I was recently caught by surprise when I was asked by a friend to come up with a story about a time in my career when I experienced a Proud Moment. At first I had a momentary brain freeze and felt like a deer in the headlights! Luckily my memory at this stage of my life remains reasonably vivid, so, upon taking a deep breath I was able to recall one such event and I commenced to narrate my story!
The one that came to my mind took place many years ago when I had just started working for a highly innovative company where my job description entailed supervising a team of brilliant scientists most of whom had just earned their doctoral degrees from very reputable US schools.
I was thrilled by the challenge that the job promised and was amused by what my boss at that time told me. He said “I am relying on you to herd the wild cats in your group”!
Actually, when I had the chance to get to know each member of the group, it turned out that each and every one had a strong opinion about their research ideas and projections albeit some of these converged and others diverged from the vision of the company. In summary, I realized that, whereas they predominantly had fresh innovative ideas, they needed guidance on how to go about managing their ideas and time and aligning these with the company vision and mission too. A tall challenge for them as, in their graduate studies, they did not have to conform to any equivalent limitations and disciplines.
Adding to my challenge, amongst the group members, who were mostly in their mid to late 20’s, there was an older scientist in his late 30’s. Although academically adept, he was described to me by the company management as “stubborn and a poor team-player”! I will refer to him as Dr. Oldman!
At the time I took on the responsibility of managing the group, Dr. Oldman was on probation for not only the above mentioned shortcomings, but also for what was deemed to be a “below average technical performance”! At that point I realized that my job will have challenges beyond my initial impression of what to expect and how to go about it! Furthermore, based on the above shortcomings I was guided by management that I have three months to work with him on a performance recovery plan that, should he not show the expected improvements, he will be asked to look for an other job elsewhere!
At the time I joined the company I had many years of managerial experience under my belt and believed that I had the necessary skills to deal with the Dr. Oldman issue but I still feared that this was going to be a daunting challenge! Remember, this issue was only going to be a part of a bigger picture that entailed managing a group of fifteen young scientists that I needed to coach in addition to the fact that I had to learn and digest the technical details of the company’s business model and associated roadmap!
After a few sleepless nights I decided that I’m determined to devise what’s needed to make this a successful mission.
Fortunately, with the benefit of my previous experience, I was able to balance my time equitably between all of the above job requirements. Amongst many other meetings, I had weekly one-on-one meetings with each member of my group and we jointly set clear goals and tasks with clear timelines for each individual and for the team as a whole. Of course, as you can imagine, my approach for harnessing the best out of each group member needed to be aligned with their specific skill-sets and aptitudes and I’m sure you can imagine that an extra effort needed to be assigned to Dr. Oldman and, indeed, that’s exactly what I did!
Dr. Oldman initially put up some resistance to my prescribed regimen of goal-setting, ratings, etc. but he finally started being respondent by the end of the first month.
Two more months passed and Dr. Oldman continued tirelessly to work with me to prove to himself, to me and to the whole company that he is worthy of retaining his job. So much so, that at the end of his probation period he was able to demonstrate a tremendous comeback and he attained, with flying colors, all his goal targets! Needless to say, at that point I finally breathed a sigh of relief! This however was not the Proud Moment!
The Proud Moment occurred nine months later when, to my heart’s content (and teary eyes!), he received the quarterly award of “Company’s Best Innovator”.
Hani Badawi
April 17, 2018
The one that came to my mind took place many years ago when I had just started working for a highly innovative company where my job description entailed supervising a team of brilliant scientists most of whom had just earned their doctoral degrees from very reputable US schools.
I was thrilled by the challenge that the job promised and was amused by what my boss at that time told me. He said “I am relying on you to herd the wild cats in your group”!
Actually, when I had the chance to get to know each member of the group, it turned out that each and every one had a strong opinion about their research ideas and projections albeit some of these converged and others diverged from the vision of the company. In summary, I realized that, whereas they predominantly had fresh innovative ideas, they needed guidance on how to go about managing their ideas and time and aligning these with the company vision and mission too. A tall challenge for them as, in their graduate studies, they did not have to conform to any equivalent limitations and disciplines.
Adding to my challenge, amongst the group members, who were mostly in their mid to late 20’s, there was an older scientist in his late 30’s. Although academically adept, he was described to me by the company management as “stubborn and a poor team-player”! I will refer to him as Dr. Oldman!
At the time I took on the responsibility of managing the group, Dr. Oldman was on probation for not only the above mentioned shortcomings, but also for what was deemed to be a “below average technical performance”! At that point I realized that my job will have challenges beyond my initial impression of what to expect and how to go about it! Furthermore, based on the above shortcomings I was guided by management that I have three months to work with him on a performance recovery plan that, should he not show the expected improvements, he will be asked to look for an other job elsewhere!
At the time I joined the company I had many years of managerial experience under my belt and believed that I had the necessary skills to deal with the Dr. Oldman issue but I still feared that this was going to be a daunting challenge! Remember, this issue was only going to be a part of a bigger picture that entailed managing a group of fifteen young scientists that I needed to coach in addition to the fact that I had to learn and digest the technical details of the company’s business model and associated roadmap!
After a few sleepless nights I decided that I’m determined to devise what’s needed to make this a successful mission.
Fortunately, with the benefit of my previous experience, I was able to balance my time equitably between all of the above job requirements. Amongst many other meetings, I had weekly one-on-one meetings with each member of my group and we jointly set clear goals and tasks with clear timelines for each individual and for the team as a whole. Of course, as you can imagine, my approach for harnessing the best out of each group member needed to be aligned with their specific skill-sets and aptitudes and I’m sure you can imagine that an extra effort needed to be assigned to Dr. Oldman and, indeed, that’s exactly what I did!
Dr. Oldman initially put up some resistance to my prescribed regimen of goal-setting, ratings, etc. but he finally started being respondent by the end of the first month.
Two more months passed and Dr. Oldman continued tirelessly to work with me to prove to himself, to me and to the whole company that he is worthy of retaining his job. So much so, that at the end of his probation period he was able to demonstrate a tremendous comeback and he attained, with flying colors, all his goal targets! Needless to say, at that point I finally breathed a sigh of relief! This however was not the Proud Moment!
The Proud Moment occurred nine months later when, to my heart’s content (and teary eyes!), he received the quarterly award of “Company’s Best Innovator”.
Hani Badawi
April 17, 2018
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