The critical components to develop exceptional staff, using the Finnish model

Across years of experience practising pharmacy, a pharmacist may go through a natural incline in ego during a steep initial learning phase, followed by a plateau. Here pharmacists have seen many of the more intense challenges already and the number of new headaches flattens out. Finally, towards approximately the last third of the pharmacists’ career, they begin feeling less driven by ego and let the problems around them simmer or settle.

The problem with pharmacy is that it is all practice. It is training without race day. The daily grind offers much of the same training as it did the day before. After a short time, we become jaded. We practise with repetitive questions, monotonous problems, completing the daily-weekly-monthly tasks and draft endless calendars.

In pharmacy, the iceberg principle will apply at each step of promotion along the various dispensary or head office jobs. This will also apply in the change from managerial to ownership roles. We can only see what we understand and the truth hits home when we finally step inside.