Jo, a Brand Manager at a leading pharma company, had asked me to meet her for a coffee at a popular coffee shop at Macquarie Centre in Sydney’s North West. I could sense that Jo was aggravated from the very brief phone call to set up the meeting. When I asked her what it was all about, she said she would fill me in when she saw me.
Jo has been a trusted friend for some time. As I sat down with her, and before we could order, she started to vent out her frustrations. It went something like this:
Jo: “I am over it!”
Me: “What exactly are you over Jo?”
Jo: “BRAND MEETINGS! Bloody brand meetings (sigh). You know as the Brand Manager of *****hex I take my job really seriously. I prepare for these damn brand meetings for days beforehand and I go in feeling really positive. But I walk out feeling really frustrated. I get the feeling that the only person that really gives a damn is me.”
Me: “Slow down Jo and tell me what happened.”
Jo: “Well yesterday we had our regular brand meeting. I could feel myself sinking during the meeting with more work and tasks and actions being piled up on me. And trying to get the other members on the brand team to own something…well I might as well ask my dog. I just can’t get them to really take ownership of stuff that has to be done.”
Me: “Hmm”
Jo: “And moreover, Jack, one of the sales managers, fesses up during the meeting with “I didn’t think that would work when you first brought it up. The GPs won’t go for that approach”. Well why didn’t he open his mouth when he first thought this? By keeping his mouth shut we have lost many months as I rework our approach. Why won’t people speak their bloody mind? I really am feeling incredibly frustrated. Tell me what I am doing wrong here.”
Jo’s lament is a common one from Brand Managers. We continuously hear about the challenges they face in brand meetings. Challenges like:
- Time management and structuring meetings to maximize time;
- Getting more quality outcomes from brand meetings;
- Getting bogged down in the detail.
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Our company did a recent survey of brand managers in a large pharma company and found the highest rating of brand meeting facilitation skills was 6 on a 10 point scale.
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These types of challenges point to underdeveloped facilitation skills of brand managers. A facilitator is said to be part business analyst, part orchestra conductor, part psychologist and it is a powerful skill set to have. However, most companies have not invested in developing these facilitation skills. We often hear brand managers tell us “We’re okay at presenting information but at times struggle to facilitate outcomes in our brand meetings”. Our company did a recent survey of brand managers in a large pharma company and found the highest rating of brand meeting facilitation skills was 6 on a 10 point scale.
Our point of view is that brand meetings are high stakes environments. The impact of poorly facilitated brand meetings are far reaching as they impact on:
- Sub-optimal brand strategies;
- Poor decision making;
- Innovation caused by withholding of ideas from brand team members;
- Executing brand strategies due to a lack of cross-functional collaboration
Clearly the skills of the brand leader in facilitating effective cross-functional brand meetings is a key factor in the quality of output and in the success of execution. The reality is that most organisations fail to develop these critical skills in their brand leaders. Facilitating Brand Meetings is a two day workshop to address these skill gaps.
If you are a Brand or Product Manager from pharma reading this, then this is likely to be resonating with you.
Don’t panic! Help is at hand. We encourage you to come to our SPECIAL FREE SYDNEY KEYNOTE on FACILITATING HIGH VALUE BRAND MEETINGS on 6th September 2016. Please have a look at this link http://www.sagelearning.net.au/brand-meetings-keynote/
Additionally, we will be supplying you with tips, tools, and assessments over the next few weeks to make your brand meetings anxiety free and highly effective.