Ms the Word: The cutting edge of pharma marketing
You'll never reach your goals by focusing solely on what's in front of you
By on Mar 11, 2011
Although she now runs a successful kindergarten and school, my wife would probably admit that sometimes she misses her vocation as a designer in dress and textile.
I have lost count of the number of times I have been grateful for these other skills.
I have fond memories of sitting on a large sheet of plywood, balanced on a table, as she proceeded to saw the perfect line, or as she trimmed wallpaper.
There is a technique to cutting straight lines, whatever the material and whatever the weapon.
Most of us watch the point where the upper blade of the scissor levers into the edge.
The professional has her eye on a place several centimetres ahead of the point of the blade.
So I was sitting in a meeting the other week.
We were debating the strategy for a therapeutic area; we being a team of about 40 people from different disciplines and the strategy being a paper to be presented to the board of management.
I do not know whether it was the heat in the room, the sweats from too much alcohol at the dinner the night before, or whether I just had one of those blinding flashes of wakefulness, but I hit the button, waited for the signal, and launched myself into a sort of Emperor's New Clothes' speech.
I said something to the effect that this was not a strategy, it was a shopping list.
There was a short silence, before other lights came on, and a light really did come on, and we broke into debate.
After five minutes, the presenter retreated and left to re-write the whole thing.
I cannot say I was pleased to have incurred this, but at the same time I felt justified.
I could not have supported the poor soul in his presentation.
I would have been mortified if he had made it, with the tacit endorsement of the group.
It is sometimes hard enough to get people to pay attention to strategy, without screwing it up.
Every picture tells a story, and the picture I saw was a sort of Jackson Pollock splurge of blue boxes with words in them-only there were too many blue boxes, and they all loked the same. There was nothing to draw the eye.
Strategy is about the direction we take, once we have a goal. It is more than the next step.
Obviously, the next step is important, but it really only matters in the context of the overall objective.
Just like my wife and her cutting edge, you do not reach the goal if your focus is on the immediate.
Sometimes, you have to focus on the distance and adjust your actions based on that horizon.
It also has the advantage that everone else can focus on that point, instead of watching your next move.
Because you just know that your next move, under those circumstances, is going to be a zigzag along the line rather than a smooth cut.