Who is old enough to remember the surprise field visits of the old Astra?
It was in the 90s and you had to give your schedule in advance and someone would meet you for a surprise field visit.
Who is old enough to remember the surprise field visits of the old Astra?
It was in the 90s and you had to give your schedule in advance and someone would meet you for a surprise field visit.
Was that before or after your CEO terrorized the women in the training classes?Lol, oh yes. No longer with Astra. The surprise field ride was dropped just as our trainee class ('96 ) was hitting the field.
Was that before or after your CEO terrorized the women in the training classes?
AstraZeneca culture could best be compared to what is coming out about the VA. A place where people were punished for disagreeing with management or even questioning why things were done the way they were. The VA operated under a culture of fear where leadership used their positions to punish rather than encourage new ideas. Promotions were based on politics rather than performance and those promoted leaders used their power to protect their own incompetence. Sound familiar?I'm an old timer from Stuart, now well retired (right after the 9/11 debacle in Key West....where we were under house arrest by the Astra jailers for too many days, even though many of us were mere drives from home). They cared nothing of our need to be with our families in a time of crisis.
Stuart was a great company for so long, even after ICI and Zeneca was formed. I became the first Onc rep in the south, under great and honest management.
Later, when Astra was merged into AZ, most of the American management was turned over to Astra....and that was the beginning of the end....which is still in progress.
We had never seen the everyday stupidity and nastiness that stemmed from our new and ill-informed jailers. They couldn't even pronounce the names of many of our products, or for that matter, they knew nothing of our techniques that had given our sales force the top rating in the pharma world. Their management was one of fear and discouragement. They had no regard for seniority or ability, literally forcing out our best due to their cruelty. ....so many of us left, resulting into the further destruction of the sales force.
Today, little is left of the pride and ability that once was, unfortunately in much of the industry as well as AZ. I'll never regret the many good years, but I will never forgive the bad years (with Astra).
Who is old enough to remember the surprise field visits of the old Astra?
It was in the 90s and you had to give your schedule in advance and someone would meet you for a surprise field visit.
Was that before or after your CEO terrorized the women in the training classes?
ICI is gone now. Zeneca demerged and spun off in 1993. Following ICI made a number of acquisitions that it failed to integrate and sold off much of the bulk chemicals that had once made it so successful. In January 2008 the successful takeover by Dutch firm AkzoNobel was accomplished. Once one of the most innovative giants of industry and Great Britain, ICI eventually fizzled away.
The best way to describe the Astra Culture at the time of the merger was Testosterone overdose. It seemed that the emphasis among most of the leaders was who was the most macho hardass not who was the most competent, brightest or inspirational leader. I remember thinking, Tilton will thrive now and boy was I right. At least until some changes happened and he began to smell like the rotting corpse that he was.I remember talking to an Astra rep prior to the merger. Compared to Zeneca, which was a great place to work at the time with flexibility, high pride, and morale, I was aghast to hear the dismay and horror to which the rep described Astra and surprise field rides. The rep never knew when and where the manager might show up and was visibly stressed. Simply showing up at a place on a calendar in the early morning was clearly their focus.
When I heard of the AZ merger my first thought was; migod, this is a marriage made in hell by the devil. It will surely mean the ruination of the culture fostered by Stuart, ICI, and Zeneca.
...and it was.
Boring.What's that have to do with the question?
The field sales job is different than an office based job where your boss works in the same building. Having a management system in place that systematically supports unannounced field visits is creating a culture of mistrust between management and the field. There is no other reason to justify it other than to send a signal that we don't trust you. Great if you catch the bad reps but imagine the negative impact this has on the good reps that their company does not trust them to run their business. I am surprised AZ doesn't add this tactic to their micro management agenda.If you worked in an office, your boss could pop in your cube at any time. Why should it be any different just because you're in the field? Why should it matter if you're working ALL day EVERY day? Remember? That's what you're paid to do. I love how the lazy, selfish, entitled mentality of the drug rep thinks this is somehow unfair. It just shows how out of touch the people have become.
Maybe boring if you're so young that you didn't once work for Stuart/ICI/Zeneca, junior.
So did you just get out and now you are checking in to see what you missed the last 15 years?LOL, um, I had replied to the OP regarding "are you old enough etc.", which is the theme/topic of thread. I didn't work for zeneca nor its forebears. Maybe your stuart/ici/zeneca chatter should have its own thread. So, yes, since this is an old time astra thread, yes, the legacy zeneca banter is not just off topic, its of no interest to former astra usa peeps, hence, yes, the post-merger culture dilutions are boring here. Try to stay on topic.
LOL, um, I had replied to the OP regarding "are you old enough etc.", which is the theme/topic of thread. I didn't work for zeneca nor its forebears. Maybe your stuart/ici/zeneca chatter should have its own thread. So, yes, since this is an old time astra thread, yes, the legacy zeneca banter is not just off topic, its of no interest to former astra usa peeps, hence, yes, the post-merger culture dilutions are boring here. Try to stay on topic.
The field sales job is different than an office based job where your boss works in the same building. Having a management system in place that systematically supports unannounced field visits is creating a culture of mistrust between management and the field. There is no other reason to justify it other than to send a signal that we don't trust you. Great if you catch the bad reps but imagine the negative impact this has on the good reps that their company does not trust them to run their business. I am surprised AZ doesn't add this tactic to their micro management agenda.
The problem is not with the rep dumb ass, the problem is with a management philosophy that is based on a total lack of trust for the entire sales force. Using a solution to fix a problem rep should not be used on every single rep. Why would you do that other than to send a signal that we don't trust you to do your job so we are going to try to catch you doing something wrong. Imagine a marriage based on that tactic. It would be called stalking.If you were doing your job right, this would not be a problem
