You know that the web and anonymous whistleblowers have started to rattle Big Pharma when a Lilly president starts calling employees who post anonymously on CafePharma and other places names.
Here is the historical response from one of the administrators of Cafe Pharma.
CafePharma vs. Lilly: 1-0
Many of you have already seen Lilly President Connelly's recent remarks regarding anonymous posting on cafepharma:
http://www.mmm-online.com/Lillys-Con.../article/58414Is anonymous speech the province of cowards? That seems to be the position of Eli Lilly USA President, Deirdre Connelly. While addressing the delegates of
Pharmaceutical Executive's Marketing & Sales Summit in Philadelphia, Connelly made the now somewhat infamous statement that sites like cafepharma.com are “outlets for people who don't have the courage to speak out with their ideas” for improving their roles and the performance of their companies”.
In actuality, anonymous speech has played an important and celebrated role in this country’s history. The importance of anonymous speech has also been cited repeatedly in Supreme Court rulings.
During the period leading up to Revolutionary War some of the important information flow was delivered via anonymous “pamphlets” (yes, some of the pamphlets contained useless information just as
some of the posts on cafepharma contain useless information). One of the most famous acts leading up to the revolution, the Boston Tea Party, was carried out under the cloak of anonymity/disguise. And of course, the Federalist Papers were published under a pseudonym.
In a 1995 Supreme Court ruling (McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission)
the court stated:
Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.Like any useful tool, anonymity can be misused. Certainly, cowards may use it to attack individuals unfairly. However, Ms. Connelly labeled even those who make anonymous posts intended to improve their roles or companies as cowards. To make such a statement she would seemingly have to feel that Eli Lilly has created what virtually no other company in existence has created – a culture that truly embraces criticism and negative feedback.
Maybe they have created such a culture (backed up by policies), but it strains the imagination to believe that they have done so. It is hard to imagine that DMs at Lilly are really open to complaints about IC plans, marketing pieces, call plans, etc. It is even harder to imagine that DMs feel comfortable passing complaints from the field up the line. Based on some of the comments on cafepharma in response to Ms. Connelly’s comments it would seem that Lilly has not yet succeeded in creating such a culture.
That is not surprising since virtually no other company has created an environment that accepts legitimate complaints from the field with equanimity and takes them seriously. That is why cafepharma and similar sites are valuable to both the individual employees and companies alike. If cafepharma did not exist, it is unlikely that upper management in the pharmaceutical industry would hear much (or any) truly candid feedback from the field. Since each layer of management tends to filter, polish and dilute complaints from front line employees, those at the top rarely hear the urgency or seriousness of issues voiced by those in the field.
We can accept that Ms. Connelly truly wants to improve her company and listen to legitimate feedback from employees. However, it is likely that the real reason most of those in management don’t like sites like cafepharma is because it is impossible for the company to control discourse on the sites. When real complaints are made public in a reasoned and intelligent manner, it is more difficult for the companies to ignore them. While, those in upper management may not want to hear such complaints, it is actually to their advantage to have a venue where they can learn of real issues in the field and respond to them before it is too late.
We applaud Ms. Connelly for going into the field to get a first hand look at the issues and conditions that front line employees face on a daily basis. No doubt the knowledge gained on such visits will be very helpful to her as she works to improve her company. However, if she truly wants to hear candid feedback from field level employees about real concerns and issues, we encourage her to begin to read the posts on cafepharma again. Because until Eli Lilly does the seemingly impossible, there is almost no other way for her to hear the true concerns of those on the front lines.
