Changing the world, making a dent in the universe, it sounds good but what does it really mean? I like to focus on the world that I touch every day. We all have the power to change our little piece of the world. We influence our friends, family, coworkers, bosses, teachers, classmates, or other people at the gym by the way we go about our business. We also have the power to change ourselves. We can strive to get better and be better. It's all a matter of choosing.
"We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are" - Max De Pree
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in a world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it." - David Beckham
Friday, May 27, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Play the Game
I watched an old nemesis scrounging for scraps of recognition from our manager in a meeting a couple of days ago. There was a brief moment where I felt like I was outside of an important loop, but then I realized that The Big Cheese and Mini-Cheese were chasing scraps. They were discussing a minor task that makes us feel important, but their little situation is nothing more than the minutiae that comes with getting a new product on the market. There are always issues that need resolution, but they have very little impact on the direction or success of the division.
Now that I no longer give a shit, it's easier for me accept that my group truly is nothing more than a support function. We're there to advance projects, that's it. We are expected to take care of these annoying little issues as they pop up with as little discussion and argument as possible. We merely execute plans and strategies put in place three or four levels up and over in the organization. Decisions, strategies, and the direction of the business are plotted elsewhere. Executing those plans, just pieces of those plans really, is what the leadership expects from my facility.
Rather than become more and more bitter as my group wastes its talent and resources on meaningless details, I'm going to play the game and take a formulations assignment. This is the quickest way for me to get out from under the mass of my large and largely insignificant group. I'll still be wasting my time on a copycat, me-too project, but this shift into a product design role is a necessary step to reach a position that will have the power and influence to reshape the perception and application of analytical labs and other technical aspects of the pharma business.
This is not the only step that I have in mind. This is merely the first of a three-pronged assault.
Now that I no longer give a shit, it's easier for me accept that my group truly is nothing more than a support function. We're there to advance projects, that's it. We are expected to take care of these annoying little issues as they pop up with as little discussion and argument as possible. We merely execute plans and strategies put in place three or four levels up and over in the organization. Decisions, strategies, and the direction of the business are plotted elsewhere. Executing those plans, just pieces of those plans really, is what the leadership expects from my facility.
Rather than become more and more bitter as my group wastes its talent and resources on meaningless details, I'm going to play the game and take a formulations assignment. This is the quickest way for me to get out from under the mass of my large and largely insignificant group. I'll still be wasting my time on a copycat, me-too project, but this shift into a product design role is a necessary step to reach a position that will have the power and influence to reshape the perception and application of analytical labs and other technical aspects of the pharma business.
This is not the only step that I have in mind. This is merely the first of a three-pronged assault.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Who needs a classroom?
Amid all my career crises and angst, I've continued to plug away at my online MBA classes at Marist College. My participation in this program has complicated my planning around making a change in my career as I will have to payback the tuition reimbursement if I leave PCH. That factor has made me question whether or not I should keep participating in the program, but whatever direction my MBA studies take, my foray into online learning has lowered my barrier to resisting other education venues that are popping up on the internet.
I recently began listening to the entrepreneurial talks given at Stanford that are readily accessible as podcasts. Besides giving me the opportunity to fulfill a youthful ambition to attend Stanford (that was target school in high school), the talks have been uniformly informative and well done. I tend to prefer the talks given by professors more than those given by actual entrepreneurs, but I guess that's not surprising given my academic biases. I downloaded a couple of talks from MIT onto my iPod this afternoon. (I've added links to the school's resources, but I actually found the lectures through iTunes.) It seems like a waste to leave the insights and knowledge shared in these talks just laying around. They're also a great way to increase bulk positive randomness. Who knows when an idea I pick up in these talks could provide the key I need to solve a tricky problem.
If I was not getting ready to bury myself in accounting for 8 weeks, I would seriously consider trying to take an actual class that has been posted online for anybody to take at their leisure. (Isn't this supposed to be the ticket to a world class education pretty soon?) My inability to grasp linear algebra has made if very difficult for me to understand the mathematics behind a data analysis technique that I've managed to implement at work. Could this class be my ticket to a linear algebra breakthrough? I would like to try, but it will have to wait until I've finished accounting.
