The Onboarding Talk.
Welcome to our company. If this is your first job outside of academia, I’d like to help orient you to what to expect in this new work environment.
1. Our mission is to develop our projects according to a schedule and within a budget. Consequently, you may be asked to stay focused in a way that’s different from what you were used to in an academic setting.
2. While many projects may seem fascinating, the only science that matters is science that one day will generate revenue and profit.
3. Our funds come from investors who need to see evidence of regular progress to ensure that they have invested wisely. Consequently, if progress on a project is slow or non-existent we may decide that it’s no longer worth pursuing.
4. Don’t worry if your project gets cancelled. There may come a time when a project that you are working on gets cancelled or put on the back burner for reasons that you don’t understand. It may look to you like things are moving along nicely, but to others in management this same project may look too risky or lacking in definitive results to continue. Don’t worry about this. We have many projects in our pipeline that will be challenging and satisfying for you to work on.
5. We have a robust pipeline. We are pursuing multiple projects and approaches simultaneously so that if one isn’t moving fast enough or another is looking especially promising we can shift our resources as needed. This is another difference with academia. The work you do needs to be work that the company needs to get done at that moment so you may be called upon to support our most promising efforts.
6. You will be a member of a team. In academia many projects are one person operations where you have a high degree of ownership and control over what gets done and in which you get personal credit for success. Here we leverage the power of teams to speed progress. Your results and work output will support your team’s mission as opposed to a personal project. Your immediate manager will review and guide the work you do and will be the primary conduit of recognition to you for the work you do as well as for guidance on improvement if needed.
7. It’s not your data. Generating exciting data is exhilarating and you will justifiably want to be recognized for the work you do. You will have opportunities to present and get credit for your work in various ways. But the data isn’t yours, it’s the company’s. Hoarding data or keeping it secret to be used for your personal benefit isn’t an acceptable way to highlight your skills.
8. Our teams have multiple levels of oversight and input. In academia your lab head was likely the only person to whom you were responsible. In industry there are multiple layers of managers to whom you are either directly or indirectly responsible. Your work will be managed by your team leader, who in turn is managed by a VP or Director, all of whom are responsible for ensuring that the work you and your team do is focused and productive. To academics it can seem confusing when someone from, for example, business development or even finance asks questions about a project that you’re working on. In industry everyone has a stake and input in what you’re doing. When evaluating the utility of a new project or the viability of an existing one, many considerations beyond science come into play. Could this project lead to a viable product and if so, how long might that take? Can we find a corporate partner to support it? Do we or others have intellectual property associated with the project? What is the anticipated market for this product?
9. Welcome to matrix management. If you become a member of a “functional team” the management structure may be unfamiliar to you. If for example you’re in the Assay Development Group, you will report to your team leader or manager (often called a “line manager”) who is responsible for ensuring that you perform your work up to scientific expectations. Your actual working time, however, may be fractionally allocated to multiple projects, each managed by a different Project Manager who is responsible for progress on that project. So, you now have two kinds of managers, your Line Manager and your Project Manager. Simply put, your project manager is responsible for what you do and your line manager for how you do it.
10. Love the science, but don’t fall in love with it. Academic projects often spawn offshoot projects leading to new directions in research. In a company like ours this may not be not possible. We need to stay focused on achieving our objectives.
11. Always keep in mind the difference between “perfection” and “good enough.” Perfection is fine if it doesn’t take forever, and it typically does. Consequently, you may be asked to come up with solutions that are good enough to solve the problem so that you can move on to the next problem. Good enough today is typically better than perfect tomorrow.
12. Management may talk about your science in ways that you are not used to. As a scientist you are trained to be conservative in how you talk about your results, weighing all possible interpretations and stating conclusions as being tentative and requiring multiple replications and verifications. You may find that when management talks about these same results they express an optimism that makes you uncomfortable. You see your results as “preliminary,” “tentative,” and needing replication,” and they talk about them as “exciting,” “groundbreaking,” and “proof of concept.” This is all OK and is an example of you doing your job and them doing theirs.
13. Power structures and hierarchies are facts of life. Spirited debate about the interpretation of data and the next steps to take are a hallmark of good science and are fully supported here. At the same time, there will on occasion come a time when decisions are made that you may not agree with. For some such decisions you may be asked for your input while for others you may not. In either case you need to accept that once you have given your input it may be someone else’s responsibility to make the decision. This approach enables us to make decisions in a nimble manner and adhere to our timelines.
Want to learn more? Read “Lab Dynamics: Management and Leadership Skills for Scientists” 3rd ed. 2018 by Carl M Cohen and Suzanne L Cohen, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Chapter 11 “Science Inc., Making a smooth transition to Industry”
Carl M. Cohen, Ph.D.
President, Science Management Associates
www.sciencema.com