Making The Transition From Bench Scientist To Lab Leader

During a break in a seminar at a biotechnology firm, a chemist approached his lab supervisor to chat about a project. "You know, we're really behind," the chemist said. "I think I need to come in this weekend and run some samples." 1. Don't lose touch with the lab. Take time--even if it's only a few minutes a week--to talk individually to lab team members about their work. 2. Address problems as soon as they arise. 3. Clearly define the objective of each lab project. 4. Let scientists be scientists. Let them pursue a project in a way they think is optimal. 5. Be available--and let it be known you're available--to help when help is needed. 6. Communicate. Keep team members informed about the institution or company, the field, and your own thoughts about the lab's work. Listen to their thoughts and ideas. 7. Give criticism in private. 8. Give praise whenever an opportunity arises. Showing genuine interest in and enthusiasm about a person's work is often the best form of praise. 9. Treat all team members--even the ones you don't particularly like--with respect. 10. Don't make promises you can't keep. "Well, will you get paid for that?" the supervisor snapped, his voice loaded with sarcasm. The chemist, clearly startled by his supervisor's tone, said no, that wouldn't be consistent with company policy. "Well," shot back the supervisor, "why in the world would you do it, then?" John Taylor, vice president of Analytical Technologies Inc. in San Diego, didn't say anything as he witnessed this exchange at another company. Instead Taylor, who occasionally teaches a one-day workshop on effective lab management for the American Chemical Society, filed it away in his memory as an example of the kind of bad leadership that can keep a scientific team from being its best. In Taylor's opinion, the supervisor displayed poor management skills in several ways. In addition to thwarting the aims of the company, he failed to show respect for his employee with his sarcastic tone. He was insensitive to his employee's concern about the work. He assumed that money was and should be the chemist's only motivation for working. His actions suggested the chemist's project was unimportant. In short, he set a "terrible, terrible example," Taylor says. As researchers advance up the career ladder--whether it be in business or in academia--they are called on to apply management skills that were never part of their training as a scientist. For some, the transition from bench scientist to lab leader is easy and natural. But more often than people like Taylor like to see, the transition is fraught with problems that can damage a lab's productivity. Management specialists and successful lab mangers say that no single formula works for every lab team. There are as many ways to create a good, hard-working lab atmosphere as there are scientists. However, there are some principles and tips that can help a scientist create a productive lab that stays productive. "Once the environment is set up to be an exciting environment to work in, and a lot is happening and people are working busily, when new people join the group, they sort of tend to adopt whatever the group culture is," says Frank DiSalvo, a chemistry professor at Cornell University who also spent many years leading labs in private industry. "The hard part is setting the tone initially." The first thing to remember, according to successful lab managers, is that people are the heart of the lab. Making itwork at its best requires being sensitive to the people who work there. Christine Dreyfus, a management consultant with McBer and Co., a consulting firm in Boston, recently completed research at Case Western Reserve University on factors that distinguish outstanding lab managers from others. She selected National Aeronautics and Space Administration branch chiefs--scientists and engineers who oversee research teams--as her study group. By questioning their coworkers, employees, and bosses, she was able to identify 19 managers she classified as highly effective. She also identified 16 other managers as falling within the middle range of supervisors--not especially great, but not bad, either. After a regimen of tests and questionnaires, Dreyfus discovered nine areas in which the two groups differed. All nine factors suggested that the highly effective managers were better in a key area: they had better interpersonal skills. They were more sensitive to group dynamics and to other people's opinions and their emotional states. Scientists generally share a few traits that affect how they respond to any manager's interpersonal skills. "You have the normal problems of handling people compounded by the fact that if they're any good, they have big egos and they often clash," says David Goodstein, vice provost at the California Institute of Technology and a physicist who leads a small lab team. Scientists have a greater-than-average desire for autonomy in their work, regardless of their field of study, according to Mary Ann Von Glinow, a professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California and author of the book The New Professionals: Managing Today's High-Tech Employee, published by Ballinger Publishing Co., a Cambridge, Mass.- based subsidiary of Harper & Row, in 1988. They generally are highly motivated by their work. They like to be fairly compensated, but monetary rewards are often less important motivators than the chance to publish a good paper or work on a fascinating project. Scientists also respect technical competence in others, Von Glinow says. It is essential, then, that a lab manager be technically competent in the areas addressed in a lab. On the surface, this would seem obvious. But it's a principle that is not always followed in private industry among managers who may be a step or two removed from the lab but still have responsibility for its output, Taylor says. "The difficulty is that a business manager, if he is strictly a business manager, doesn't know what should be acceptable productivity of a laboratory," he says. "If you say to him that this chemist accomplished 10 analyses today, he has no idea if it should have been 20 or if 10 is 30 percent better than what most people can do." Before any project is begun, a lab manager needs to make sure its purpose and goal are clearly defined and that the scientific issues are crisply addressed. "People have to understand what they're doing and why," says Philip Brodsky, the director of research for the St. Louis-based Monsanto Corp. "It sounds very simple, but frequently that's a big problem in a lab. People don't really understand the objective, or why they're doing it, or the time frame that it has to be done in." The manager also needs "to know when to leave some people alone and let them do their own professional thing, as opposed to tightly controlling them for organizational purposes," says Von