Cycle meetings are where coaching often goes to sleep.
One rep role-plays at the front with the manager. Eleven watch. Most of them are checking their phones and waiting for lunch.
How I run the skill session now:
One skill for the room. The gap I saw on most double visits last cycle, not the one that annoyed me most.
A rep shows it. Someone who does it well demonstrates. Reps listen to a colleague differently.
Practise in pairs. Everyone at the same time. Everyone talks.
Real calls, no names. Situations from their own territories, with doctors' names left out.
Strong reps coach. The experienced ones coach a pair instead of sitting through the basics again.
One action each. Every rep says what they will try next week.
Then the part that makes it stick: on my next double visit with each rep, I ask about that action.
And one rule I do not break. Nobody's role play is corrected in front of the whole team. That is how you end up with a room that never volunteers again.
“If ten people watch while two practise, it is a lecture, not coaching.”
Lesson 19 of 23 in Step 4: Coaching, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.