Helping the Minoritized Achieve in Academic Science

Posts tagged ‘management course’

Management: Documentation

documentationMy management course is now officially over. I feel that I learned a lot. I think I will actually be a better manager. That doesn’t mean I am terrible now, or that I will be perfect later, but I have gained the knowledge of several specific activities/actions that I can do to be a better manager. The last two things I will endeavor to do better are (1) documentation and (2) progressive discipline. In this post, I will discuss my new approach to documentation.

When I took the management course I thought I was documenting what was going on in the lab enough. Here is what I was doing before:

  1. I have people give weekly lab meetings. They make a weekly Powerpoint that goes into a Dropbox Folder.
  2. Everyone is supposed to write a report at the end of each semester and at the end of the summer. The report has specific things for them to write about. It includes them doing a self-evaluation.
  3. When I met with people one-on-one, I took notes in some notebook.

But, I realize that I can’t remember what people in the lab did over the entire last year. I can only remember the last 3 months. And, I don’t go back to look at those things they produced before. Sometimes they don’t do what I ask, and I don’t have Powerpoints in Dropbox or end of semester reports. Then, I have nothing to document what they did. Further, these are all self-documentations of stuff they did as they saw it. It is useful, but they are not necessarily my impressions of what they did or (more importantly) how they performed. I realized I needed a new system.

My first thought was to have paper files for each person where I write my thoughts and comments, but then I was worried my office might look like that picture above, and decided against it. Instead, I asked around at the management course, and a couple of people there were already documenting things well. They have a word document (or other program- pick your favorite) for each employee. Whenever the person does something good, they write it down and date it. If the person does something bad, they write it down and date it. By the end of the year, when they need to do an annual review, they have all the goods and bads documented, and can just pull up the document and read it to remind themselves.

Based on this approach, I made my own plan. Here is my plan:

  1. I have a word document for each person.
  2. When I have a one-on-one meeting with the person where we discuss what will be done, experiments, things for graduate program, tasks, I will write it up there and date it. For tasks and assignments, I will copy and paste it into an email, so we are all on the same page.
  3. I will also monthly or twice a month write my impressions from the most recent weeks. I will say things like, “GradStudent did a good job this week on xyz experiment,” or, “Postdoc was OK, but needs to focus on ABC and defocus from LNMO. Jenny will have a discussion with Postdoc about this within a week.”
  4. I will use this information for grad students when talking to their committees. I will use this information for postdocs when writing their letters for jobs. I will use this information for undergrads when writing letters of recommendation or determining their grades for semester research credits. I will use this information for technicians when performing their yearly evaluations.
  5. I will use this information when documenting performance and if I need to implement “progressive discipline.” What is progressive discipline? Tune in next time to find out more.

So, what do you think of this plan? I think the hardest part will be remembering to do it. Remember to bring your computer. Remember to open the document while talking. Remember to make notes on the person once a month or so. I have held on for a month so far.

Are their any suggestions you would recommend? I am open to alternatives. Comment or post here. Also, to receive an email every time I post (I promise to be better once I get over the current hump in work load), push the +Follow button.

Category:

Career, Mentoring, TimeManagement

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Management: Delegation

I was feeling pretty down about how crappy my meetings are. I am glad to hear that not all academic meetings are so bad from readers and friends. It gives me hope that my meetings will go better if I try and practice good meeting habits.

The same week, we also talked about delegation. As bad as my meetings are, my ability to delegate was inversely awesome! We took a little quiz, and I scored great on it. Take the quiz here:

Delegation Quiz:

YES NO
1. I spend more time than I should doing the work of my students. Y N
2. I often find myself working while my students are idle. Y N
3. I believe I should be able to personally answer any question about any project in my group. Y N
4. My inbox mail is usually full. Y N
5. My students usually take the initiative to solve problems without my direction. Y N
6. My research group operates smoothly when I am away. Y N
7. I spend more time working on details than I do on planning or supervising. Y N
8. My students feel they have sufficient authority over personnel, finances, facilities, and other resources for which they are responsible. Y N
9. I have bypassed my students by making decisions that were part of their job. Y N
10. If I were incapacitated for an extended period of time, there is someone who could take my place. Y N
11. There is usually a big pile of work requiring my action when I return from an absence. Y N
12. I have assigned a task to a student mainly because it was distasteful to me. Y N
13. I know the interests and goals of every student in the research group. Y N
14. I make it a habit to follow up on jobs I delegate. Y N
15. I delegate complete projects as opposed to individual tasks whenever possible. Y N
16. My students are trained to maximum potential. Y N
17. I find it difficult to ask others to do things. Y N
18. I trust my students to do their best in my absence. Y N
19. My students are performing below their capacities. Y N
20. I nearly always give credit for a job well done. Y N
21. My students refer more work to me than I delegate to them. Y N
22. I support my students when their authority is questioned. Y N
23. I personally do those assignments one I can or should do. Y N
24. Work piles up at some point in my operation. Y N
25. All students know what is expected of them in order of priority. Y N

 

Scoring:

Give yourself one point each if you answered “Yes” for #5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25

Give yourself one point each is you answered “No” for #1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 12, 17, 19, 21, 24.

