How often should pharmacy leaders set aside time for new ideas?

A couple blogs ago we looked at the concept of options and how leaders look for options to navigate through various challenges.

Today, we are going to consider the value of an idea.

We all have ideas. Some are good. Some are not.

But consider the value of a good idea. Ideas can literally be worth millions of dollars.  Good ideas can change the world.

Some ideas can be worthless. Bad ideas can even cost us something. 

As leaders, we can use ideas many different ways. We can use an idea to determine where we are going. Conversely, we can also use an idea to help us to figure out how to get to where we want to go. We may also take a fragment of the idea and mix it with other ideas.

My question to you is this: how often do you set time aside to consider ideas?

I had a mentor one time tell me that everyone wants to be rich, but no one will take just five minutes a day to think of ways to become rich.

I have had countless conversations with pharmacists over the years about payment on certain products. They are unhappy with the margin (or loss) on a particular drug. However, when I ask what drugs are most profitable for them, they cannot answer. 

Ideas require us to use our mental faculty of imagination. 

In the book, “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill, there is a chapter on the subject of imagination. In this chapter, Hill tells the story of John Pemberton, a pharmacist, and how he had the idea to acquire a piece of a paper and mix this idea with imagination to create Coca-Cola – which would go on to become one of the most recognizable brands in the world. 

Ideas are amazing things. Leaders need to be collectors of ideas. We need to develop a catalogue of ideas and we need to take time regularly to review those ideas and mix them with imagination. When we do this, we can create options that will allow us to move ourselves, our teams, and the communities we serve forward.

I encourage you to set aside just five minutes today to consider the challenges you face and simply write down ideas to solve them. They can be good ideas or bad ideas. Just write them down for now. The more you do this, the better the ideas you will find.

Until next time –

Jesse McCullough, PharmD

Connect with Jesse on LinkedIn