Read Avoid Boring People: Lessons From a Life in Science Online

Authors: James D. Watson

Tags: #General, #Biography & Autobiography, #Personal Memoirs, #Self-Help, #Life Sciences, #Science, #Scientists, #Molecular biologists, #Biology, #Molecular Biology, #Science & Technology

Avoid Boring People: Lessons From a Life in Science (36 page)

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Almost all the next academic year, Liz and I lived in Cold Spring Harbor, much enjoying views of the inner harbor through the big eastern-facing windows of our new white cedar house. After flying to Florence for the November 1969 meeting on RNA polymerase, we drove to Venice and from there traveled by train to a big resort hotel on Lake Constance. There a meeting was held to further advance Leo Szilard's scheme for a European molecular biology research and teaching institution. From nearby Zurich we flew to London, going up to Cambridge so Francis and Liz could meet.
The Double Helix
no longer upset him since he realized that it enhanced, not diminished, his reputation. Back in Cold Spring Harbor for the holidays, we eagerly awaited the arrival of Rufus Robert Watson in late February 1970.

In May, Nathan Pusey announced that after eighteen years as Harvard's president he would be stepping down in June of the following year. No one was surprised. His handling of the occupation of University Hall, while perfectly legal, had been hugely unwise, dividing the faculty into two angry camps that had no hope of being reconciled unless he went away. He would, in due course, move to New York City to become president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. After raising piles of cash that let Harvard expand in many directions, he was now to have the far easier task of giving it away. Paul Doty and I could not help but note that his only obvious failure at fund-raising was in not finding a major donor for the proposed building to house his new Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

In the summer of 1970, for the first time in its history Cold Spring Harbor did not play host to visitors conducting research of their own choosing. No free space remained to house them or let them carry on meaningful research. Instead we used our resources to start a new course on the molecular biology and genetics of yeast. It would allow scientists interested in the essence of eukaryotic cells to learn the powers of yeast genetics. In the fall, we used a $30,000 donation from Manny Delbrück to begin renovating the derelict wooden Wawepex lab into a dormitory for sixteen summer students. Its beds would let us start a summer neurobiology course program. A new grant of almost $500,000 from the Sloan Foundation was used in part to cover the costs of renovating the top floor of the 1912 Animal House into lab and lecture space for neurobiology.

With the completion of the James Annex in January 1971, our tumor virus group came into its own. No longer did we have to play second fiddle to equivalent endeavors at the Salk Institute. Working now with Joe Sambrook were the Caltech-trained Phil Sharp and Ulf Pettersson from Uppsala, who brought to us adenovirus tumor research. Both came as super postdocs and soon became bona fide members of the James Lab staff. To support their independent activities as well as new cancer research efforts in space to be vacated by Al Hershey's impending retirement, Joe wrote up a big grant proposal to expand our NCI funding to $1 million per year. Later, site visitors gave it top priority, allowing our Cancer Center to come into existence as of January 1,1972.

Even larger sums for research would soon become available. Richard Nixon had just enthusiastically signed the National Cancer Act in response to recommendations by the philanthropist Mary Lasker's Citizens’ Committee for the Conquest of Cancer. Boldly it was proclaimed that if we can send men to the moon, we should be able to cure cancer. Though I did not believe there was sound logic in relating the two feats, I felt strongly that bigger infusions of federal monies were needed to let tumor virus systems point us toward the mutant genes that were known to cause cancer. So I spoke before the Citizens’ Cancer Committee at one of its first meetings in the summer of 1970.

Under the “Conquest of Cancer” legislation, the president appointed not only the NCI director but also members of a new National Cancer Advisory Board, among which I was included for a two-year term to begin in March 1972. Before that, I had been advising NCI as a member of its Cancer Center Study Section. Directing the NCI then was the bureaucrat Carl Merrill, mindlessly generating a complex flow chart for the cure of cancer modeled after Admiral Rickover's successful Polaris missile program. The one such planning session that I attended in Washington accomplished nothing. I was hoping my forthcoming National Cancer Advisory Board meetings would do more good. The several other pure scientists on the board also appreciated nonsense for what it was. Its clinical oncologists, however, wanted to create more comprehensive cancer centers. But such centers, already operating in New York City, Buffalo, and Houston, had shown no capacity to cure most adult cancers; I saw no reason for more of them other than to create more good-looking places to die. Only inspired science, not public relations, could lead to the knowledge that might let us finally cure most cancers. A real role lay ahead for our lab.

