We all make mistakes. Yesterday I found an old picture of me shaking hands with "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf at the 2001 NCPA Annual Convention in Philadelphia. Schwarzkopf is the general famous for winning the first gulf war in 5 days. He was the featured speaker at the 2001 NCPA meeting
The picture reminded me of a mistake I made at about that time.
You see, a few months prior to the NCPA conference I was the VP Independent Retail Sales for the AmeriSource Drug Company. In August of 2001 AmeriSource and Bergen Brunswig merged. The October, NCPA meeting, was being held in Philadelphia, also the headquarters of the newly combined company, and it was a BIG deal for the company,
The two senior management teams worked hard to make sure the launch of our new company went well. In an August planning session we wondered what type of "give-a-way" we could hand-out in the booth. I had always liked box cutters. They were small, had a little "heft" to them and they were a functional tool for a pharmacy owner to have. So we bought 5,000 box cutters with the AmerisourceBergen logo imprinted on them. They were to arrive in late September, in plenty of time for the convention being held in October.
The quicker reader will spot the irony immediately; but for the rest of you, here is the mistake. On September 11, 2001, terrorists took down four commercial airliners by killing the flight crews with box cutters. When the freshly printed box cutters arrived in my office late in September I shut my door and pondered - what do I do now? Eventually I went in to see my new boss, he came from the Bergen side of the merger so we were not yet well known to each other. We looked, we mused, he said an expletive and then we agreed that the box cutters would not be used at the upcoming convention.
We exhibited at the convention in October. I have no memory of what we gave away. We had our first AmerisourceBergen national sales meeting in Nov. Dec. was pretty hectic as we worked to know our new colleagues. In early in January, 2002, my new boss invited me to sit and chat. To be clear, it wasn't just the box cutters, there are lots of reasons - but the box cutters didn't help. You see, during that meeting my new boss told me the newly combined company no longer needed my services. I walked out the door and in a few weeks and became a consultant.
But, I kept a handful of box cutters. I used one to open a box the other day. I like them, they are small, they are hefty and they do a great job of cutting open boxes. But, ordering 5000 for the convention was a mistake, not in planning, or thinking, but in the fact that; life happens! Bad things happen to good people.
The real point is, as a pharmacy owner, as a parent or a co-worker, you are going to make mistakes. Sometimes the consequences are minor, you adjust and you move on. Other times the consequences are huge. But, the response is still the same, you adjust and you move on.
Here's hoping something I shared here will help you Do More & Be Better.
