Perfecting the art of

Back in early 2024, I wrote about embracing an agile mindset to cope with an increasingly turbulent environment, both in pharmaceuticals and the wider world. I shared how launching fast, measuring impact, and iterating quickly had transformed my approach to client work, business operations, and personal development. It wasn’t what I originally intended, but it turns out the approach I was trying to describe can be summed up in four simple words: ‘get on with it’. It’s become an unintentional catchphrase and useful shorthand in our team to encourage each other to embrace this approach.

I got some lovely messages of support at the time and it sparked some really interesting conversations, especially about the thrill of breaking free from perfectionism.

‍A year later, I stand by that philosophy. But like any good idea, it has evolved. While ‘get on with it’ remains my mantra, I've really come to value knowing when to pause, step back, and frankly, just have a little think before I dive in. While my impatience means I want to get started, I can see that a pause isn’t the same as a delay.

The moment of pause

It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of a new project, eager to make progress. I’m lucky enough to work with an incredibly motivated and capable bunch of people who are more than happy to zoom ahead in planning and delivering.

But if we hit the big green button immediately, there is a risk. Have we made sure that everyone involved (myself included) really knows what we are trying to achieve? If not, the project could still be successful, but it’s likely it could have been even better.

So I’ve been reflecting on what’s happening here and how to improve it, without losing pace and wasting the excitement and energy. I’ve been looking for a simple way to frame it, and the common theme is a tendency to jump straight to HOW before truly establishing clarity on WHAT and WHY. This distinction has become my model for checking myself and enforcing a (admittedly usually very brief) pause before I get on with it.

Put simply, I make myself (and the team) articulate and write down simple statements for:

Now, you probably expected WHY to be first on that list, and so did I. I have spent years trying to follow ‘start with why’, and it still holds huge value. However, my experience is that it’s actually often easier to talk about WHAT first. WHY can be really tough to do first. Especially when doing this as a team, you tend to get a lot of really fluffy, vague answers. I’m all for a bit of fluff, but I’ve found that if we get to a robust, measurable WHAT and then look at WHY, we get something that feels more tangible and authentic. Having said that, I would absolutely still start with your (non-fluffy) WHY when you are ‘selling’ or communicating something.  

The logical next thing to say is that we don’t talk about HOW until WHAT and WHY are nailed, but that would be nonsense. So much HOW naturally comes out as you discuss WHAT and WHY, that by the time you come back to HOW you are normally a good chunk of the way there, and that’s no bad thing. But our HOW is more strategic and smarter for not jumping straight to it, and being able to check that it will really deliver your WHAT is certainly useful.

It absolutely goes without saying that WHO, WHERE and WHEN matter hugely too, but, to be honest, for most challenges these tend to fall out of a WHAT, WHY, HOW discussion pretty naturally.

Does it work?

I'd love to say I always follow this disciplined approach. I don't. My natural tendency is still to leap into solutions mode – partly from enthusiasm, partly from the satisfaction of immediate progress. But the great thing is we’re embedding this approach across the team, so now we challenge each other. It never fails to make me smile whenever I hear someone say ‘can we hang on a minute and make sure we’re all clear on what success looks like here’ or something similar.

And the results speak for themselves. Our team has delivered some cracking work in the past year. Projects with outstanding, measurable results, and pioneering deliverables that I wouldn’t have even dreamt of a couple of years ago. I think these show a powerful blend of strategic alignment (through clarity on WHAT, WHY, HOW) and an incredible drive to ‘get on with it’.

This journey has taught me that ‘get on with it’ doesn't mean skipping strategic thinking – it means being conscious about when you need to be in strategy mode versus execution mode. Switching between the two isn’t always easy, but signposting this and using the team around you makes all the difference.

The consequences

I’d like to share some specific examples of our client projects where we’ve done this, but for obvious reasons they would need to be anonymised to the point of being boring, so instead I’ll share some behind-the-scenes thinking at Camino. Perhaps the most profound application of this thinking has been in how we position Camino itself. For our first year, we emphasised our omnichannel approach and increasingly our AI capabilities. We saw these as differentiators and spoke about them constantly, and I am still proud of our strength in these areas.

BUT, and it seems blindingly obvious with hindsight, we realised omnichannel and AI are just HOWs. We’d been missing the opportunity to communicate our ideas about WHAT or WHY.

With this clarity, we've reframed our conversations with clients. We used to lead with ‘We're the omnichannel-native medcomms agency with AI expertise’. Now we spend more time talking about our purpose – to create adventures that lead to tangible outcomes. This just makes everything way more fun and opens up a much better conversation about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

A really strong WHY

If you’ve engaged with any content from me or Camino recently, you’ll likely have heard about our upcoming conference: Adventures In Pharma. It’s a bold move for a company to host a conference when we are still young, small and growing rapidly, but definitely a clear example of our ‘get on with it’ approach. It also has so many good WHYs that we basically got to the stage where we had to say, ‘why not?’

Here's a small selection of the WHYs behind Adventures:

• We’ve met some incredible people working in AI for pharma and want to show off their expertise
• We love sharing real, tangible examples of AI applied in pharma, as well as the many, many lessons we’ve learnt so far
• We want to meet more likeminded people who are up for the challenge of shaping how AI will enhance how pharma communicate with HCPs, patients and other stakeholders
• We’re proud of our skills in creating event experience and, frankly, just want a chance to show off!

And last, but certainly not least, the curve ball WHY – our industry is a bit weird right now, and has been for a while. Let’s give ourselves a day of human connection, sparkly new ideas and just good old-fashioned fun. If I know my team at all, I can pretty much guarantee this event will deliver that!  We’ve got the WHAT and WHY nailed; we’re deep into getting on with it!

So, what was my point?

The really simple idea that a well-timed, brief pause to clarify your WHAT, WHY and HOW actually makes it easier to get on with it! So please feel free to give me a knowing smile if you hear me say ‘hang on a minute’, rapidly followed by ‘OK, let’s get on with it’.

Tickets for Adventures In Pharma are selling fast – get yours at: Adventuresinpharma.com  

If you’ve made it this far, you deserve a discount! Use code GETONWITHIT for £200 off the list price.

Jess Blackwell

Executive Director

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