Score 20-25: You have excellent delegation skills that help the efficiency and morale of your research group. You maximize your effectiveness as a leader and help develop the full potential of your students.

Score 15-19: Your score is adequate, but not excellent. To correct, review the questions you did not receive a point for and take appropriate steps so as to not repeat the mistakes.

Score <14: Inability to delegate is reducing your effectiveness as a leader. This results in lower performance. Determine if you are unwilling to relinquish power and why. Inability to delegate can cause dissatisfaction among your students. They will not develop job interest and important skills unless you improve.

How did you score? I had a 22/25. The other classmates, who all work in regular offices or as crew managers, were grumbling about my awesome score. One person said, “I know what the correct answers are, but I answered honestly,” (not meanly, but in a dejected sort of way). The thing is, delegation is essential to running a research group. If you do not properly delegate, you will probably not succeed at running a research group in academic science.

The reason for this is two fold:

1. You cannot do all the things to get this job done by yourself. You will not be able to do all the research, write all the papers, make all the figures, write all the grants, teach all the courses, review all the papers and grants, serve on all the committees, yadda yadda yadda. Delegation is a matter of survival.

2. Your job is to train people. The best way to train someone to replace you is to give them some parts of your job to try out. This means not just doing the research, but all practice writing the papers and making figures, practice giving the talks, even practice reviewing papers. These things will have to be done with more or less supervision depending on the student’s abilities and maturity in research. But, by delegating tasks, the student will learn, feel apart of the team, and you will get more work done.

Another reason why I can delegate more than my peers in the management course is that running a lab is like running a small business. I can run it how I see fit. Delegating certain responsibilities of the job to my students make me more effective and efficient, so I take full advantage. I can also hire and fire, which many of my peers cannot do. If someone really can’t handle any task I give them (including research), I let them go. I don’t think it does anyone any good to keep someone in the lab who cannot make any contribution at all.

What do you think? Is delegation important? How well do you delegate? Is there a difference between delegation and training? Post or comment here. To receive an email every time I post, push the +Follow button.

Category:

Career, Mentoring, Research, Service, Teaching, Tenure, TimeManagement

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More Management Stuff

S._Sgt._Lorraine_Robitaille,_switchboard_supervisor,_from_Duluth,_Minnesota,_looks_down_the_line_of_the_Victory..._-_NARA_-_199009Over the past year and a half of this blog (has it been that long?) I have had a number of posts about research group management (i.e. here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Wow! That’s a lot. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to manage my group well, but I don’t always think that I succeed. I had previously lamented before that I could not find a course locally to help with leadership or management. Well, I am happy to say that I have found and I am currently enrolled and taking such a course at my university.

How I found a course: Every year, we get a flyer about workplace development at UState. In some years, I went through it looking for interesting courses that would help me, but found nothing. Other years, I was so overwhelmed with stuff and getting tenure that I have no idea if i even got the flyer. This year, I noticed, looked, and saw two courses. One was half day workshop on stuff that seemed useful, but the one I signed up for meets 7 weeks for three hour sessions and is about being a Supervisor. A supervisor! That is what I am! I was using the wrong word before. This is why I stink at Googling. Anyway, I found the course and signed up.

Who this course is for: This course is geared toward anyone at UState who supervises others. It is also geared toward staff. The course has a majority of participants who are on campus staff, several participants who work for local non-profits and the local town governments, and two professors – myself and another WomanOfScience I convinced to take the course. The sessions are 3 hours every week for 7 weeks, and the time is during a seminar that I normally attend, so I am giving up some things to attend this course. I was a bit worried that they wouldn’t professors take the course, but we were welcomed to the course.

Is it good?: We have had two sessions (I will talk more about them in follow-up posts), and I am very happy with it. I feel like I am learning a lot! I would highly recommend taking  course like this. Also, having the course mostly filled with “normal people” who do not live for their jobs, but rather deal with a 9-5 business is good. It is great to see that they have similar issues that academics have. The course is taught in an active learning style where we discuss in small groups, share with the class, role play, and often do kinesthetic activities. Also, even though it is 3 hours, the time flies by, because the topic is interesting and I am very excited in learning about it.

So, I will be giving some updates about both the lessons I am learning and the effectiveness of trying to implement these lessons over the next few weeks. Stay tuned to have a bad version of a second-hand management course. To get an email every time I post, push the +Follow button.

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Career, Mentoring, New Job

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