Pharmacy U news

You are the average of the 5 people you hang around with most. But what does that mean for a pharmacy dispensary if people are too hard to come by? We have a few problems in the mix right now. Pharmacy is a tough, grinding job. Minimum wage continues to grow, putting all local entry-level jobs on the same scale. A pandemic conditioned society to work from home or in hybrid models. Society expects to be paid top dollar with social media job titles, right away.

Leaders must be effective communicators. There is no doubt about it. You show me a leader who struggles to communicate, and I will show you a team that is struggling to perform. A significant event in my career happened when I walked into a pharmacy in South Carolina to talk about this pharmacy’s performance on cholesterol medications and the pharmacist said to me, “I don’t know what to say to my patients.”

The difference between elites in any category is less than one per cent. The best of the best out-perform their colleagues across many measures of success, but in the end, what separates the greatest from the good pile lies in the fine details.

Last time we met, I encouraged you to consider conferences as a great place to find new ideas. Writing that post got me to reflect on the various conferences I have attended throughout my career. I thought I would share a story with you today.

Family-owned businesses possess many strengths, such as their ability to look at the long-term development of their operation and align interests between management and owner. This is especially true of “owner-operator” structures often seen with independent pharmacy operators.

Change has been a fact of life since the first pharmacy opened its doors many centuries ago. And it’s a challenge pharmacists and pharmacist-owners will face for years to come.

As Peter Drucker famously said, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." When it comes to measuring performance, pharmacist-owners often operate in a business vacuum. They might talk to a neighbouring business, a fellow pharmacist in the next community, or an entrepreneur friend (but probably not a pharmacist-owner).

Not outdriving your headlights means understanding what you can control and having the discipline to mentally stay there. Leaders capable of doing this make decisions within their comfort zone, without worrying about what is beyond sight.