I recently began listening to the entrepreneurial talks given at Stanford that are readily accessible as podcasts. Besides giving me the opportunity to fulfill a youthful ambition to attend Stanford (that was target school in high school), the talks have been uniformly informative and well done. I tend to prefer the talks given by professors more than those given by actual entrepreneurs, but I guess that's not surprising given my academic biases. I downloaded a couple of talks from MIT onto my iPod this afternoon. (I've added links to the school's resources, but I actually found the lectures through iTunes.) It seems like a waste to leave the insights and knowledge shared in these talks just laying around. They're also a great way to increase bulk positive randomness. Who knows when an idea I pick up in these talks could provide the key I need to solve a tricky problem.
If I was not getting ready to bury myself in accounting for 8 weeks, I would seriously consider trying to take an actual class that has been posted online for anybody to take at their leisure. (Isn't this supposed to be the ticket to a world class education pretty soon?) My inability to grasp linear algebra has made if very difficult for me to understand the mathematics behind a data analysis technique that I've managed to implement at work. Could this class be my ticket to a linear algebra breakthrough? I would like to try, but it will have to wait until I've finished accounting.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Two sides of the IDGAS coin
I Don't Give A Shit so I'm going to do some of this and some of that until events conspire to eject me out of here. That's one side of the IDGAS coin.
I Don't Give A Shit so I'm going to pursue a crazy scheme to mix things up a little because I don't have anything to lose. That's the other side.
It's a choice between quitting but sticking around to collect a paycheck, or recognizing an opportunity to play on the edge, push the limits, and be a little impatient.
I choose to play the maverick.
I Don't Give A Shit so I'm going to pursue a crazy scheme to mix things up a little because I don't have anything to lose. That's the other side.
It's a choice between quitting but sticking around to collect a paycheck, or recognizing an opportunity to play on the edge, push the limits, and be a little impatient.
I choose to play the maverick.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
It all starts with culture...
From Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans, as quoted in Ahead of the Curve:
"We really became philosophically driven real early. It all starts and ends with culture, environment, philosophy. It's all about who we are versus what we do. There is nothing more important you can do than to ingrain a culture where everybody is looking and has the power to make changes."
The author of the book adds a comment about how Gilbert's words reflect what he heard in some of his classes. That last line reminds him that one professor told them to "always be alert to a better way of doing everything, never stop innovating."
I couldn't have said it better myself.
"We really became philosophically driven real early. It all starts and ends with culture, environment, philosophy. It's all about who we are versus what we do. There is nothing more important you can do than to ingrain a culture where everybody is looking and has the power to make changes."
The author of the book adds a comment about how Gilbert's words reflect what he heard in some of his classes. That last line reminds him that one professor told them to "always be alert to a better way of doing everything, never stop innovating."
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Desiging for Human Nature
We are highly refined adaptation nodes operating in an intricate web of social interactions. Our bodies, muscles and mind, adapt to sustained effort by developing new abilities that promote higher levels of performance in those individuals who dedicate the requisite energy and resources. We continuously adapt to our social environment by effortlessly participating in an intricate exchange of signs signaling our mood, intent, and interest. The technological infrastructure that has been put in place over our history allows ideas to travel effortlessly to all points of the globe. Those ideas form the raw material for new ideas that push back boundaries and broaden how we understand our world. Our cognitive wiring is designed to take advantage of our social nature to maximize how we build on and expand the ideas that we encounter in our struggles with whatever problem piques our interest.
Human Nature is messy and fractal. It defies simple categorization. It craves space to expand and explore. Does our McDonaldized culture reflect those human needs? Research of any type is an exquisitely human activity. Left unencumbered by corporate or political dictates, a group of people can solve any problem. Industrial R&D labs do not reflect the inherent human needs of the research process. One or two brave companies could revolutionize an industry if they were brave enough to design their labs around the scientists instead of designing their research program to satisfy a corporate board. If there are any companies already working this way, I need to find them ASAP.
(Significant number of links to be added soon...)
Human Nature is messy and fractal. It defies simple categorization. It craves space to expand and explore. Does our McDonaldized culture reflect those human needs? Research of any type is an exquisitely human activity. Left unencumbered by corporate or political dictates, a group of people can solve any problem. Industrial R&D labs do not reflect the inherent human needs of the research process. One or two brave companies could revolutionize an industry if they were brave enough to design their labs around the scientists instead of designing their research program to satisfy a corporate board. If there are any companies already working this way, I need to find them ASAP.
(Significant number of links to be added soon...)
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
How bad do you want it?