Glinow. Barbara Cordell, a molecular biologist who leads neurobiology research at California Biotechnology Inc. in Mountain View, Calif., has applied these two principles to create a productive lab. "If there's one key thing in getting people to work toward a productive end--for themselves and for the field--it is to define the objective very clearly and then let them pursue that in a way they think is optimal," she says. She doesn't hover over her team as they work, but checks in regularly to make sure the scientists have what they need--from equipment to advice--to get the job done. She also listens as well as gives information. In other words, she practices good communication. And good communication is another principle that management pros say is critical to a well-run lab. "The staff wants to hear from their lab manager, whether it's a staff of 10 or of 300," Taylor says. "They want to know what's going on in the mind of that manager." Finding the time to talk to a team, especially on an individual basis, can be difficult, though. The more successful a lead scientist is, in academia or business, the more demands there are to attend conferences, sit on special committees or boards, draft grant proposals, and attend to other administrative duties. Some successful lab managers have devised various methods to keep in touch with their teams. "My office door is always open, so people walk in all the time. That means my day is mostly interrupt-driven," says Cornell's DiSalvo. "If I am busy when they try to interrupt me, I keep a sheet of paper on my desk, which is sort of my list of things to do. I'll tell them that when I'm finished I'll get right back in touch with them, and I write their name down on the list. When they see that, they know I mean business and I'm not brushing them off." DiSalvo also holds weekly meetings to discuss research papers. But the first half-hour of the meeting is reserved for discussing general lab business. The talk then "is mostly about how we work together, what's working and what isn't, who left this mess, little tensions over an apparatus that has to be shared. We'll air the difficulties and then try to work out some formula so it works for everybody." With this format, DiSalvo is able to address problems early, before they threaten to become catastrophes. Open-door policies and regular meetings aren't always enough, though, to keep in touch with the shyest or most independent lab members. Some managers supplement the meetings with regular visits to the lab. "Sometimes you can sense what's happening just by walking around," says Maureen Hanson, a plant molecular biologist at Cornell who leads a 10-member team. In any communication, lab managers have to take care not to make promises that can't possibly be kept. To make such promises is "the kiss of death," Taylor says. "That's a problem with very young, inexperienced supervisors. A similar problem is that they'll overcommit. They'll tell their manager they can do anything, and a good top-level manager will spot that and not have them destroy themselves." Inexperienced or just outright bad managers also have trouble dealing out praise and criticism in appropriate doses. The best way to give criticism is in private, most good managers say. "Try not to embarrass [subordinates] in front of their peers," recommends Hanson. Although praise is generally welcomed by employees, there's a caveat here. In some cultures, public praise is considered an insult or an embarrassment. As United States labs become more multinational, lab managers are going to have to become aware of these cultural differences, Von Glinow says. Often, the best kind of praise for anyone is the lab leader's genuine and enthusiastic interest in a project. It conveys the message that "this person is important, the work is important," says Brodsky. Becoming a good lab manager is not an overnight process. Good lab managers are not simply born that way. McBer's Dreyfus found that the most effective scientist-managers in her NASA study began developing their leadership skills through extracurricular activities, often early in life. "They were usually the leaders of groups in high school or college," she says. "They had already taken a very active management or leadership role in church groups, community groups, organizations, every- thing from Boy Scouts to Future Farmers [of America or] high school bands." Some continued these activities in their spare time once they had finished graduate school and were in the working world. But such community activity isn't the only way to learn good lab leadership. Companies such as Bellcore of Livingston, N.J., and organizations like NASA provide management training programs for scientists moving into management positions. Likewise, professional organizations such as the American Chemical Society and the Industrial Research Institute offer occasional courses in management. Another way to learn good lab management is through good role models. "I think that most people try to watch [principal investigators], not only in their own lab but other labs, and try to learn by example," says Susan Cumberledge, a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry at Stanford University. Neurobiologist Caleb Finch, who runs a productive, 15-member team at the University of Southern California, credits the way he was treated by his lab leaders from his undergraduate through postdoc days as shaping the way he runs his lab: "I was very fortunate to have been with people who regarded their students as peers rather than as servants." Finch finds the best way to determine what will help make members of his lab feel successful and motivated is simply to ask them. "Often when I'm getting to know someone well I say, `Supposing you were sitting in my shoes, in this chair, and you had all the resources of the lab at your disposal, what would you do?'" Books also help develop management skills. Cornell's Hanson turned to books on business management to help her become a good leader. "Management in a science lab isn't a whole lot different from management in business in many ways," she says. "The key thing is interpersonal relations, and the same rules that apply for motivating people in business situations motivate people in science, although, I think, particularly in science, self-motivation is extremely important." Finally, Cornell's DiSalvo cautions, whatever a lab leader does to make a lab productive, the management style has to be consistent with his or her personality; otherwise, it looks fake. "What works for me is a personal approach, to be fairly friendly with all the people I manage, whether it was in industry or here," he says. "Some people don't take that approach and still are effective managers." Kathryn Phillips is a freelance science writer based in Pasadena, Calif.

Making The Transition From Bench Scientist To Lab Leader

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