ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR
- 1/1/2024
Hey pharmacists, don’t act while swallowing (bad) pills
We know that emotional decisions rarely end being up the right ones. When this happens, great leaders have the ability to zoom out, resist the urge to be swept away by the details and focus on the overall broader situation. - 12/25/2023
Your boring pharmacy – staying the course for long-term success
In a repetitive pharmacy world that craves constant peaks of new-ness, those with the ability to grind will out-succeed those that make impulse decisions and routinely make big pharmacy system changes. Resisting temptation in a world of abundance can be your ally. - 12/18/2023
How do you manage both quiet and loud pharmacy staff?
One job of the pharmacy leader is to moderate the range of personalities on the team. Once the right people are involved, everyone’s opinion is valid and part of the process of arriving at the best decisions, but only if everyone is given an opportunity to speak. - 12/11/2023
How to be memorable to your pharmacy patients—be a pickle!
Spend time building meaningful patient relationships instead of focusing on the empty calories of transactions. Transactions pay off once, while relationships pay off repeatedly. Even if each individual payoff is smaller than each individual transaction, the sum of all the relationships over their much longer lifespan will come out further ahead. - 12/4/2023
The best pharmacy leaders are great passers
In the pharmacy, there are countless ways of being a set-up person. For example, you can leave a proper note, count out the meds in anticipation of the door-crasher tomorrow morning, allow staff to make their own schedule within set parameters, give people freedom to make workflow decisions, do the dishes from the compounding sink, check your fair share of blister packs or organize the paperwork for tomorrow’s appointments. - 11/27/2023
Snow storms and the growing theme of the pharmacist waitlist
Pharmacy is like a snow storm. During a heavy storm, we cannot keep up with the falling snow even with constant shovelling. We end up going about our lives, then dealing with the damage when the storm is over. The act of shovelling is put on hold until after the storm is over. - 11/20/2023
One pharmacist’s rant—we need to discuss debt and ‘owings’
For the pharmacy world struggling with back orders, recalls and mixed-up orders, owing is a part of the job. But owings – or debt – for a pharmacist are analogous to the problem of lost luggage. - 11/13/2023
What to look for while conducting a pharmacy job interview
With a very sparse number of pharmacy staff in the neighbourhood to choose from, we now often select workers without actual pharmacy experience. This means that leaders need to have an even keener eye for detecting the cross-over skills hidden in the stories of those we are interviewing. - 11/6/2023
Pharmacists, it’s time to think like the scientists we are
By their scientific method, scientists’ actions demonstrate that they do not know the true answer but have ideas as to what it could be. Scientists resist the urge to form irreversible public opinions. Instead, they let the process show them the way, then steer in that direction in full willingness to pivot as necessary. - 10/30/2023
Pharmacists, use your filter to understand the true problem
Pharmacy does not come with a user guide. Pharmacy leaders must hear what is going on in the game and help the players find a solution that fits within the rulebook. To do this, we do not necessarily need to invent the answer ourselves. Instead, we must understand the problems, leave emotion aside and generate ideas from other people.