How Science Lost Me

Hello to my readers.  I intend for this blog to be a synthesis of thoughts that originate in conversations and experiences from my every day life.  It is not meant as a ranting medium or method of passively aggressively achieving catharsis, but as a forum for thinkers to exchange interesting thought nuggets about humanity. 

Onto my first topic: How science lost me.  I was a Biology Major in college.  Everything about science fascinated me.  You could explain away any concern or solve any problem in the world with it.  Why do lightning bugs glow?  Well that's a simple chemical reaction involving luminol.  What causes tornadoes?  That's a principle of physics involving thermodynamics.  Why are some people resistant to HIV?  That's a genetic principle involving cellular receptors.   I knew I would love my career forever, as long as it involved one of the scientific disciplines.

However, my naïf enthusiasm was eroded away with time as I entered the real world.  I worked in a research lab at PPG for a year.  Then I spent 2 years getting a master's degree in Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.  I went on to work at a Biotech start up and then moved on to an academic Immunology lab at Pitt.  Through these experiences, I noticed that the academic world of science is a very toxic place.  I felt this in my gut, but am only beginning to understand it after some enlightening thoughts I've encountered at business school. 

You might be thinking, "Toxic? That's a pretty strong word. I don't know if I believe this."  I've had several conversations with others who have similar positions and their observations have been similar as well.

First of all, the average academic lab is a horizontally structured environment.  In the corporate world, there is much more vertical hierarchy (a CEO is in charge of a team of upper management, who manage the middle management, who manage the entry level positions).  In an academic lab, you have the Principle Investigator who is in charge of everyone.  "Everyone" has different levels of skills and education and therefore the PhD's tend to think that they're most important or more in-control than the non PhD's. This phenomenon gives rise to sub-hierarchies that don't formally exist, but are abided.  They are typically put into place by the occurrence of a PhD temper tantrum.  Subsequently, all others take a submissive position in order to avoid conflict.

 In addition to a subjective hierarchical structure, ego's are encouraged and teamwork is discouraged.  Sure, academic scientists "collaborate," but these collaborations are full of posturing, battles for control and credit disputes.  

This is due to a foundational flaw in the system: Lack of concrete benchmarks and proper incentives.  

In any corporate workplace, teamwork is encouraged to achieve corporate goals.  Usually a product or service is the end goal and increase in revenue or product launches is a concrete number by which to gauge success.  In academia, publishing papers and obtaining grants is the only means of measuring success.  Therefore, when your project is launched, your goal is to have as few team mates as possible so you don't have to share credit when the paper is published.  Therefore, you hope that the only idea generators in the project are you, you, and you.  You also don't appreciate the inputs of others, even though the inputs might be valuable.  

I can objectively say that this is a terrible incentivizing structure.  Instead of gathering people with different ideas and different talents, you try to exclude them.  Can anyone tell me how this environment leads to innovation?  

I recently read an amazing article in the July-August 2011 edition of the Harvard Business Review.  It is entitled "Bringing minds together."  In this article, the founder of Boston Scientific expresses similar ideas about how the structure of an organization determines whether innovation will be successful.  He agrees that academia is outside of the mold and left me inspired by the following quote: 

"The ability to lead leaders is a rare skill."  

When you get to a certain point in life, everyone you're surrounded by is motivated.  They all got good grades in school and they all try to get ahead in life.  Therefore they are all going to be constantly competing with one another.  A truly talented leader will observe and identify each person's unique strengths and synthesize a scenario where everyone can work together, feel good about their unique strengths, and recognize the strengths of others.  People spend so much time working against each other on a social level, that if they were able to focus collectively on the work at hand, they could be insanely productive.  It is up to the company to use their talents in the most effective way possible. 

I think there are plenty of thought nuggets for now and will conclude my post.  The main lessons I've gathered from these thoughts:

1. Always stay passionate about what you're doing.....life gets really boring when you lose it.

2. Try to find healthy work environments that allow you to do your passion and appreciate you while you're doing it.

3. If you hate temper tantrums, stay away from 3 year olds and PhD's.