The Edge tests your dedication. Every step closer to The Edge is a testament to how much you want it. How hard will you work to push past the barriers, get through the pain, find a solution to a problem that doesn't appear to have an answer? I've never had to push through extreme physical barriers that leave the hardest of the hard beaten and defeated, but I've taken the measure of a challenge and decided that I was going to beat it.
Deprived of support in our environment and the support of our own bodies, the only thing propping us up was our belief in accomplishing the mission—complete Hell Week. In psychology this belief is called self-efficacy. Even when the mission seems impossible, it is the strength of our belief that makes success possible. The absence of this belief guarantees failure. A strong belief in the mission fuels our ability to focus, put forth effort, and persist. Believing allows us to see the goal (complete Hell Week) and break the goal down into more manageable objectives (one evolution at a time). If the evolution is a boat race, it can be broken down into even smaller objectives such as paddling. Believing allows us to seek out strategies to accomplish the objectives, such as using the larger shoulder muscles to paddle rather than the smaller forearm muscles. Then, when the race is done, move on to the next evolution. Thinking too much about what happened and what is about to happen will wear you down. Live in the moment and take it one step at a time.
I'm leaving PCH. I'm leaving PCH because it's an organization that faces a challenge and finds the quickest way to avoid dealing with it. Challenges are reasons to quit for PCH. For me, a challenge proves that the goal is worth pursuing. If it was easy, somebody else would be doing it already. PCH always follows because they always choose the easiest route. I've been working on a new product for most of the time that I've been with the company. My colleagues and I have faced and overcome numerous technical challenges. The entire enterprise, four years of concentrated effort, could be sunk because the business would rather shelve a project that faces a challenge rather than finding a way to remove the barriers between consumers and a product that works really well. We'll never get ahead until we do the hard work to get in front of other companies. The task is too big. The company is too small. Our leaders don't believe that the organization is up to the task. I guess we just don't want it bad enough. I've had enough.
Deprived of support in our environment and the support of our own bodies, the only thing propping us up was our belief in accomplishing the mission—complete Hell Week. In psychology this belief is called self-efficacy. Even when the mission seems impossible, it is the strength of our belief that makes success possible. The absence of this belief guarantees failure. A strong belief in the mission fuels our ability to focus, put forth effort, and persist. Believing allows us to see the goal (complete Hell Week) and break the goal down into more manageable objectives (one evolution at a time). If the evolution is a boat race, it can be broken down into even smaller objectives such as paddling. Believing allows us to seek out strategies to accomplish the objectives, such as using the larger shoulder muscles to paddle rather than the smaller forearm muscles. Then, when the race is done, move on to the next evolution. Thinking too much about what happened and what is about to happen will wear you down. Live in the moment and take it one step at a time.
I'm leaving PCH. I'm leaving PCH because it's an organization that faces a challenge and finds the quickest way to avoid dealing with it. Challenges are reasons to quit for PCH. For me, a challenge proves that the goal is worth pursuing. If it was easy, somebody else would be doing it already. PCH always follows because they always choose the easiest route. I've been working on a new product for most of the time that I've been with the company. My colleagues and I have faced and overcome numerous technical challenges. The entire enterprise, four years of concentrated effort, could be sunk because the business would rather shelve a project that faces a challenge rather than finding a way to remove the barriers between consumers and a product that works really well. We'll never get ahead until we do the hard work to get in front of other companies. The task is too big. The company is too small. Our leaders don't believe that the organization is up to the task. I guess we just don't want it bad enough. I've had enough.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Listening to the right hemisphere
The right side of my brain took over while I was running at the gym this morning. As soon as I finished the run, I jotted down the following in the notes utility of my iPod:
Dehumanization of research. easy to measure. lower boundaries. Rich depth v superficial detail. Skunk works freedom from rigid constraint. List of skill v demonstrated potential. Easy to know procedure and right answer harder to see another right answer.
My mind was wondering when Linkin Park's Wisdom, Justice, and Love came on my iPod (through the Mog app, of course). The transition of the MLK Jr. clip into mechanical distortion resonated with what was on my mind at the moment. During my interview, I voiced my frustration with the disconnect between pharma business and pharma research. Business guys come in with their management tools and try to pixilate the fractal dimensions of R&D. Research is humane and highly creative, impossible to predict, and outside of constraints and rational control. It can't be managed with the same tools that are used to run the mechanical aspects of business. Things like supply chains or manufacturing systems perform as designed. Research isn't designed, it happens. It happens when somebody in a lab applies every tool in their arsenal to solve a complex problem. Research should reverberate with depth, subtlety, and eloquence. Modern management has distorted the humanity in the research process.
