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Essentials for Effectively Supervising Employees
Virginia M. Miller, MBA, PhD and Priscilla M. Flynn, DrPH
Mayo Clinic
Virginia M. Miller, Ph.D. (right) is Professor of Surgery and Physiology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine . She received her B.S. degree from Slippery Rock State University, Slippery Rock, PA, her Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Missouri, and her Master's of Business Administration from the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. In addition to supervising a laboratory for over twenty years, Dr. Miller has served as Director for the Office of Women's Health at Mayo Clinic and as a member of Council and chaired various committees for the American Physiological Society. She is currently president-elect for the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences
Priscilla Flynn, DrPH, (left) is Coordinator of the Mayo Clinic Office of Women's Health and Instructor in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. She received her B.S. from the University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, her MPH from the University of Wisconson- LaCrosse and her DrPH from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. She has extensive experience in supervising a diverse range of employees in government, non-profit and business environments.
After years of study and working for others as a student and post-doctoral fellow, successfully navigating the job search and interview process, you have finally landed your first “real” job as an independent investigator with a laboratory of your own. Now what? Most graduate and post-graduate programs do not prepare you for this new position as a manager/”boss”. Certainly, managing your time and resources enabled you to attain success. However, with your new independence and job title comes responsibility for not only setting the long-term goals for your laboratory, securing enough funds to sustain employment for technicians and students, and assuring that institutional and governmental regulations are adhered to, but most importantly managing a productive team of technicians, students, and post-doctoral fellows. Graduate school does not prepare you for addressing, managing and perhaps negotiating disagreements among employees and dealing with personnel and integrity problems. These problems can disrupt the work flow and in extreme cases may result in termination of employment for those working with you. This article highlights key points and provides suggestions to help navigate the new path toward management.
Establishing Your Management Style
Being the head of the laboratory naturally carries authority of position and most employees and students respect that authority. The execution of that authority will depend upon your personality and personal expectations. Some self-reflection which follows the age old adage “know thyself” and “to thine own self be true” will help you understand your leadership/managerial style. Insight derived from your new understanding will influence your decisions about the type of people who you will (or should) hire and the type of students who will be attracted to your laboratory. Answering the following questions will help you to define your style:
- Are you an innovator, bridger or implementer? That is, are you an idea generator but can’t stay to task long enough to complete a paper (i.e., an innovator)? Or given a single idea, you enjoy the detail (i.e., an implementer)? Or are you energized by ideas generated by interdisciplinary teams and then delegate tasks to others to complete (i.e. a bridger)? Understanding where you fit along this spectrum may influence the type of technical support needed to complement your strengths and maximize the work flow with limited resources. Whatever you do, don’t hire clones of yourself. Although it’s difficult to admit your have weaknesses, recognizing and hiring staff that strengthen your team will enhance the success of your laboratory.
- What is your trust level? Can you delegate tasks? The answer to this question may change with time as you learn the skills and personality of personnel in your laboratory. Scientists tend to be type A (or AAAA) personalities but learning to delegate non-critical tasks can save you time for thinking about the big ideas. There is risk associated with delegating tasks. Miscommunication and different work styles may result in work not being accomplished the way you would do it or in a timely manner and mistakes can occur along the way. Consider the cost of potential errors and how willing you are to “not sweat the small stuff” as long as the work is accomplished accurately and ethically. Remember “All roads lead to Rome.”
- What is important to you? Do you want to manage a large laboratory, work 24-7, become President of APS, sustain relationships with family and friends, remain active in hobbies, etc.? Writing a personal mission statement can help sort out these priorities and influence your expectations for laboratory personnel and how you deal with planning, deadlines and disputes.
Common Problems and Common Sense Solutions
Diversity in research staff creates a dynamic and exciting environment for discovery. However, diversity in language of origin, culture, ethnicity, training background and generation (age ranges) means that not all persons in the laboratory share your communication skills or style, have the same work ethic or moral compass. The likelihood for problems and conflicts to arise in a fixed laboratory space is directly proportional to the number of creative, independent and career-minded people occupying that space. Most performance problems are related to lack of understanding of a set of expectations between you and the employee/student (Sample 1: see below). A brief orientation discussion with the new technician, student or fellow regarding expectations for work hours, use of cell phones in the laboratory, personal use of internet and email during work, music and dress code will go a long way to reduce minor problems about performance (Sample 2: see below). To reduce errors related to persons for whom English is a second language, a short description with these expectations bulleted or itemized is useful.
