ALMA Award
ALMA’s Distinguished Service Award for Analytical Laboratory Management recognizes outstanding service to the profession of analytical laboratory management. It began in 2002 and is sponsored by Agilent Technologies.
2003 Winner
Dr. David Green
The second ALMA Distinguished Service Award for Analytical Laboratory Management was presented to Dr. David Green of Albion College at ALMA’s 24th Conference in Pittsburgh on October 30, 2003. Dr. Green’s significant contributions to the field of analytical laboratory management, which include his role as an ALMA Past-President, a former Editor of ALMA’s journal Managing the Modern Laboratory, and his numerous presentations and publications on analytical laboratory management all serve to justify his selection as this year’s award recipient.
Acceptance Address
Dr. Green’s acceptance address was published in Managing the Modern Laboratory as “Thoughts On Laboratory Management” and is reprinted below.
David W. Green
Chemistry Department
Albion College, Albion, MI
Preface: This article is based on the acceptance talk for the ALMA Distinguished Service Award for Laboratory Management given at the 24th ALMA meeting in Pittsburgh on October 30, 2003. Some items eliminated in the oral presentation for time reasons have been reconstituted here.
I was unable to attend the ALMA meeting last year when Claude Lucchesi became the recipient of the first ALMA Distinguished Service Award for Laboratory Management. I followed Claude as president of ALMA. I followed Claude as editor of Managing the Modern Laboratory. I was pleased to learn that Claude is traveling to Italy next year; I have never been to Italy before.
I am thankful to Stu Cram and Shayna Kane from Agilent for the presenting this award. It’s good to have an award for laboratory management! In my experience, lab managers tend to be on the low end of the “appreciation scale” and occasionally need some recognition. Those above in the management chain are often not analytical chemists and may not appreciate the challenges of lab management. Those we supervise always seem to include some who think “management” and “bad” are synonyms.
As editor of Managing the Modern Laboratory one task that I acquired was the job of writing editorials. Incidentally, I’m very pleased that Wayne Collins has become editor or MML—I know he will do a good job and I hope you will all support him by writing manuscripts and volunteering to review submitted manuscripts. That job made me think about management more carefully than I would otherwise have done. I thought today I’d share with you a few thoughts about management—perhaps, my last editorial. I hope at least one of these topics stimulates your thinking about your management role.
ALMA has the wrong name. Analytical Laboratory Managers we are, but we don’t really manage laboratories. Laboratories never have family problems, lose motivation, or become alcoholics. The challenges of lab management really are the challenges of dealing with people. Ask anyone who’s been a lab manager for a while.
Do scientists make good managers? Yes, and no! The challenges of dealing with people in a constructive way are not typically part of our scientific training. Our scientific training encourages individualism, challenges to the scientific authorities, and independence (our thesis, for example), whereas, management often requires working though others and values group accomplishments. I am reminded of Ken Pitzer, a notable scientist who ventured into academic management and became president of Rice University and then Stanford. He wrote in Science in the 70s, I think, how it was impossible to be a successful college president because of the divergent requirements of the various constituencies—the students, the faculty, the alumni, the government, and others. Lab managers may find themselves in that position as well. We need to satisfy OSHA, EPA, lower costs, achieve greater productivity, and still have a high morale among those reporting to us. Few of us in our scientific training and experience have acquired the skills to meet such a diversity of challenges.
I find that many lab managers associate “good management” with “fairness,” which implies uniformity of treatment. On matters of race and gender, for example, equal treatment is required, not only because it’s good business, but it’s also the law. The buddies that Jo Dahl mentioned this morning can no longer interact with us in the same way when we become the manager. So our tendency is to place high priority on uniformity of treatment of those reporting to us. However, not everyone is equally productive or valuable to the long-term future of the organization. Does equal treatment here make sense? I have always been fascinated by the many analogies between managers of technical people and sports coaches, hospital administrators, and the high school principal. We each expect our talented professionals to do creative things on their own without explicit detailed instructions. The management tools needed for this group are not the same as when the manager is the recognized technical expert among those he or she supervises. I once coached a YMCA basketball team for fourth graders where the rule was “everybody plays equally.” That rule wouldn’t lead to optimum productivity of the group if we had had Michael Jordan on the team. I don’t have a good answer to this challenge except to say that a blind adherence to uniformity of treatment is not likely to lead to the optimum productivity in the lab. A manager needs to find ways to recognize and reward those who are not equal while retaining good relationships with the others (who are also needed in the bigger picture).
I think lab management can be learned and, indeed must be learned if we are to be successful. Your training and education may receive help from a mentor (if you are fortunate enough to have one) or company policies that recognize the need for acquiring new skills. However, ultimately you need to take responsibility for your own education. If you ever feel you reach the point where you have management figured out, enjoy the moment, because it won’t last. What worked today probably won’t work tomorrow because the people are different—not only are there new faces, but the people you knew previously become new people with time. Education is ongoing. No one approach will educate you. Lots of educational opportunities exists that need be considered: MBA, one-day seminars, workshops (like those offered by Claude, Wayne, and Tony in connection with this meeting), and the ALMA group itself. Thanks to Tom Lyttle and Claude Lucchesi for starting ALMA twenty four years ago—its success is testimony to their recognition of an educational need.
I never fail to enjoy an ALMA meeting and I never fail to leave without a few new ideas. I am already enjoying this meeting—thanks to John Sadowski for arranging the program. I hope you also enjoy the meeting a find some new ideas to take home. Thanks to Agilent for sponsoring this award and to ALMA, all of you, for making it possible.