Ulf Pettersson in the lab at Cold Spring Harbor, December 1971

Joe Sambrook at CSHL in 1973

Jane Flint, Terri Grodzicker, Phil Sharp, and Joe Sambrook at CSHL in 1973

    Remembered Lessons

1. Accept leadership challenges before
your academic career peaks

By forty, I was the right age to begin directing a major research institution. My ever-increasing focus on cancer was best fulfilled by presiding over seasoned professionals, as opposed to graduate students and beginning postdocs. So I consciously made the decision not to run a research group at Cold Spring Harbor. This allowed me to focus my efforts first on recruiting scientists who cared as much as I did about the biology of cancer, then on finding the funding they needed to make their ideas work.

2. Run a benevolent dictatorship

I was appointed to provide a vision for Cold Spring Harbor's future, not to persuade existing staff members to share it. A research institution cannot ultimately be a democracy. Still, a wise autocrat takes the trouble to sell his program. I never made appointments without seeking informal counsel among relevant scientists already at Cold Spring Harbor. And in time, most new appointments arose from their sponsorship by scientists already there. To my knowledge, I never appointed anyone not wanted by others on our staff.

3. Manage your scientists like a baseball team

Sports and top-quality research have much in common. The best stars of each are young, not middle-aged, though occasionally someone older than forty can still be a formidable force either across the net or at the blackboard. No one can long remain a science manager unless constantly on the prowl for talented rookies able to move the game to the next level. Research institutions that let the average age of their staff creep up inevitably become dull places. Lowering your average age by constructing new buildings to create more space, however, is not the way to go. If the older buildings are not exuding vitality, they become mere financial drains. Equally important, good managers see the need to retire scientists who are no longer hitting home runs. Only individuals who continually reinvent themselves through new ways of thinking should enter middle age still part of your staff.

4. Don't make midseason trades

Once you have hired a scientist, give him or her an honest chance to hit the ball over the fence. Grand slams usually come only after a player has put in three to five seasons. Treating your players according to who's got the hot hand from one week to the next only drives down overall self-confidence. Consistency and steadfastness are the way to get the best out of your players. In this regard, handling the science of others is radically different from doing your own. As a scientist, you can profit from frequent quick course changes until the right path becomes clear.

5. Only ask for advice that you will later accept

Don't second-guess advice you've sought from a colleague whom you highly respect. If a smart friend advises you to hire one of his or her best students or postdocs, consider it a lucky break and just do it. Conversely, never ask advice from someone with an outlook on science alien to your own; people they recommend will share their values, not yours.

6. Use your endowment to support science,
not for long-term salary support

Generally, a bare minimum of any research institution's funds should go to salaries for older scientists. Under normal funding circumstances, those who have remained successful invariably get adequate research grants to cover themselves and then some. Revenue generated by the endowment is best used to support scientists at the beginning of their careers, when their grant support usually is not adequate to their research needs. Science is not a welfare state: feeding the young until they can feed themselves serves the greater good, while failing to cull the herd does not.

7. Promote key scientists faster than they expect

By promoting your best performers rapidly, you necessarily reduce money that might be given to those whose work no one would miss. Be generous with those you value: a salary increase below the rate of inflation is the universal sign to start looking elsewhere.

8. Schedule as few appointments as possible

When a scientist pops into your office or calls to schedule a meeting, learn then and there what he or she wants. You can avoid wasting your time and theirs by immediately saying yes to their request for a piece of equipment or a salary slot they legitimately need to move forward with their jobs. Even if so acting means promising money you don't yet have, do it. Your purposes will be served if their worries exclusively concern getting their work done, not currying favor with you. Any scientist on the scene knew clearly where he or she stood with me; I backed everyone I wanted to stick around.

9. Don't be shy about showing displeasure

When someone working for you says something stupid or in other ways makes your blood boil, express your anger immediately. Don't go about silently seething, letting only your spouse know you are upset. That is bad for your health and really not fair to those whose behavior has offended you. They very likely already fear they are in deep shit, and would naturally want to respond to your criticism sooner rather than later. When things are left to fester, the festering takes on a life of its own, sowing unproductive distrust. The fault might even be yours. If so, apologize as fast as you flared up. Being an ass occasionally is forgivable; being unable to admit it is not.

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