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The Pharma Career Ladder · The country manager · Step 5: Building the organisation · Lesson 10

Developing your second line

Growing the managers who grow the reps

By Ahmed El Menshawy · 20 years in pharma, from medical rep to country manager in the UAE. Founder of RepPharma. LinkedIn
Published

As a country manager, you will never coach every rep. There are too many of them and too few of you.

But you can coach the people who coach them.

In my experience, the quality of coaching in the field is set one level up. If the managers are growing, the reps grow. If the managers are only reporting, the reps are only reported on.

So I work on my second line in four steps.

Agree one gap each. Not a list of ten. The one development need that matters most, chosen with the manager, not handed to them.

Coach the coaches. Join their double visits, and watch them, not the rep. How do they debrief? Do they ask or tell? Do they fix one thing, or everything? My feedback afterwards is on their coaching, not on the rep's call.

Give them real decisions. A hire, a project, a part of the budget. Managers grow by deciding, not by attending another workshop.

Review growth, not only results. Every quarter, I ask each manager how their people have improved. Their result includes the people they developed.

None of this is complicated. It just has to be on the calendar, or it disappears behind the monthly numbers.

“Your reps grow at the speed your managers grow.”
Developing your second line: Growing the managers who grow the reps

Lesson 10 of 17 in Step 5: Building the organisation, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.

More lessons in step 5: Building the organisation

Lesson 1Structure follows strategyDesigning the team the plan needsLesson 2Field force size and structureHow many reps, and whyLesson 3Span of controlHow many reps a manager can actually coachLesson 4The seven elementsA plan needs the whole organisation behind itLesson 5Building a capability mapWhat your organisation can and cannot do yetLesson 6Did the training work?Kirkpatrick's four levels, applied to a product launch trainingLesson 7Building a training curriculumSequencing skill over a yearLesson 8Hiring managers, not repsWhat changes in the selection barLesson 9Promoting the right managerSelling skill is not managing skillLesson 11Succession without dramaTwo names for every critical roleLesson 12The cost of turnoverReplacing a rep is not freeLesson 13Culture is what you tolerateThe behaviour you walk pastLesson 14Values that survive a bad quarterTesting culture under pressureLesson 15Changing a team you inheritedAssess, decide, act, in that orderLesson 16The complete team changeWhen rebuilding is the only optionLesson 17Engagement at scaleMeasuring it, then acting on it

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