E-News for July 2001
Greetings ALMA Members,
The general public sometimes views the laboratory as a repository of dangerous chemicals with immense risk to anyone unfortunate enough to have to work in such an environment. Many of us remember the old days when this impression was not too far from the truth, but the modern laboratory of today is a far different place. Industry initiatives and governmental regulations to improve the health of workers and to clean the environment have given us extensive information about the materials that we work with and have helped to raise awareness of the potential dangers. A wide variety of resources are available that describe the dangerous properties of specific compounds so that the common types of explosive, reactive, and flammable compounds are well documented. Functional groups associated with these properties are well known so that it is possible to predict the potential for serious accident. Only toxicity remains as an unpredictable danger. The long and short-term effects of exposure to most chemicals are usually inferred from animal studies as there are only weak fundamental principles upon which to base predictions of toxicity. Given this situation, prudent lab practice dictates that unless there is very well established evidence that a chemical is innocuous, the following precautions should always be followed:
- Assume all chemicals encountered in the laboratory are toxic to some degree.
- Treat any mixture of chemicals as potentially more toxic than its most toxic component.
- Treat all new compounds or those of unknown toxicity as though they could be acutely toxic in the short run or chronically toxic in the long run.
We should manage this remaining risk by cultivating a culture where chemicals are handled with respect and take a very conservative approach in limiting personnel exposure to all chemicals in our labs.
Teamwork is one of the basic tenants of quality management and is preached as gospel by managers, consultants, and business thinkers. Cross functional teams have been enthusiastically embraced by most large and middle sized companies and it is accepted that a person must be a “team player” to progress in the organization. However, in looking at the track record of teams over the years, I have noticed that some sub-optimize, underachieve or even fail to achieve a lasting solution to the problem that led to their creation. While the members of these cross-functional teams do contribute their special expertise, they also bring their biases and department politics with them. Solutions contrary or disadvantageous to their political interests may be discarded in order to achieve consensus even though these solutions may be in the best interest of the business. Companies sometimes perpetuate this sub-optimal performance by rewarding team participation rather than rewarding hard measurable results obtained over a year or more.
As managers, we need to hold teams accountable for results and judge them by measurable performance standards just as we do for individual contributors. Recognizing and rewarding participation does a disservice to the individual, the team, and the company.
If you have any comments, cost saving suggestions, opinions, etc. let me hear from you .
Wayne