The US NIH recently changed the grant format, among other things adding a new section titled “Innovation.” Many of us have wondered: how can we convey innovation if we’re using standard techniques and methods? Morgan has some ideas on this, illustrated with an iPad and a razor.

A colleague recently said to me, “Graduate education is fundamentally a fact-based activity.” I respond to that somewhat misguided view in the latest video. In my view, a graduate education (particularly PhD) is a skills based endeavor, not a fact based one.

I was recently speaking to an entrepeneurial fellow, and he made a comment that stuck in my mind: “people like you and I are unemployable.”

It didn’t take me long to realize that he was right.

He was referring, overall, to the entrepeneur personality.

The “problem” with entrepreneurs is that they can’t just accept the way things are – they have to go around always trying to make things “better”.

That’s great if you’re starting a new business, or running a certain kind of science lab.

It’s not so great if you find yourself embedded in a stiff bureaucracy that is reticent to any kind of change.

The reference to being unemployable is that people like he – and myself – would drive most traditional managers/bosses crazy. Because we can’t leave well enough alone. We can’t let tradition stand. We can’t do something just because someone told us to do it – we have to understand “why” we are doing it – and then try to improve upon it.

It’s a sad statement about the stultification of most jobs.

Maybe that’s why I know of so many people who are giving up regular jobs to venture out on their own in business or consulting. It seems that more than just a few people realize that they can no longer stifle themselves enough to be “employable”.

One of my long-term goals is to figure out how to do science without having to do the bureaucracy. You may think it is wishful thinking, but I have a plan (kind of like the Cylons).

Maybe I’ll start an interdisciplinary research institute that is strucutred to be size and bureaucracy limited. Wouldn’t that be nice?

consulting, and

For many years I wandered through my career, jumping on various opportunities as they came along, but without a real “direction” for where I was going.

I was fortunate in that I made some good choices – getting into bioinformatics early on, and then getting into proteomics early on – before the fields became popular. But, despite the outward success this has brought to me, I’ve often struggled with, “who am I?”

For years the “who am I?” question was subsumed by goals, the latest being “getting tenure.”

But here’s the thing I realized once I had achieved that goal: I was doing it, because it was the thing to do. Not because it fit into some kind of “grand plan” for my life.

I’m glad to have done that, but after doing it, I felt a noticeable void: what next?

Tenure is a huge goal for many people, and a lot of those I’ve spoken to after they got tenure felt that it was anti-climactic.

I would go one step beyond that – it is a “life crisis” inducing event if you’ve been focused on it too much.

That’s why it is so important to have a picture of your ultimate life and goals in mind – hopefully before going for tenure (or going for the faculty job, or the postdoc job, or graduate school – or, anything!)

Because then, when you achieve one goal, you can move onto the next goal that fits into your grand plan – rather than just finding yourself having completed this big thing, and wondering, “what next?”

In my own case of assessing “what next?” and “who do I really want to be?” I’ve figured out a few things:
1. I enjoy writing – I have a whole slew of books to write, and I’ve been reenergized in getting my first book done so that I can move onto the next one. The first book is titled “The Golden Ticket in Science: Funding and Recognition Through The Power of Marketing”. Keep your eye out, or sign up for my mailing list if you want early access (that’s the big subscribe box on the upper left).

2. I enjoy helping people become better at what they do. While I used to think that I enjoyed programming computers, I’ve realized the challenge of “programming” people for success is both bigger and more rewarding for me.

That’s why I’m doing this whole blog thing (and my grant writing course http://tinyurl.com/3a8uhzq
, and future courses to yet be named). To help you be more proactive in your own life, and achieve your goals. Yeah – it sounds rah rah (like a cheerleader), but sometimes cheerleading is necessary.

Besides, I want more happy, proactive scientists out there solving the important problems in our world – and less unhappy, reactive scientists who struggle with things.

So go out and be proactive. Define who you want to be when you grow up. And then start moving towards it!

If you don’t buy my argument from Episode V about the idea that to be truly successful, you need to think “proactive” rather than “reactive”, let’s consider one more idea from Covey’s book.

At the beginning he talks about “production” (P) versus “production capacity” (PC).

Let’s use the analogy of an automobile. The product (P) of an automobile is high speed movement – traveling miles quickly.

The production capacity (PC) of the automobile is how much mileage it will generate over its lifespan.

