Think Big to Be Big - 'The Enablers', Issue II, Vol. 1 15 August 2010

Dear Friends,

I have the pleasure of presenting you the second issue of ‘The Enablers’, an e-newsletter aimed at developing the First-Line managers in the pharmaceutical industry.  

The mission of ‘The Enablers’ is to unlock the concealed potential in people, convert their dormant inherent strengths into actuality, leverage their latent energy to achieve their goals and dreams and enable them to emerge as winners.

This issue deals with the benefits of 'Big Thinking'. It addresses how First-line managers in our industry can overcome the major challenges facing for achieving goals that are big, visionary and bold.

Towards this, I have always been inspired by Late U.N. Mehta’s (founder of Torrent Pharmaceuticals) profound statement: “It is pardonable to aim high and miss, but it is not pardonable to aim low”.

With warm regards,

Vivek Hattangadi 

theenablers@gmail.com

vivekhattangadi@yahoo.co.in

079-26601479

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Swami Tejomayananda of Chinmaya Mission says: “That which is needed foremost from the modern youth is right thinking, leading to a clear vision of life. We should remove all barriers of pettiness and THINK BIG! Big things are achieved in the world, first, by daring to conceive them in our mind. Man dared to think that he could fly like a bird - and the first flying machine was invented! He dared to think that he could reach the moon, and lo! Man landed on the far away moon! Nothing is impossible for the one who thinks. Our thoughts alone bind us and make us small, and thoughts alone can free us. Break this bondage of narrow limiting thoughts and THINK BIG!

“As long  as you are going to be thinking anyway, THINK BIG.” - Donald Trump

The vibrations of big thoughts which we pick up get embedded within us. These vibrations modify our behavior and actions to turn us into successful human beings. Sure enough, success means different things to different people. It may mean personal prosperity for some, prestige, recognition and status in society for others. For many it could mean leadership in business and social groups, fat pay cheques, comfort, luxury social and financial security. Whatever is our connotation of success, ‘Thinking Big’ is the key. Thinking big is thinking of how we can become the best, the finest and the greatest in everything we do. Be the finest First-line manager in our organization, be the finest communicator amongst our peers, be the one to have the greatest market share of our key brands in our Area. Be the one with the lowest rate of attrition but without compromising on the integrity of people and their output.

What does Thinking Big mean to us in our industry? Richard David Bach in his widely acclaimed book Jonathan Livingston Seagull says: “Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know…” The eyes can show us the horizon, the boundaries and our constraints - but when we see with our mind, they go out of sight.

When salespersons see with their eyes they only see their sales goals and incentive earnings capabilities, but miss out on the true potential of the product or the market. As a result the focus is only towards achieving targets and not towards realizing the true potential of the market. If we have to grow in our career, we need to have an entrepreneurial mindset. We need to think like Dhirubhai Ambani or Narayana Murthy. For an entrepreneur, achieving sales goals is only a journey, not the destination. The destination would be to maximize the market share.

How do we think big?

Every option we have made has led us to where we are now; every option we make now will set up our future. Here are a few tips to THINK BIG. THINKING BIG also means DREAMING BIG. Use imagination to dream about our ambitions and aspirations.  Dream that we are accomplishing the great things in the future and doing things that are seemingly improbable to perform. Some of the greatest human accomplishments started with a big dream; Narayana Murthy dreamt of making India the hub for IT. He, with six people, started a venture in 1981 with a capital of just `10000. Narayana Murthy articulated, designed and implemented the Global Delivery Model which has become the foundation for the huge success in IT services outsourcing from India. THINKING BIG also means having a vision. What is vision? Vision means “having an end goal in sight, and then working backwards from there”. Our vision is where we shall be heading! Let us write our own inspiring personal vision statement. For a few moments close eyes and visualize our big future ahead. Now, open eyes and see our future time in the present, through those eyes. This stirring personal vision statement will provide the direction necessary and guide our future course of action. Our personal vision statement is the light shining in the darkness toward which we turn to find our way. Our personal vision statement can illuminate our path. THINKING BIG also means thinking how to beat competition and how to become bigger than them. THINK BIG yet use little techniques that will make us stand out. Look beyond sales goals and perk up our market share. Do not get overwhelmed by stronger competition. Upgrade and add new improvements in communication and closing techniques. THINK BIG, beat competition and stay ahead.   Finally, THINKING BIG also means shedding complacency - the feeling of tranquility and acute contentment to the point of causing loss to ourselves. When we attain success in a particular field, we can reach a saturation point in our efforts. This is the point when we becomes self-satisfied and do not care much about things happening around us. Remember the hare from the Aesop’s fable ‘The hare and the tortoise’? The hare was complacent and he lost! He was insensitive to things around him.