Research quality can be traced to a group of people working in a lab. There is no system that can consistently and reliably produce a quality research output in the absence of talented researchers. My other comments build on this notion. I hope I can remember their significance when I come back to them later...
Dehumanization of research. easy to measure. lower boundaries. Rich depth v superficial detail. Skunk works freedom from rigid constraint. List of skill v demonstrated potential. Easy to know procedure and right answer harder to see another right answer.
My mind was wondering when Linkin Park's Wisdom, Justice, and Love came on my iPod (through the Mog app, of course). The transition of the MLK Jr. clip into mechanical distortion resonated with what was on my mind at the moment. During my interview, I voiced my frustration with the disconnect between pharma business and pharma research. Business guys come in with their management tools and try to pixilate the fractal dimensions of R&D. Research is humane and highly creative, impossible to predict, and outside of constraints and rational control. It can't be managed with the same tools that are used to run the mechanical aspects of business. Things like supply chains or manufacturing systems perform as designed. Research isn't designed, it happens. It happens when somebody in a lab applies every tool in their arsenal to solve a complex problem. Research should reverberate with depth, subtlety, and eloquence. Modern management has distorted the humanity in the research process.
Research quality can be traced to a group of people working in a lab. There is no system that can consistently and reliably produce a quality research output in the absence of talented researchers. My other comments build on this notion. I hope I can remember their significance when I come back to them later...
Saturday, May 7, 2011
I feel the need...
I spent a considerable amount of time talking about what I don't like about my current job during my interview yesterday (it seems like it was much longer ago). I spent much less time on what I need to feel satisfied and engaged with my work. There was plenty of talk about solving problems, but what is so appealing about solving problems? Well, I get to be creative. I made the case that my ability to see things differently from my colleagues is one of my strengths and allows me to generate more value for the division/company. I frequently link this difference in perspective to my unusual (for an chemist working in the analytical area of the pharmaceutical industry) academic training. Maybe there is more to it than that. I'm starting to think that I should start emphasizing it even more when I talk about my career in interviews, annual reviews, or any other career type of venue.
One thread common to most of my big problem solving moments are intuitive insights that lead to a solution or a flash of inspiration that results in some new experiment. These ideas are rarely the result of an orderly thought process. If I go through another round of interviews with yesterday's company or pursue other positions, perhaps I should start mentioning something about intuition and/or creativity. If they balk, perhaps that position is not right for me. Opportunities for creative thinking and problem solving should probably be in my top two or three criteria for a job. If it's all linear, routine work, I will get very bored and lose interest. I lose interest in more routine tasks now. I crave situations where I can look at a problem and try to find an answer that nobody had thought of before. That's my strength. That's where I excel. I need to make sure my career stays on a track where my creative abilities can be stretched, strengthened, and refined.
One thread common to most of my big problem solving moments are intuitive insights that lead to a solution or a flash of inspiration that results in some new experiment. These ideas are rarely the result of an orderly thought process. If I go through another round of interviews with yesterday's company or pursue other positions, perhaps I should start mentioning something about intuition and/or creativity. If they balk, perhaps that position is not right for me. Opportunities for creative thinking and problem solving should probably be in my top two or three criteria for a job. If it's all linear, routine work, I will get very bored and lose interest. I lose interest in more routine tasks now. I crave situations where I can look at a problem and try to find an answer that nobody had thought of before. That's my strength. That's where I excel. I need to make sure my career stays on a track where my creative abilities can be stretched, strengthened, and refined.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Work Soul
I'm fresh off of a trip to Boston to interview for a position with one of the multitude of small to medium pharma companies that call Boston/Cambridge home. I have to confess that my motivation wasn't so much to get a job, but to see how a company would react to my personal sales pitch. I answered their questions with the best answer that I could come up with (as opposed to the answer that I thought they wanted to hear). What one word would I use to describe myself? Complex. What is my biggest strength? I'm comfortable, and tend to thrive, in ambiguous situations. To illustrate how I think about what I offer a company, I told two of my interviewers that I don't think of myself as an infantry grunt ready to take orders. I'm Special Forces, the person you call when the situation is really dire and the standard approach just won't get the job done (recent events have given that metaphor a bit more umph than when I came up with it a couple of weeks ago).
