my daughter on all kinds of slopes.

Coaching my daughter to dive in apnea down to 2 meters depth in a pool and collect stones from the bottom in complete safety.

Swimming together with my daughter to see schools of thousands Mediterranean fish in a Pelion gulf (GR) or swimming through water snakes and jelly-fish at Tyulenovo (BG).

My year 2011 learning

I am more of a pack wolf than a lone wolf! I can live alone but is better in pack. I only need my moments from time to time.

Work

Few more clients added. Domain expanded on medical services side as well as on property management. I had repeat business with my 2010 ones which is rewarding both financially and morally. Projects were more complex and rewarding and some were totally new.

In November I just discover my new horn to blow, you’ll hear more of its sound in 2012.

Continued the partnership with Raluca Mohanu (Steps4Change), started in 2010, in delivering training and organizing some thematic events.

Continued to edit the bulletin for medical representatives I started to produce in 2009 but closed it this month (unless someone else offers to take it over and continue the journey).

I also decided to have someone help me have more time with clients and use my time on complex, high quality endeavors.

Whatsoever, I think there was way too much left to be accomplished in 2012.

So far, my potential clients rarely were able to come up spontaneously with a number or, at least, some way to getting there. The next question comes naturally: if we do not know the value of the intervention, how would [...]]]> The second difficult question is: What is the value of the intervention for your organization?

So far, my potential clients rarely were able to come up spontaneously with a number or, at least, some way to getting there. The next question comes naturally: if we do not know the value of the intervention, how would we know this is a profitable undertaking? Or, is it worth caring about it at all? Many would argue that for interventions like skill development is rather difficult to pinpoint exactly return on investment! Obviously, it is not easy but also it is not impossible either. At least if one answered properly at “Tough Questions 1”.

Answers may involve:

• Increased effectiveness by diminishing failures in various activities such as sales call or presentations (and consequently reduced costs by…) ($)
• Increased retention of good customers by x% ($)
• Increased acquisition of new clients ($)
• Reduced costs in different segments ($)
• More time to do other stuff (cumulating in making available more FTEs, or, more time & focus on value activities for highly paid staff) ($)
• And so on…

Adding up all the above values and multiplying by a reasonable period of time one may get a fair value of the intervention. Then the only things to care about are: it should be profitable and it should be precisely executed.

Many find it difficult to commit for such calculation because they need to take the responsibility for the assumption (i.e. if sales people will display this skill their close rate will grow to x%). But this is why management is there.

Making an effort to answer this question (without fooling yourself) can help significantly in deciding whether an intervention is appropriate or not, to select between the options and to keep expenses (investments) under control.

I asked out of my [...]]]> Some days ago I was talking to one of my former employees working for a pharma multinational about some training topics. At some point he mentioned that best training he had was one on motivation with a leading local supplier. He was excited about being well entertained throughout the sessions.

I asked out of my curiosity how much of the knowledge and skill transfer he managed to use afterwards (and at work especially). He replied happily: “quite a lot”. I asked for more specifics. The answer came harder this time and he was only able to remember and articulate the single bagger/ double bagger theory but failed to show the impact that theory had on himself or his clients. He only said that he managed to tell the story to other people. I insisted on the impact and… silence. I jokily asked him to advice his managers, next time they want entertaining to better check the national or comedy theatre. It should be better and a lot cheaper. And outside working program.

Now to the point.

I do believe that people learn a lot easier and happier in an amusing environment. However, amusement should be background while development objectives shall be on focus. Don’t let orchestra cover the lead singer.

Next time check what you’re contracting. Is it about filling in specific developmental gaps or simply… entertraining.

Are you contracting specific behavioral change or a training program? Do your people feel both the sweat and the joy of change? Or they are simply judges of how one or another managed to intellectually entertain them while away from field battles?

Some emblematic encounters on developing people capabilities happen around these circumstances:

I am particularly attached [...]]]> A couple of days ago I was just trying to remember what my best training experience was. I started attending different training programs since 1993. Initially I was trained in working in NGO sector and starting 1997 I joined several business training programs. Following, I would refer to non academic programs.

I am particularly attached to my very first training programs because they showed me revolutionary approaches to learning, often opposite to what formal school has shown to me until then. I first learned how to lead a group in a voluntary camp or project, how to present to public, how to write requests for funding and how to make and execute a PR plan for my organization. I was really fortunate because the flexible NGO sector of that time (no “this is how we do things here”) allowed me to experiment most of the learning, although nobody had ever “pointed a gun” to my head. I saw results and this is how I started to appreciate benefits of such programs.

