Before we can understand whether our business is a good one, we need to define what ‘good’ means. Nailing this concept down successfully will direct activity and provide a clear focus. 

Simon Sinek, in his book Start With Why, describes a simple but very powerful model for understanding a business. He calls it “the Golden Circle”. He suggests that everyone can describe what they do. Some people can describe how they do what they do – and how they do it differently from the competition. But very few people
can explain why they do what they do – in other words, their purpose. 

For Sinek, this ‘why’ is the fundamental starting point for creating a good business. Purpose has an external focus and is the value we create for others. When we start to think that the purpose of our business is to make money, we become internally focused and this can lead us to make decisions that get in the way of meeting our customers’ needs. 

Good business for our customers becomes good business for the pharmacy when we align our purpose to the needs of our customers. 

In a community pharmacy, the ‘what’ can be straightforward – dispensing prescriptions, providing Pharmacy First consultations, selling OTC products, administering vaccines, etc. The ‘how’ might be about location, speed or looking at which tasks can be delegated to which team members to facilitate service delivery. And you might define the ‘why‘ in terms of helping people to improve their lives, health, contentment or opportunities. 

When we define success in terms of purpose, we can start to consider what we do and challenge whether this is good business. If we consider our purpose in terms of improving the health of our customers and local community, does the practice of providing dispensed medicines in a sealed bag to patients without any discussion meet either the needs of the customer or the purpose of the pharmacy?

Pause to reflect 

Consider the processes in your pharmacy, such as prescription collection, stock management and handing out prescriptions. Are these designed to make the process quicker/easier/more efficient? How do these processes meet customer needs and work towards your purpose? Make notes on how they could be improved.