Now, if you take the car out, floor the gas pedal and slam on the brakes all the time, you get a lot of short term production. If you push it hard without maintaining it, you are producing lots of P – for a while.

But during that time, the PC is dwindling steadily. Soon, the car won’t start and the engine needs a rebuild.

You’ve traded short term excessive production ℗ for a longer term drop in production capacity (PC).

As Covey points out, humans work exactly the same way. If you hit that gas pedal too hard (i.e. feeling “forced” by circumstances to work 70+ hours per week), the PC will diminish. Students burn out. Lab techs get frustrated. Professors get stressed out and give themselves health problems that are attendant with undue stress.

There must be a P/PC balance in everything. Being proactive is one component of maintaining that balance. It requires thinking about the balance ahead of time, and rather than just reacting to whatever comes along (or the emotional responses to whatever comes along), making a rational decision ahead of time.

I’ve learned in my journey so far that I really enjoy helping other people become more effective scientists (and human beings!) I have gone through many struggles at every stage of my career – and I’ve rarely had anyone take me by the hand and show me the way. I’ve had to grope and grasp and struggle to get here. Doing so has given me some insights that may be useful to others. Sharing those is why I’m doing this.

And I look around myself, to see some of my colleagues who’ve learned to become tremendously proactive about the specific aspect of doing their science – but not so much in other aspects of their life or career.

Very few science mentors (at any level of one’s career) teach the kind of things you might learn from reading Maxwell Maltz, Steven Covey, Mark Joyner, and others whom I’ve learned from about how to be a more effective human being.

It is unfortunate. Just yesterday I was talking to someone who knows of many mentors who force their graduate students to be in the lab 70 hours per week, always working, always producing.

That is “reactive” thinking, not proactive thinking. It is reacting to the question of “what if my grant doesn’t get funded?” “What if my competition scoops me?” “What if my graduate student slacks off?”

But forcing someone to work 70 hours per week doesn’t turn them into a good – or proactive – scientist. In fact, I’d argue that it’s the opposite. By forcing someone to adhere to a rigid schedule (or else….!), it is teaching them to continue to be in a reactive mode. Instead of teaching them the independence of becoming self motivated, they learn to be motivated by external influences (the threat of being kicked out or at least scolded).

The one Nobel laureate I know doesn’t work in the lab 70 hours per week because someone is forcing him to! No – he is doing it because he loves it! And so every one of those 70 hours is spent in proactive mode (at 80+ years old, he’s doing it because he chooses to, not because he has to please anyone else).

But each person has to figure out whether they “love it” enough to spend that kind of time on it. I argue that to be a successful scientist doesn’t require working 70 hours per week all the time. There will be some weeks like that – and more (I’ve had 100 hour weeks when working on grant proposals).

Being proactive is far more important to success than working all the time in reactive mode. I would bet money on the proactive person who works 40 hours per week having been more productive after 10 years than for the person who works 70 hours per week in reactive mode.

Graduate school is a big struggle for many people (I struggled!).

Why is that?

I think that the fundamental challenge that graduate school presents is this: it mandates a shift from being “reactive” to being at least somewhat “proactive.”

In undergraduate work, there are some choices available to students (such as which classes to take and when to take them), but once in a class, the range of choices are narrow.

Take for example an undergraduate genetics class. It will present a series of “facts” to the students and then present them with a series of “assignments” to complete. Students are mostly controlled by the circumstance of that class. There is little choice offered in most classes about what to learn or when to learn it. There is usually very little discussion of open problems in the field. By conveying knowledge as a series of facts, students are expected to be passive consumers and regurgitators of knowledge. (I realize that there are exceptions to this generalization, but this does reflect the experience that I had in at least 90% of my undergraduate classes, and I suspect that I’m not just part of some statistical fluke).

Therefore, students gaining their undergrad degrees – unless they’ve had other independent experience – have no training in how to be “proactive”.

And the single most important thing that you must do to get a PhD is learn to be proactive about you science. You must be motivated to become an expert on your topic. You must be motivated to get papers out on your topic. You must gain the confidence in yourself that you can stand up in front of a (potentially critical) audience and discuss your knowledge and your science. You must believe that you can defend your point of view.

I think the fundamental reason that this transition is so difficult for many people is that we have no prior experience in the “proactive” mindset. We don’t get it from school. We don’t get it from college. We don’t get it from television. We don’t get it from movies. The only source for this would be if we got really lucky and had exceptionally insightful parents (or unusual circumstances).

