DON'T COMPETE WITH THE PEOPLE WHOSE SUCCESS CAN MULTIPLY YOURS

Earlier in my career, I was promoted into a headquarters position where I had the opportunity to support several senior leaders.

Many of them were accomplished field and leadership experts with significant experience in some of our company's largest contributing segments.

My career had given me a somewhat different experience set.

Before coming to headquarters, much of my experience had been in smaller, more specialized segments—hospitals, VA institutions, teaching institutions and other complex customer environments.

That difference became important when the company began preparing to launch a pharmaceutical brand in an entire market where we had never competed before.

As I participated in the planning meetings, I was exposed to the broader launch strategy and the thinking of leaders who understood parts of the business extremely well.

But as I listened, I couldn't see as clearly how some of the smaller institutional segments I knew would be penetrated and executed within the larger plan.

So I started asking questions.

How different should our approach be in these segments?

Who would we need to reach?

What should we measure?

And how would we know whether the strategy was actually gaining traction there?

Those questions led to other questions—and eventually to conversations about what I had seen work during my own career.

I shared examples from previous roles, including experiences supporting brands through hospital and other institutional formulary processes.

Those experiences had taught me something.

The basic architecture of entering an institutional market can look familiar from one therapeutic area to another.

But the people aren't necessarily the same.

The gatekeepers aren't necessarily the same.

The relationships aren't necessarily the same.

And the unwritten rules aren't necessarily the same.

A process that worked in one therapeutic department couldn't simply be dropped into another and assumed to work identically.

We needed to understand the nuances of this particular market: who influenced access, how those people needed to be approached, what successful penetration would look like and how we would measure it.

My experience couldn't give us every answer.

But it had taught me some of the questions worth asking.

That became one of the lasting lessons for me.

Experience is sometimes described as though its primary value is having encountered something before.

I think its greater value can be recognizing patterns.

I had never launched this particular brand into this particular new market.

But I had experienced enough institutional environments to recognize where a familiar-looking strategy might encounter unfamiliar rules.

That distinction mattered.

I wasn't bringing a finished playbook into those conversations.

I was bringing an experience set that could contribute to the playbook we were building together.

And the senior leaders around me brought experience sets I didn't have.

The exchange worked in both directions.

I asked questions about how they envisioned the broader market.

They asked me for examples of what I had seen work in hospitals and other institutional segments.

Their questions caused me to examine my own experience differently.

My questions introduced considerations from markets where I had spent more of my career.

Nobody needed to prove whose experience mattered more.

We needed to understand what each person's experience could contribute.

Curiosity turns different experience sets into shared intelligence.

That idea stayed with me.

Because when you're surrounded by accomplished people, there can be a temptation to demonstrate that you belong in the room by showing what you know.

I eventually learned that there was something far more valuable than proving I knew something someone else didn't.

I could help make what I knew useful to them.

And I could remain curious enough to allow what they knew to make me better, too.

As the launch plan developed, my involvement extended beyond aspects of field implementation.

I also had pathways to groups that could help us think about how success in these smaller segments should be measured.

And there was another consideration I thought was important: success in smaller institutional segments didn't necessarily remain confined to those segments.

The relationships, adoption and experience created there could potentially influence activity in larger, more visible parts of the market.

That gave those segments significance beyond their size alone.

The eventual national launch was successful, and most territories containing the types of segments I'm describing achieved a solid degree of success as well.

My contribution was only one part of a much larger collective effort.

But that was precisely the lesson.

I didn't need to own the strategy for my experience to strengthen it.

And the senior leaders didn't need to possess my particular experience for it to become useful to them.

Once incorporated into the larger effort, knowledge could travel farther than the person who originally brought it into the room.

There is a temptation in organizations to protect what makes us valuable.

Knowledge.

Experience.

Relationships.

Access.

Sometimes we behave as though sharing those things reduces our own importance.

My career taught me something different.

When you help another capable person become even more capable, what you contribute can travel through decisions, conversations and parts of the organization you may never personally reach.

Their success doesn't have to compete with yours.

It can multiply yours.

Don't compete with the people whose success can multiply yours.

Bring your experience to the conversation.

Be curious about theirs.

Protect dignity. Transfer capability.

And remember:

Experience doesn't always give you the answer. Sometimes it teaches you which questions are worth asking.

Curiosity turns different experience sets into shared intelligence.

Training can teach you how organizations are structured.

Experience teaches you that some of your greatest impact may come from helping someone else's experience become more complete—and allowing theirs to do the same for you.

That's the craft.