Most strategies I've seen fail weren't bad strategies. They were good plans that never reached the field. The slides were approved, the launch meeting went well, and then everyone went back to what they were doing before. At year end we called the strategy wrong.
A country manager can have the right plan and the right team and still lose the year in the gap between the two. That gap is closed by rhythm: the meetings, reviews and numbers that bring the same questions back at the same time.
Step 8 of the Pharma Career Ladder for country managers is execution and the operating rhythm. Here's how I set it up.
Give the year a rhythm
Some leadership teams meet all the time and still get surprised. The problem is usually meetings with no rhythm. The meeting rhythm of a country needs 4 conversations, each with a clear job. Weekly, a short check-in on sell-out, supply and anything stuck in the field. Monthly, the business review, with sell-in, sell-out and distributor inventory side by side, brand by brand. Quarterly, the plan review, where time and budget move. Annually, the plan itself. Every meeting has one owner, one purpose and a fixed date, and if 2 meetings discuss the same thing, one gets cancelled.
The operating rhythm goes wider and fixes the important moments before the year begins: the planning season, the cycle meetings, the business reviews, the talent reviews, the leadership team's field days and the headquarters dates. Share the calendar with everyone. Moving a date becomes a decision, not a habit. Rhythm is what lets a busy country stay calm.
Keep the plan alive in the field
Strategy dies in execution in 4 places. The plan has too many priorities, or 3 that every rep can repeat. The people are assumed capable, or the right people sit in the roles that matter. The field gets one launch meeting, or calls, targets and coaching. And the leader either hands it over once the slides are approved or stays close and asks questions every month. Execution is a discipline the leader owns.
My simplest check is a double visit. Between calls, ask the rep what we're trying to do this year. If the answer doesn't sound like the plan, the plan hasn't arrived yet.
Watch a few numbers, from 4 sides
A country can hit its sales number and still be in trouble. Kaplan and Norton built the balanced scorecard on looking at 4 sides of the business at once, and for a country in my teams that means financial results, customers, how we work, and people and growth. People drive the way we work, the way we work wins customers, and customers drive the results. Keep 3 or 4 measures per side, and discuss the people side, not only list it.
Then choose about 10 KPIs, not 50. Mine are sell-out by brand, distributor inventory, net price, gross margin, share in chosen segments, listings and tenders, forecast accuracy, key customer coverage, coaching days in the field and team retention. The test for each is whether it changes a decision. If a number never changes a decision, stop reporting it. Each KPI gets one owner, and the same 10 are shared with the whole team.
Some of these numbers lead and some lag. The balanced scorecard's idea of leading and lagging indicators helps you see early warning signals: sell-out slowing while sell-in looks healthy, distributor inventory rising, key customer coverage slipping, and tender or listing news. I look at these weekly and share the same view with every team. When a signal turns, never push stock into the distributor at quarter end. It only moves the problem into the next quarter.
Close the loop
Deming's cycle has 4 steps, and most commercial teams stop plan, do, check, act halfway. Plan one change with a measure decided in advance. Run it small first. Check the result with the team that ran it. Act: keep what worked, change what didn't, and share it. No new plan is presented until the review of the last one has been shared.
A review that changes something has the numbers sent before the meeting, discusses 2 or 3 gaps properly, and ends each one with a decision, an owner and a date. Open the next review with last month's actions. If nothing changes after the review, it was a presentation.
Following through needs one commitment register for the country, visible to everyone, with a named person and an agreed date on every item, reviewed monthly. The leadership team's own commitments sit on the same list. A stuck item is a request for help. Close or cancel items openly.
When a launch misses, a post-mortem without blame agrees the facts first, asks what rather than who, and has the most senior person name their own part first. Keep 3 or 4 real lessons, each with an owner and a date, and share them with the next launch team. A failed launch is expensive. Failing to learn from it costs more.
Your checklist for this week
- Write down your 4 recurring conversations, with one owner and a fixed date each
- Cancel one meeting that repeats another
- Ask a rep on your next double visit what the plan is this year
- Cut your monthly pack to the 10 numbers that change decisions
- Add a weekly look at sell-out against sell-in and distributor inventory
- Open your next review with last month's actions
- Start one commitment register, with your own items on it
That's Step 8. Next week Step 9 begins: legacy, and what you leave behind when you go.