This may be why people who go out in “the real world” after they graduate from college, then come back to graduate school later, are often quicker to adapt to graduate school life, and not struggle at it so much. The “real world” requires at least some proactivity to survive (though one can get by with surprisingly little). And going back to graduate school also requires proactivity – the willingness to sacrifice a job for five or six years of working on an education at only a bit more than minimum wage.

Having kids in school now, I think a lot about how the school system functions and what it teaches my kids.

One thing it doesn’t teach very well is independence or proactivity.

It doesn’t matter how hard a teacher or school may focus on “teaching independence” – it is inherently contradictory for a large institution that must serve many people to be able to foster significant independence. That would require allowing each kid to go in their own direction, with guidance and coaching so that they don’t get too far off track, while allowing them to choose things like how to structure their day, what subjects to study, etc.

Instead, all through the grade school years, kids are told what to do. They have no choice in what subjects to learn, or when they will learn them. They have no choice when to go outside or stay inside. They have precious few choices available to them, and those that are available to them are only token choices.

So let’s reflect on this from the discussion above. Are we teaching kids that they can be “proactive” in the way that Covey talks about? Or are we teaching them that they are controlled by their circumstances?

I argue that it is door number two: that because of the institutional nature of schools, they teach kids to gain a mentality of “being controlled by their circumstances.”

In reflecting on the changes in one of my kids since starting school, this explains a lot. There seems to be a hesitancy and timidity there which was not there right before starting school.

It bears on the discussion of science careers, because I believe that many of us first face the challenge of needing to be proactive (in a real way) in graduate school, and that is even moreso in post-doc and faculty positions (or industry positions).

While I don’t believe that students should be entirely self directed, the conclusion this leads to is that we need students to have a good deal of self-directed study and activity, combined with accountability. I.e., the student works with a teacher/coach to develop a plan of study that is acceptable, then they are held accountable to follow through on that.

This would radically change the amount of proactivity that our kids are exposed to, I think for the better.

Seth Godin is an author and a marketer who makes a bold claim in his latest blog post: higher ed is on its way to a melt down.

He lists 5 reasons why this melt-down will happen (for details on each one, see his blog post, he has some interesting arguments):

1. Most colleges are organized to give an average education to average students.

2. College has gotten expensive far faster than wages have gone up.

3. The definition of ‘best’ is under siege.

4. The correlation between a typical college degree and success is suspect.

5. Accreditation isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.

However, he didn’t list the two main reasons that I think higher-ed is on its way to a melt down – from an insider’s point of view. I believe that the things he lists, while important, are just window dressing on the big issues facing higher ed.

Morgan’s two reasons why higher ed is facing a “meltdown”:

1. Cash flow and leverage Colleges and universities are ever more reliant upon an ever shrinking pie. Legislators are cutting back, and universities are highly leveraged. I won’t name any names – but I happen to know of more than a few universities who have leveraged to the hilt in order to build up programs based on expectations of increases in federal grant funds. If you think being highly leveraged isn’t a problem, just look up the name “Enron” on Google. What happens if the US government decides to (or is forced to) exhibit some real fiscal discipline? With a US debt at 12 Trillion dollars (yes, Trillion!), there is going to be a reality check at some point, sooner or later. No university administrator that I know of is actually thinking about this or preparing for it.

Highly leveraged institutions are particularly susceptible to cash flow crunches. They’re like one of those toothpick bridges you build as a kid – start taking out just a few toothpicks, and the whole thing falls down.

I’m not trying to be chicken little here – but I would like at least a few university and college administrators to wake up to this challenge and to be proactive about it, rather than to keep operating in reactive mode until it is too late.

(aside: It reminds me of a faculty meeting we had about a year before the economic crash of 2009. We were talking about some major building renovation plans, and had 3 different optimistic scenarios – all of them assuming that the money would be there, and that the renovation would proceed in 2009. After the presentation I raised my hand and said “what if the money isn’t there, do you have a plan B?” People looked at me like I had just walked in the room after a dip in a sewage pond – and then kept talking about the rosy optimistic renovation plans. Guess what? It’s now 2010, more than a year after the renovation was supposed to begin, and it hasn’t started yet, nor is it slated to start at any specific date in the near future. The reason for the indefinite delay is the “unexpected economic crunch”. Worse, my university is now in a mad, desperate scramble for space in the wake of not having a “plan B”. How sad that this could have been spared with a bit of proactivity.)

