EDC Blog
Damien’s always working hard to share his thoughts, experiences, and ideas for making science easier.
The EQ.IQ in Science Podcast 🎙
Follow our new podcast exploring the ins and outs of starting a new lab. Join Nick and Damien as they share over 30 years of experience on everything there is to know about putting together a new lab, leading the development of your team, and bringing your scientific vision to reality. Whether you’re kicking off your own startup biotech company or starting as new biomedical research faculty, these two lab startup gurus have the tips and tricks to guide both you and your team towards success.
How do you motivate your employees?
Why are my people never in the lab? How do I motivate them to work harder?". Recently an anxious client approached me about helping him to develop his lab team. These type of engagements can be challenging because the issues tend to lie in old mindsets. Most young...
Simplify your lab life in 2019 using 4 categories.
Breaking down your lab management process can help to conserve mental energy and further save you time and money. You become less reactive and you become more proactive by organizing your workflow.
What is a budget? What does a budget mean to you?
The word “budget” is also much too associated with negative meanings for startups, entrepreneurs, or innovative discoveries. It doesn’t take much experience to know that these exploratory ventures usually entail a large deal of “waste” from the necessary trial and error required to succeed. This strategy, however, tends to be a nightmare for accounting or financial administrators whose job is to create balanced books and sustainable practices for the business/institutes.
How to motivate your team to do the work? Use negative and positive words.
If you understand the different types of self motivational strategies, you can tailor how to motivate your team into action. This can ultimately translate into real world productivity and discoveries.
How do you stop the drama? Don’t play the role.
Most often, people behave as adults and can speak for themselves. Sometime it just requires a mediator to help facilitate the communications.
What 3 traits do top team members possess? Beliefs.
It becomes difficult to teach and train fixed mindset candidates. They can believe that their skills are inherent, or are they’re born with them. These types of mindsets are belief systems that cannot be changed extrinsically through punishment or rewards. It has to come from within. However, it can be cultivated, if you know what to listen for.
What do you do when everything is due right now? Take 10.
Now I’m not the first, nor the only one who feels like there are a million things to do. I’m sure you’ve felt this way before and maybe even now, more than ever. To top that, you may feel you’re behind schedule with your research, your career, your family, and the list can go on. This is actually relatively normal for most highly ambitious people, but the problem doesn’t lie in the number of tasks we must complete, but in the choices of which tasks to even take on.
How can you find good help? Sell yourself.
A talented postdoc should be able to add their own unique perspective to the research, and they should see their role as an opportunity to be creative and to add value. However, as we plow through CVs and resumes we find applicants who expect a course to be laid out, or a lab to be already established. That’s never the case with a start up. There are so many uncertainties and variables that can lead to failure or bankruptcy. Therefore, finding a postdoc who understands this and can navigate these obstacles is critical.
Trouble keeping track of your expenses? Use a bookkeeping software.
Budgets can help you understand fixed costs, like salaries and maintenance contracts. However, everyone in science knows that the variable costs associated with research are as predictable as the hypothesis itself. Therefore, to understand what those variables are, and to predict them, requires collecting the financial data associated with the science. It requires us to be able to separate those costs relative to the projects and operations.