Impeding Scientists' Productivity

Abstract

Life scientists are frustrated by aspects of their organizations that they feel make it harder to accomplish the goals for which they were trained and hired. They report unclear goals, communication silos, and insufficient time to do research as factors that reduce their ability to be innovative and productive. These are the principal findings of our recent survey of 22 life science companies on the challenges that currently exist in the areas of productivity and innovation in scientific research and strategic alliances. We conducted in-person interviews with over 25 executives, managers and scientists directly responsible for the success of scientific projects. The participants represented a diverse set of companies, ranging from leading pharmaceutical firms to small biotech efforts. Opaque Goals In our survey, scientists said that either they or other scientists they knew were working on goals that they did not think contributed to ultimate value for the company. For example, we found several cases where scientists were being rewarded for producing more of something (such as drug leads) that they thought likely to eventually fail further downstream, at much greater expense to the company. Since these objectives typically were tied to compensation, scientists pursued them in spite of their knowledge that much of their efforts would yield nothing of value and were counterproductive to the company. Part of the problem, particularly in large firms, was the inability to relate local activity by scientists to global value production for the firm. One variation of this issue occurred when corporate strategic goals shifted during a performance reporting period. Scientists and managers were sometimes unfairly punished because objectives were not realigned with new priorities due to the time lag between strategic shifts and the HR department's implementation of new objectives. Survey participants overwhelmingly felt that performance reviews were a waste of time, but felt there were no alternatives. They often tried to game the system through strategic selection of their performance objectives. Working in Silos Scientists and managers at large firms often used the term silo to describe the department or area in which they worked, reflecting the intense specialization and narrowed focus of individual groups. There was also recognition at virtually all levels of the firm, from senior management to scientists on the bench, that cross-functional efforts were crucial to success. While silos were advantageous in certain respects, they could make cross-functional cooperation more challenging. Within the research organizations, collaborative projects were often accomplished through matrix management arrangements that were unsupported with budgets and clear staff assignments. Further, participants' individual goals and objectives often did not include these collaborative efforts. Therefore, project managers in these situations become tax collectors, using persuasion and influence to attempt to accomplish goals, and often succeeding, but at a substantial of time and effort, for which they were not measured or rewarded explicitly. We found that in large companies, research groups and supporting organizations (such as IT and QC departments) were often at odds due to the focus on cost savings in support organizations. This resulted in substantial productivity losses to the research organizations when scientists were prevented from doing their work. We also found that support organizations often lacked perspective on how the objectives of their group contributed to the overall performance of the firm. In contrast, survey participants who had experience in small firms often reported a dramatically different cultural environment. …