E-News for May 2001
Greetings ALMA Members,
Tired of monthly safety meetings sitting in a conference room watching those boring videos? Try this idea to get people more interested and involveduse scenarios. Hold your meeting in the workplace using a scenario of a possible safety incident and let your group decide how to handle the situation. For example, meet at the solvent storage area and set up a scenario where an analyst drops a bottle of chloroform that splashes onto his clothing. After setting the stage, the group discusses what actions the analyst should take to deal with the chemical exposure, the broken glass, and the spilled solvent. The group can actually walk through all steps such as retrieving the MSDS, calling the safety and environmental departments, etc. By conducting this exercise in the workplace, the group can consider real factors such as the size of the room, ventilation, location of MSDS, availability of phone numbers to call for help, etc. Relating the incidents to the actual job and workplace keeps people more attentive and interested since they can see the direct application to their job. And these exercises can reveal real gaps in your safety plan so that they can be fixed before a real emergency. If you try this approach, write out the scenario and expected actions before hand. Let me know how this works in your lab.
A recent article by Joe Coates (Research Technology Management, May-June, 2001, pp. 9-13) made several interesting comments about the scientific personality in relation to the topic of knowledge management. The thesis of the article is that the key element to successfully exploiting the valuable knowledge within an organization is for the manager to create an environment that promotes person-to-person communication. To achieve this type of environment, most managers must counter their tendency to be judgmental due to their position and must break down the social and cultural isolation that occurs as one moves up in the organization. He reflects on the need for leadership and makes the observation that most of the literature on this topic boils down to “management with a smiley face” rather than addressing the real issue of how to furnish the “why” for the organization. Mr. Coates writes “Most laboratories would be better off if the director completely ignored management and assigned it to somebody two levels down.” He also mentions research that shows that professionals are among the most difficult people to have a learning experience because of the nature of their jobs. They are used to unilateral decision making, try to minimize negatives while maximizing positives, suppress negative feelings by being guardedly critical, and are committed to being rational. These attributes work against knowledge management since a lot of knowledge lies outside of the preconceptions of engineers or scientists. He makes an interesting observation:
“The single most important missing skill in the R&D community is social skill: the ability to talk, the ability to listen, the ability to promote conversation, and the capability for small talk.”
He maintains that “reporting” rather than talking is a prime obstacle to intelligent communication since real conversation is the means for building confidence. How many of these observations are true of your organization?
If you have any comments, cost saving suggestions, opinions, etc. let me hear from you .
Wayne