The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7381 p772
24/31 December 2005

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Management style? You must be joking!

By Alan Wiseman

Ruth McGuire’s article (PJ, 10 September, p317 PDF (160K)) about management styles made me smile. For instance, how does one define the pharmacy I visited where no one knew where the keys to the shop had been left by the school-girl deputed to lock up so that, until they were discovered lying on a shelf behind the shampoos, customers had to be admitted by the back door? Where nobody ever knew which members of staff were on duty that day? Where the staff spent a good part of their day complaining of the complete lack of interest displayed in them by the owner? Where one of my first jobs was to wash a dozen dirty coffee cups left from goodness knows when? Where a member of staff left after 15 years loyal service and did not even get a thank you card?

What about that other pharmacy where patients are regularly left short of medicines because “the manufacturers are unable to supply” — in other words, because the owner cannot get hold of the cheaper parallel import. Or when, midway through a month, I discover we have no stock of a standard medicine, and find that the owner has already relegated further supplies to the “deferred order” page on the computer to obtain 30 days extra credit. What about a pharmacy where, receiving a prescription for 56 diclofenac, I find a mere eight tablets in stock, and am shortly pacifying an angry patient returning for the 56 owing from three days before — a place where, so customers tell me, the shop is often closed (because the owner has gone to fetch her children from school).

Or what about the place where the only member of staff was given no discount on purchases. Or the pharmacy where staff had to pay for their own coffee. Or a late arrival at work for a perfectly legitimate reason resulted in withheld pay?

What sort of management styles are these pharmacies adopting?

Ruth Maguire says there are four basic management styles — the director, the supporter, the coach and delegator. From my experience of pharmacies I have worked in, I would like to suggest some alternatives — the Great Dictator, the Little Napoleon, the Non-Stop Worrier, the Eminent Esoteric, the Idle Jack and the Fall-Behind Manic. Although I have generally used the male gender for illustration, the female side can always be substituted.

The Great Dictator

The Great Dictator barks orders at his staff and then blames them when something goes wrong. Otherwise, he rarely speaks to his employees; it is sometimes hard to get a “good morning” out of him. He invariably spends long hours on the telephone on personal affairs, probably drives a large car and is regularly upgrading his home premises, but begrudges every penny spent in the pharmacy. Overalls to protect clothes? Ridiculous! But his unfortunate staff are expected to work extra hours on demand — or even cancel their holidays because “we are short-staffed”.

The Little Napoleon

The Little Napoleon does everything himself. He is a walking compendium of everything in the pharmacy. He takes the “sole proprietor” idea to extremes. He, and only he, knows how to make the printer work, where the spare change is kept, who is on duty, the code to the security system, and so on and so forth. The problem, of course, arises when he is not present because no one knows the answers to any difficulty. It is beneath him, naturally, to leave any notes concerning goods ordered, tasks to complete, etc. But he will be the first to complain when he returns and finds that something that no one else knows anything about has not been done. Fortunately, most locums are good detectives.

The Non-Stop Worrier

The Non-Stop Worrier is usually a one-man band but one who is driving himself into the ground by refusing to delegate. No counter staff members are safe from his intervention in the simplest of transactions. He may cash up several times a day and a coin rolling under a display case is a major crisis. He probably delivers supplies to his nursing homes (of which, invariably, he has too many) on his way home, never takes a holiday and is a ripe candidate for a coronary in middle age.

The Eminent Esoteric

The Eminent Esoteric never loses an opportunity to expound on the greatness of the profession of pharmacy and, in particular, his own eminence within it. Shop work is beneath him and he would no more contemplate rolling up his sleeves or making the tea than I would consider stapling my eye-lids to the floor. He probably spends much of his time writing or telephoning various health bodies. Training may be carried out but at top speed, with no opportunity for feed-back or reflection, and no repetition, so that trainees are expected to grasp the minutiae of the task immediately — and woe betide them if they fail to catch the sparkling words of wisdom emanating from his lips. His dispensary is a shrine — a holy of holies from which Moses emerges occasionally to present more tablets of stone to his public.

The Idle Jack

The Idle Jack has got it down to a fine art: let others do the work! He arrives late, leaves early, puts his feet up whenever possible (and often when and where it is impractical) and relies on his loyal staff to get him through. Oddly enough, the Idle Jack can be the most efficient as, such is his laggardness, he has trained others to carry out the required tasks. The Idle Jack is lazy and rarely lifts a finger. But his ingeniousness allows him his indolence. The Idle Jack’s mantra is: “Only fools work — wise men get the job done.”

The Fall-Behind Manic

The Fall-Behind Manic takes upon himself such a work-load that he can never keep up. The heaps of paper-work (prescriptions, invoices, letters, final demands, etc) on his work surface testify to this fact. However early he starts, no matter how late he stays, the pile never diminishes, while unsatisfied customers desert him in droves. He never has enough time to employ or train sufficient staff and staggers from crisis to crisis. He should never have got involved in the hurly-burly of community pharmacy. He is the one who is most in need of training himself.

Why do I do it?

As well as while working in community pharmacy as a locum, I have met all these types while I worked in the pharmaceutical industry. If I have expended some venom on various unsatisfactory premises I have encountered and am worried that one of these characters might recognise himself, I am consoled by the thought that, judging by the piles of unwrapped PJs lying around in many dispensaries, it is highly unlikely that they will read this anyway.

When there are so many clean, bright, well-run pharmacies around, why do I still attend on a regular basis pharmacies run by characters like those I describe? Well, wherever I go, patients and customers are invariably pleasant and in need, and nearly all the staff are charming and, once the ice is broken, up for a laugh or two. I usually expect to enjoy myself and, I trust, give value for the fees I earn.

And, after all, if I couldn’t find something to carp about, I wouldn’t be me.