“Believe Big. The size of our success is determined by the size of our belief. Think little goals and expect little achievements.” - David J Schwartz, Author and Motivational Guru

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Stimulators for First-Line Managers 

• Set your own personal vision and discuss it with your mentor or intimate friend.
• Decide the course of action to achieve your personal vision.
• Have you thought of a contingency plan if somewhere along your path to big success, you have missed your track? 

The Pygmalion-Galatea Effect and First Line Managers: Issue I Volume I (Inaugural Issue)

Dear Friends,

I have the pleasure of presenting you the inaugural issue of ‘The Enablers’, a e-publication aimed at developing the First-Line managers in the pharmaceutical industry.  

The mission of ‘The Enablers’ is to unlock the concealed potential in people, convert their dormant inherent strengths into actuality, leverage their latent energy to achieve their goals and dreams and enable them to emerge as winners.

In every issue, which will not be more than two pages, I intend to pick up one topic of interest which can be useful to the First-Line managers. In this issue, I have talked about the Pygmalion-Galatea Effect based on an article by Prof. J. Sterling Livingston which appeared in Harvard Business Review in 1988. 

In case you find it useful, you may forward it to the First-Line managers in the pharma industry. 

This e-newsletter will also be useful to students in pharma management business schools who desire to pursue marketing or sales as their career. 

I also welcome your candid and critical comments to upgrade the future issues. you may respond at:

• theenablers@gmail.com or 
• vivekhattangadi@yahoo.co.in  

With warm regards,

Prof. Vivek Hattangadi

13th July 2010
vivekhattangadi@theenablers.org

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Pygmalion-Galatea Effect and First Line Managers

The myth of Pygmalion and Galatea says that a sculptor from Cyprus named Pygmalion disliked the female sex and yet set about to sculpt the perfect woman. He worked hard on his creation. The beautiful figure in cold marble which he eventually crafted - melted his heart. Finally Pygmalion fell in love with the statute and had a desire to marry it and prayed to God Aphrodite. Aphrodite felt sorry for Pygmalion, brought the statue, Galatea, to life, and blessed their union.

In George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, the character Eliza Doolittle says: “You see, really and truly, apart from the things any one can pick up, [the dressing and the proper way of speaking and so on]; the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she is treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Prof. Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl and always will; but I know that I can be a lady to you (i.e. to Col. Pickering) because you always treat me as a lady and always will.”

The Pygmalion Effect can help First Line Managers (FLMs) to reflect on how their expectations can influence better performance from medical representatives. Those FLMs who set and effectively communicate high performance expectations, can expect superior feats from the people they lead. Like Prof. Higgins, many FLMs inadvertently treat their medical representatives in a way that leads to lower performance than they are capable of achieving! The way FLMs treat their medical representatives subtly influences them on the actual expectations from the FLM.  If the FLMs expectations are high, productivity from a medical representative is likely to be excellent. On the other hand, if their expectations are low, productivity is likely to be poor. “It is as though there was a law that caused subordinates performance to rise or fall to meet the managers’ expectations!” ⁽¹⁾ 

This is one of the reasons that apart from other qualitative attributes medical representatives possess, high performance should be given importance when considering them for promotions. The high performing people will always expect high performance from their people. This becomes all the more crucial when we recruit FLMs from outside our own organization. In the first place, such promotions should always be from within, however, where it is inevitable always recruit people from companies which have a higher sales turnover or at least about the same.  It is prudent to avoid candidates who are from the lower rung companies as their original company may have unintentionally developed in them a ‘low expectation’ mindset.

When medical representatives are treated by their FLMs as ‘super-people’ they try to live up to that persona and perform like ‘super medical representatives’. Unfortunately, the converse is even truer. When the medical representatives are treated by their FLMs as not having “any chance” of success, this negative expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The FLMs expectations must pass the test of reality before it can be translated into performance. Medical representatives will not be motivated to reach high levels of productivity unless they consider their FLMs high expectations are realistic and achievable. This is where cSMART goals are relevant.

The Galatea Effect

The Galatea Effect may even be considered as more powerful than the Pygmalion Effect and is a compelling factor in a medical representative’s performance. The FLMs who can help medical representative’s to believe in themselves and in their efficiency, have yoked a powerful performance improvement tool. Here are some ways in which FLMs can encourage positive, powerful self-expectations from people:

• Assign increasingly challenging yet cSMART goals.  
• The FLMs can project their sincere commitment to the success of the medical representatives.
• Ensure that the medical representatives also receive consistent messages from other people in the organization. In the Indian context, this becomes very important as sometimes the higher-ups directly interact with the medical representatives.

To conclude - A "Pygmalion Effect" occurs when medical representatives live up to the high expectations that FLMs have of them. A "Galatea Effect" occurs when they becomes self-motivated.

Ref: (1) J. Sterling Livingston, “Pygmalion in Management”, Harvard Business Review, September –October 1988