Most problems that are encountered in the laboratory along the management-road to success can be classified as “bumps in the road”. These are the minor disagreements among individuals regarding use of shared equipment/supplies, scheduling, etc. These disagreements can usually be resolved without intervention on your part.
Major detours along the path, include personal crises, such as an accident resulting in physical injury, prolonged illness, death of a family member, marriage, pregnancy and divorce. These life events can create stress in the work leading to staff conflicts. In instances where there are accidents leading to permanent disability or diagnosis of terminal illness, compassion and sensitivity must be employed so as retain the dignity of the person involved. Working with your institution’s department of human resources will assure that legal requirements surrounding family leave, American Disabilities Act and OSHA, etc. are met.
Landmines which, if not detected early and dealt with properly, blow up to destroy the road to success. Events in this category include scientific misconduct, substance abuse and harassment. Again, for these issues, help from your institution’s human resource department or research administration is essential. It is naïve to think that these issues will never happen in your laboratory, because over the course of twenty years of managing a laboratory, I have encountered all of them.
Mistakes Managers Make
In assessing the various types of conflicts and interpersonal issues that arise, it is helpful to avoid these common mistakes:
Conflict avoidance: The natural tendency is to avoid conflict, hope that it will go away or resolve itself. However, this natural tendency may lead to the second common mistake, waiting to long to intervene.
Waiting too long to intervene: This mistake can lead to irreparable working relationships among individuals in the laboratory. Experiments may fail and data can be lost both costing time and money. Keep a pulse on the laboratory and observe personal interactions and team performance. Be aware that laboratory personnel expect you to maintain a productive work environment. Therefore, sooner is better than later for appropriate intervention. Repetition of minor conflicts between the same two individuals or one individual with multiple people should trigger action on your part. Early intervention is essential if you suspect substance abuse, harassment or scientific misconduct.
Fear of tough decisions: Fear of making a tough decision is understandable because of both immediate and long-term consequences that could ultimately affect your or an other’s career or health. Inevitably, with most tough decisions, not all will agree or be happy with your decision. However, the outcome of your laboratory and overall welfare of your staff need to be your focus.
Criticism without enough praise: A little bit of praise goes a long way in promoting productivity and loyalty, especially if the performance issue in question has been improved. What would you like to hear? Thank you goes a long way.
Lack of creativity in approaching conflict resolution: There are many ways to reach a solution and one size does not fit all. Specific circumstances, the personalities involved and the desired outcome should be considered in developing a strategy to deal with the conflict.
Documentation: Although your goal should be to help your staff be successful, some situations do not improve. Make sure that you document interactions that are serious enough to lead to dismissal and inform the employee that you are doing so.
Five-step Plan Toward Conflict Resolution
If the situation requires your intervention, these five elements should be considered in planning a creative strategy to resolve a conflict:
- Define the goal prior to the meeting.
- Determine the setting: your office, a neutral place, does a third party need to be present, across a table or open seating. These elements will help to formalize or defuse tension depending upon the circumstances.
- Control your emotions. Easier said than done, right? But step 4 can help with this.
- Practice what you will say. Talk out loud to yourself. Create a dialogue that you anticipate and say the words out loud. This simple exercise can help you “hear” how the words sound, measure the intonation in your voice and help you to anticipate responses. Repetition helps to diffuse an emotional delivery as you become used to delivering the message.
- AVOID EMAIL AND VOICE MAIL! Although these means of communication are acceptable and quick for conveying factual information, they are not appropriate for conflict resolution. Face to face is best, but in some circumstances, a phone call with back-and-forth dialog may be sufficient.
Once a meeting begins, the problem should be described. The impact and potential consequences of the continued conflict/problem should be addressed. Although you have practiced a scenario prior to the meeting, listen to what is being said by others. If you need to calm yourself, a deep breath and repeating what you have heard helps to slow the pace. This also allows the others involved to see that you understand their point of view. Options for resolution need to be presented. In some cases, the option is clear-cut and can be dictated by you. For example, deadlines that need to be met or performance that needs to be changed. In other cases, a compromise resolution can be discussed and agreed upon. In the latter case, follow-up, which should include encouragement and praise, where appropriate, is essential.
The Bottom Line
Surrounding yourself by eager young people from diverse backgrounds creates an exciting, dynamic laboratory for discovery. Recent studies show that although diverse teams are more creative, they take more time to form effective collaborations due to cultural or age differences. If you understand your managerial style and have clear expectations for yourself and others in the workplace, on most days work flows easily, everyone is productive and the trip along the road to success is smooth. However, life stresses, miscommunications and work ethics may create circumstances that disrupt the trip. The responsibility will fall to you, as the head of the laboratory, to intervene appropriately and in some cases make the “hard call.” Your actions may not be accepted by all but “to thine own self be true.” You will make mistakes along the way. Learn from them, admit when you were wrong, forgive yourself and others, and then move down the road.
