Hi, my name is Lon
I spent my career as a pharmacist working in leadership positions. Trial and error iterates constantly in my life – always tinkering in leadership, finance, and relationships. I enjoy reading on a wide variety of topics to apply in my work and my life. To name a few: complexity science, risk management, and persuasion.
I was placed as Pharmacy Manager immediately out of college. You don’t learn anything about management in pharmacy school. Being dumb as a rock at managing a business, I had to fall back on my inner scientist’s love for learning and experimentation. I was forced to educate myself through trial and error – how to manage people, how to develop talent, how to get results, and everything in between. I failed spectacularly at every step. My employees didn’t listen, their professional development stalled, and results never seemed to stick. Only through repeated failures and figuring out what didn’t work was I able to build traction.
I slowly built robust systems that prevented screw-ups and allowed flexibility for positive outcomes to arise. Of all the actions and decisions, I found that the relationships built as a side effect of the journey gave me the asymmetric advantage. The deep connections with others gave me the leverage I needed to succeed.
My edge was in learning about people and developing relationships. After that, results came easy. Soon I was fortunate to get promoted to a place in field management, managing pharmacy leaders of all different backgrounds.
As a Pharmacy District Supervisor, I had to lead 21 managers in locations. It was a completely different beast. Working in a single store, cultivating connection with others was easy. In the field, relationships felt extremely hard to build and maintain. “Out of sight, out of mind”. Proximity and frequency of communication play a major role when first building connections, and I didn’t have a way to maintain either.
I created habits that focused on building relationships. The results continued to be slow. Certain tactics proved to be too cumbersome. The deep learning curve of the complex motivations of others didn’t help. Failure after failure, I persisted. Then what seemed like overnight, results popped. They began to snowball, generating intensity and momentum. I became one of the top performers in the company by the end of the year. I wasn’t even focused on the results, just on my system of building relationships.
I have years of pain, struggle, and failure as a leader. I relate on a personal and emotional level with other scientists, thinkers, and leaders.
My current projects, to name a few, include building this blog, improving Twitter engagement, and managing a trading group.
Most importantly, I’m on the front-lines as a pharmacist leading my team through the COVID-19 crisis, delivering the care my community deserves.