Leading at a Distance

CHAPTER 9Continuous Improvement: High-Impact Coaching and Accountability at a Distance

At Boehringer-Ingelheim (BI), the German-based pharmaceutical giant, district managers typically spend a full day riding along with each sales rep every quarter, sitting in as they meet with physicians and other customers. Watching the reps do their actual job of selling allows managers to observe behavior and provide in-the-moment coaching as soon as they leave the doctor's office together. In normal times, the typical district manager spends 80 or 100 days a year in the field, helping coach reps to sell and engage more effectively.

When COVID-19 hit, the way BI coaches its reps had to change. In-person ride-alongs were out. Instead, “managers have converted their traditional half-day in-person coaching into a series of virtual coaching sessions to provide feedback and coaching,” says Todd Billingsley, BI's director of leadership and business development. District managers also began hosting virtual coaching office hours to discuss best practices, help convey a sense of purpose, and demonstrate what good looks like. In addition to managing the logistics of shifting their coaching practices to video, BI also had to reconsider how it measures the coaching performance of district managers, since traditional metrics (such as the number of days spent in the field with reps) were no longer relevant. But whether the conversations take place on video or at a socially distant meeting outside in a ...