I also had plenty of opportunities to discuss why I'm looking for something new. These answers revealed a bit of my work soul. Even I was a little surprised by some of the answers that I gave. Post-interview, I have actually refined one of my biggest beefs with my current group. In today's conversations, I discovered that I'm frustrated with our choice to just stick with our status quo rather than trying to figure out how to get better. The seminar that I presented (to three people, I was really expecting a bigger crowd) was all about how I've been trying to expand my skills and get better, while making the group better in the process. I now recognize that my growing frustration is in part due to the failure of these efforts to initiate any meaningful change.
My management will be content to leave things as they are as long as we keep getting things done. Why mess with something when our masters are not looking for an effort to change things for the better? My would be manager asked me how I defined a good job. I told her that I feel I've done a good job when I go beyond the expectations of the person requesting the work. I consider the expectations for an assignment the minimum that needs to be done. I'm not satisfied unless I can show a manager something else about an assignment that they overlooked, didn't think about, or weren't aware of. This is clearly a point on which my current leadership and I disagree.
I went on this interview to see how other companies might view attitudes like that. This company seemed very receptive to these elements of my work soul. I'm starting to wonder how receptive I am to these aspects of my personality. I've never really longed for a "career." I've never really made decision based on what's best for my "career." If I felt like my skills and work soul were valued by my current employer, I don't think I would be taking trips to Boston for job interviews. Going on a job interview probably wasn't the most product way to cope with my career crisis, but taking action is the only way that I know to dig into a problem. I get too into my head to make any progress on finding a solution to something like my current career crisis.
The interview has given me plenty of food for thought. Interviews usually do that, but rather than wondering how I did and whether or not I'll get the job (for the record, I would be surprised if I don't get a call to continue on to the next stage of the hiring process), I've spent the hours since the interview thinking about my relationship to work and what that means for other far more important relationships in my life. I stated that I'm starting to wonder how receptive I am to my ambition to do more and better things because this interview made me realize that to get to that point, I may have to sacrifice significant parts of my life that I had always assumed I would never consider sacrificing. Finding a balance in my life between my career and the other parts of my life will be how I resolve my current career crisis. I'm not so sure taking a job in Boston would be the best way to achieve that...
I also had plenty of opportunities to discuss why I'm looking for something new. These answers revealed a bit of my work soul. Even I was a little surprised by some of the answers that I gave. Post-interview, I have actually refined one of my biggest beefs with my current group. In today's conversations, I discovered that I'm frustrated with our choice to just stick with our status quo rather than trying to figure out how to get better. The seminar that I presented (to three people, I was really expecting a bigger crowd) was all about how I've been trying to expand my skills and get better, while making the group better in the process. I now recognize that my growing frustration is in part due to the failure of these efforts to initiate any meaningful change.
My management will be content to leave things as they are as long as we keep getting things done. Why mess with something when our masters are not looking for an effort to change things for the better? My would be manager asked me how I defined a good job. I told her that I feel I've done a good job when I go beyond the expectations of the person requesting the work. I consider the expectations for an assignment the minimum that needs to be done. I'm not satisfied unless I can show a manager something else about an assignment that they overlooked, didn't think about, or weren't aware of. This is clearly a point on which my current leadership and I disagree.
I went on this interview to see how other companies might view attitudes like that. This company seemed very receptive to these elements of my work soul. I'm starting to wonder how receptive I am to these aspects of my personality. I've never really longed for a "career." I've never really made decision based on what's best for my "career." If I felt like my skills and work soul were valued by my current employer, I don't think I would be taking trips to Boston for job interviews. Going on a job interview probably wasn't the most product way to cope with my career crisis, but taking action is the only way that I know to dig into a problem. I get too into my head to make any progress on finding a solution to something like my current career crisis.
The interview has given me plenty of food for thought. Interviews usually do that, but rather than wondering how I did and whether or not I'll get the job (for the record, I would be surprised if I don't get a call to continue on to the next stage of the hiring process), I've spent the hours since the interview thinking about my relationship to work and what that means for other far more important relationships in my life. I stated that I'm starting to wonder how receptive I am to my ambition to do more and better things because this interview made me realize that to get to that point, I may have to sacrifice significant parts of my life that I had always assumed I would never consider sacrificing. Finding a balance in my life between my career and the other parts of my life will be how I resolve my current career crisis. I'm not so sure taking a job in Boston would be the best way to achieve that...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)