2. The internet. If I can go online and learn quantum mechanics by watching archived videos of Richard Feynman, why should I learn quantum mechanics from the local college professor? What compelling value does the latter offer that the former doesn’t?

Colleges and universities have yet to come up with a good answer to this question. Most are focused so much on recruiting top-notch researchers, that the idea of recruiting a top-notch educator is foreign to them. Hence, the quality of teaching is usually not all that stellar. There are some bright points – I had a few stellar professors as an undergraduate, and I have a few colleagues who really work to be stellar teachers – but the system is not set up to reward that, so it is a relative rarity. (I must admit, I work to be a good teacher, but not a great teacher – because there is no reward for doing so, whereas there is reward for becoming a great researcher and grant writer).

What do the local university or college offer that you can’t get on the internet? About the only two things are:

a) name and prestige – this will not go away, but just wait until some enterprising university or college figures out how to give a “brand name” reputable degree online. Then the whole game changes.

b) hands on experience in labs and etc. This is a vital aspect of getting an education – but does this really influence the “buying” decisions of prospective students? I don’t think so. I believe that aspects like cost and prestige far outweigh considerations of hands-on experience.

Universities are slow to move. Every time an issue comes up, a committee is convened to study it. While I’m sure such committees are being convened to discuss topics like this around the globe – internet time is ticking. Internet time doesn’t wait for a committee to make a decision. It moves ahead at a blindingly fast pace, and no university committee will keep up.

People will increasingly realize that they can get an education online for a fraction of the price of attending a reputable university or college. What are universities going to do without a “plan B” for this one?

So, Seth, I agree with you that there are some big challenges on the horizon, and I’d argue that they are even bigger than the ones you mentioned. I happen to be fond of the higher education system (despite some recent frustrations with it), so this reality is saddening.

But sometimes a natural self “cleansing” of sorts is necessary in any system that develops untoward excesses – which is where we are with higher ed today. I suspect that in 10 or 20 years – after the “melt down,” higher education will be leaner, meaner, and will have figured out how to operate on internet time.

Those .edu’s who don’t get with that program will not exist. Those that do, will thrive.

In Part II of the series on science career success, Morgan discusses the success advice from two important books, and discusses how Hollywood movies (and TV) often work to undermine one of the key pillars of this success.

I’ve been reading two very interesting books in this regard: Maxwell Maltz’s Psychocybernetics and Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. You may have heard of the latter book, but not many people have heard of the former. However, Maxwell Maltz was the “godfather” of the modern self improvement movement.

From reading these books, I’ve come up with a few observations that tie back to a science career.

***
The first observation is about Hollywood and our own expectations about our lives. Steven Covey talks about the first habit being “proactive”. Between every action and reaction that we might have, we can choose to think, and change our “reaction” to an action based on our values, instead of reacting based on pure emotion.

Here’s the problem with Hollywood: protagonists who are successfully being proactive in the way that Covey teaches wouldn’t be subject to many of the circumstances that make for the best drama.

A good drama has someone who finds themselves in some set of circumstances “beyond their control,” through which they struggle to eventually gain redemption (or not).

It is that “beyond their control” part that Covey and Maltz both tell us is bogus: if we are proactive people, there is nothing in our lives that is “beyond our control”. What I mean by that is – while the situation and environment may be out of our control, our reactions to that are entirely within our control.

Throughout our lives, we’re bombarded with movie and TV messages that tell us that we are a victim of our circumstances. The messages tell us that in order to be great, we must suffer through inordinate turmoil. We must be beaten down by circumstances to an extent where we finally decide to rise up and fight.

I think about this when it comes to what people expect out of a science career. I believe that some people come into a science career with a bit of that “Hollywood” expectation. This is a view that our circumstances control us, not the other way around.

I confess: I’ve had that view on many occasions. And every time I’ve taken that view, it has led to negative things in my life and my career.

This is where “meta analysis” is so useful – by studying myself, I’ve come to realize that for most of my career, I held the bogus assumption that I am a product of and beholden to circumstances. Now I realize, that is a subtle and insidious message that has percolated into my brain unbeknownst to me, from TV and movies, but also from one other source.