Training Ends. Discipline Is What Sticks.

For many of us, Canada Day and the Fourth of July mark the unofficial start of summer. Long evenings, backyard barbecues, time with the people who matter. The calendar slows down just enough to let us think.

This summer I keep thinking about two rooms full of people who have the same objective of business growth that you do. In May, I keynoted, presented several workshops with Pfizer, The Summit Group, AVI-SPL, and Valkre, and held meetings at the Strategic Account Management Association annual conference. In June, I shared the Life Sciences Trainers and Educators Network stage with Kristin Fitz-Coy of Pfizer. Different audiences, same conversation underneath. Here is what I heard, and what we proved.

Insight One – The Market Is Done Buying Training

Across every kind of organization I spoke with, centralized and decentralized, pharma and industrial, one frustration surfaced more than any other: programs launch with energy, then fade. Leaders do not have a knowledge gap. They have a sustainment gap. You cannot train your way out of it. The teams that win treat strategic account and selling capability as something you build and maintain, not something you teach once and hope sticks.

Insight Two – Buyers Want Partners, Not Vendors.

The strongest signal I heard was a hunger for people who stay accountable for results, not suppliers who deliver a workshop and leave. That is a reframe of the relationship itself: from trusted advisor to thinking partner. It is also, quietly, exactly what the best sellers and account managers already do with their customers.

Insight Three – Behaviour Change Is the Only Outcome That Counts.

More content is not what anyone is asking for. Sustainment, habits, and measurable behaviour change are. Which brings me to Pfizer. On stage at SAMA and LTEN, Kristin Fitz-Coy and I shared what we built together: a seven-month sustainment system that embeds strategic discipline into daily action. Not a course. A cadence. The results from Pfizer’s Integrated Account Teams, January to April 2026:

Insight Four – Leadership Makes It Last.

Two quieter lessons worth naming. First, confidence is crowding out curiosity. Experienced account managers often stop asking questions because they assume they already know the answer. The gap is not skill; it is curiosity. Second, leadership continuity is the silent killer. A new sponsor can undo years of capability work, and most teams treat that as inevitable. It is not. Programs should be designed to survive a change at the top, in the middle, and on the front line.

The Takeaway – Where This Leaves Us.

The through line from both conferences was clarifying: the market is asking for exactly what we have learned how to build. If your last initiative faded faster than you hoped, the problem was probably never the training. It was what happened after.

If you lead a team and you are thinking about how to make strategic account or strategic selling discipline stick, I would welcome the conversation. This is the work I care about most right now, and Pfizer is proof it works.

For those who want to keep exploring these ideas, you will find them in High Stakes Alignment: Why Growth Breaks Without It and on The High Stakes Customer Podcast. Wherever you are, I hope this season makes room for new thinking. Happy Canada Day, happy Independence Day, and here is to a summer of fun, curiosity, and discipline in equal measure.