Other resources
Books:
- Covey, Steven R. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (2004). Free Press, ISBN: 0743269519.
- Warren, Rick. Purpose Driven Life (2007). Zondervan, ISBN: 0310276993.
- McCain, John and Mark Salter. Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them (2007). Twelve, ISBN: 0446580406.
Recommended Workshops
Comments:
As Drs. Miller and Flynn have discussed, e-mail and voice mail are poor substitutes for interaction when trying to resolve conflicts. Even if a good-faith effort is made to provide constructive comments, it is too easy to misconstrue the meaning. That being said, e-mail in particular does offer an advantage in situations other than conflict resolution. With any personnel issue, both good and bad, documentation is everything. Regardless of whether you are considering promotion or sanction, you will want to enumerate the reasons. I have found that an e-mail sent to myself provides a record. It is easy to do, and the e-mail comes with an automatic time and date stamp. When things go right, I take a moment to note the particulars and the individuals involved. When things go wrong, I do the same thing. Of course, you will always want to keep things fair and civil. Keep in mind that anything written in any form, be it e-mail, memorandum, or post-it note, could some day appear in the local newspaper.
Thomas A. Pressley
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Drs. Miller and Flynn provide excellent essentials. I will reinforce that written expectations for lab conduct for every new lab coworker and at least annual review of the expectations for all coworkers are essential. Written expectations are helpful for all coworkers, regardless of whether English is their second or first language, so that clear expectations are documented. The cliché “common sense is not common” rings true here and one should not assume, especially due to diverse backgrounds, that everyone holds similar standards. As pointed out, work hours, use of cell phones and computers, etc. are not trivial issues. I would add items such as general guidelines for effective lab communication, procedures for ordering and receiving items, washing dishes, general lab etiquette (e.g., maintaining a clean workspace), etc. I further suggest that to require some commitment to the guidelines the supervisor could ask all coworkers to sign a form stating that they have read and agree to these policies. Specifically, we have found it necessary to require coworkers to sign a statement prohibiting downloading any games and software to lab computers because of the danger of viruses. Are these just onerous, restrictive policies that stifle the coworkers’ creativity and individual style? Answer: No, these policies help everyone achieve excellence and their highest potential by communicating effectively.
Michael Sturek
Indiana University School of Medicine
This month's article hit home for me as a junior faculty member about to submit my tenure application. Managing my new, independent, and EMPTY laboratory has been wrought with challenges and opportunities for rapid learning.
- The idea of knowing your management style and being true to yourself is, I have found, critical. Trying to be someone or something that you are not requires energy that may be better expended in more productive arenas.
- Delegating responsibility and trusting others to perform was a significant hurdle for me to overcome. It wasn't that I didn't trust my students (or at least some of them), but was a function of years spent working alone and being responsible for entire projects as a graduate student and postdoctoral fellow. I have since learned to be a better delegator...but still have occasional issues when a student presents me with a data set or graph and I have to seek out the detailed parameters of the experimental design before I can think about what the results "really mean." Was this a 1-hour or 2-hour incubation? What was the concentration of the primary antibody that you used? How much protein did you load on the gel, and where is your loading control? I am certain that these conundrums arise, in part, from gaps in my mentoring and managing.
- I have been extremely fortunate so far, in having laboratory personnel who generally get along with one another and with me quite well. Those who have been problematic have largely disappeared of their own accord. In an effort to prevent future conflicts, I discuss lab and personality issues with my trainees during our individual meetings and am (very) careful to keep their comments in confidence. I also do what I can to help students plan experiments in advance and inform the others when certain equipment will be in heavy use or when our priorities may have to shift for grant deadlines, travel, etc. Drs. Miller and Flynn have effectively reminded me, however, that documentation is an important step that I often forget or put off until my memory may be less than accurate regarding the events in question.
Kristin L. Gosselink
University of Texas at El Paso
It is good to think about management style at this point in my career, when I am a postdoctoral fellow and not yet started my own lab. I think it will be better to hire personnel with these guidelines in place rather than trying to implement them after personnel has gotten used to their own way of doing things. These guidelines can even be brought up during the interview process, so the potential trainees/ employees get a clear picture of my management style.
Sarah Hoffmann Lindsey
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
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