During my business tenure I have recalled a number of valuable programs that shaped me to what I am especially because I kept experimenting. Some of the programs were average but I was lucky to join some very good ones too. However, I forced myself to nominate the most effective program and to explain why I made that particular choice.

The winner was a small training course from Novartis on recruitment. Hope you’re wondering why?

Was it about highly competitive information? Not quite, it was mainly about behavioral interviewing techniques, not a breakthrough then.

Was it complete? No, there are a plethora of techniques besides the behavioral interviewing techniques that are really powerful but we did not touch them.

Was it exceptionally delivered? Not significantly better than other valuable programs I joined.

Then why was it? It is about a complete turnaround of the way we interviewed candidates in the company. It started at the training and it was immediately and completely implemented organization-wide with no room for going back to our “good old days”. Every single new hire from that moment on had to go through the process agreed at within the training program. And every single interviewer had to follow the exact prescription. We learned the concept, exercised the tools and nobody ever came back to anything else.

Looking now to why many training programs are a waste of time and money (or less effective in better cases), the answer may be found just here. A lot of energy and resources are wasted in picking the right program and the right delivery (and the right surroundings too) with few left (especially on management side) to engage in making sure there is no way back. Trainees have special senses to spot whether change is so imperative and as soon as they discover that is not, they move in comfort mode.

And my answer was: it is perfectly normal. Teams consisting of people who long lost (if ever had) the glue in their look at work may deliver [...]]]> This is the question I was asked nowadays by an HR person whom I respect a lot after he had some interaction with some of his sales persons.

And my answer was: it is perfectly normal. Teams consisting of people who long lost (if ever had) the glue in their look at work may deliver whatever results now and for some reason company may feel still good and comfortable. However, in today’s competitive markets (not speaking about monopolies whether local or transient – such as pharmaceuticals) this may just be the beginning of a troubling journey. Just a couple of reasons below:

1. Relationship with clients is suffering. Sales people are the first (and sometimes only) interface with clients, more exactly with the revenue of the company both today and tomorrow. If sales people are not visibly in love with company and products, clients are unlikely to be too.
2. Contagiousness. Unless there is a clear and consistent effort to resuscitate or to isolate and remove the condition, it is highly likely that the unwanted psyche will spread quickly to other “innocents” within the team.
3. Blindness (or deafness). As sales people are the eyes and the years of the company, having some of them displaying a blasé attitude will make the company grope in the market like cataract patients at dusk.

For many, seeing disengaged people at work is discouraging; I was myself in such situation and I know how it feels. Speaking with most business people around will rather confirm that this is the norm. However, I was lucky to see the other side of the coin. There are teams where all people have a spark in their eyes most of the time. This is a beautiful destination for a passionate journey to join.

If we are to consider that at the base of pharmaceutical sales stays product and [...]]]>

ted.com capture

I was long saying that, after the lately so much blamed pharmaceutical sales model (for its growing ineffectiveness in western markets), the next sales model would rather be… NO MODEL.

If we are to consider that at the base of pharmaceutical sales stays product and disease information (which may or may not always be the case) than we have to admit that over the last decade the way information reaches doctors has changed dramatically. If at the beginnings of pharmaceutical promotion reps were valuable information sources (besides conferences, textbooks and pricey medical journals) now people have many ways to choose. The need for information has been replaced by the need for a capacity to select information (what is really valuable and what is crappy or biased) and information avenues (amongst them internet taking lion’s share).

The question many marketers are trying to answer now is: what is the best way to get their information (messages… whatever) to their target audience? And this may prove to be a wrong question. A much better one may be: What ARE the best ways to get whatever they want to their target audience? Probably, today there is no best way to reach people’s brains or souls. Today people have so many options to choose and therefore they have preferences. And those preferences may lead to clusters of preferred ways to get medical information. Knowing these preferred clusters and acting on them can help getting the right information to the right customers more effectively.

The true challenge rises only now! How do you know those clusters? Asking people may not be just enough because they may not have experienced many of them yet to give a true answer. For example some of them might enjoy getting useful hints on twitter but still do not have a twitter account. Or, they might not have seen yet short newsletters with essential info received regularly from selected companies.

To answer the question what are the best ways to serve info and messages to our audience may require innovation, risk taking, evaluation and design… and innovation again.

To better understand this point you may want to see this beautiful TED presentation of Malcolm Gladwell on how Howard Moskovitz re-invented spaghetti sauce. He offered breakthrough alternatives to people to taste and asked for feedback rather than asking them upfront how would they like spaghetti sauce to be. Results were so unexpected; they reinvented the spaghetti sauce business and added deliciousness to our lives.