Given that it is now a decade or more since I was particularly involved in research, if I am asked to give a seminar – usually to students, sometimes undergraduates, sometimes and more commonly PhD students and early career research researchers – I always make it plain that I won’t be giving a purely technical talk about my research. I was amused, before my last such talk, to be told by the undergraduate lead that they get fed up with speakers waxing lyrical about some minute area of physics that goes straight over the head of the majority of the audience. In prospect, they seemed excited I might talk a bit more about my policy and gender work.
However, when it came to it, I gave my talk to an audience that seemed totally unreactive. I am always encouraged when I spot someone nodding their head sagely, or smiling at some mildly ironic remark. To get some feedback from at least part of the audience is reassuring, even for people like myself who’ve given hundreds of similar talks. To talk to quite a full lecture theatre who give no sign of engagement can be unnerving, provoking the thought that there is no interest or one is talking over their heads in gobbledygook. At the end of my talk, when I asked for questions, there was a long time (well, it felt like a long time), before anyone tentatively raised their hand. Slowly, over the next fifteen minutes or so, the questions started to flow. Sensible, thoughtful questions but clearly from a nervous audience who weren’t used to putting their hands up in such a situation.
After the end of the talk, there was a plentiful supply of pizza, and a further opportunity for students to come and talk to me one-on-one. And, despite what had happened over the previous hour, come they did. It turned out that they had been paying close attention all along, and wanted to press me for advice but, given the majority of them were undergraduates they just weren’t as confident about speaking up in public as most of the audiences I encounter. I should have factored that in; a lesson for me to remember.
Some of the discussions I did have were particularly heartening. The student who said they felt ‘seen’ was especially moving. Others were seeking advice I’m not sure I was in any position to give. One asked me how to decide what to do post-graduation if they had no idea what they wanted to do. I suggested they went to their careers service, but that had already been tried and it didn’t seem to have lead to any breakthrough in their thinking. Beyond that, I suggested that they should try something that they felt might be of interest and, since jobs aren’t for life, it should be easy enough to move on if it was wrong. I often feel it’s important to remember there is no single right answer to questions like these, and many routes might turn out to be satisfying. If for every one of us there was a unique solution, we’d all be frozen doing nothing in case we didn’t find it. ‘Good enough’ is often good enough, and may lead to something that’s even better.
In the public questions, there was one question in particular that needs further thought for all of us. I had mentioned that sometimes people aren’t necessarily easy to deal with. This was paraphrased back to me, as ‘how do you learn to deal with jerks?’, although I’m pretty sure the word jerk had not passed my lips. (I have written about that characteristic several times in the past, such as here). The reality is in most sciences – as opposed to engineering – there is little time to practice team-work and thereby start working out personal strategies. Wherever you end up working, there will always be people who rub you up the wrong way, do things that irritate you (or indeed, not do things that need to be done, thereby also irritating you) or claim undeserved glory when they’ve not pulled their weight. There isn’t an easy way to handle them, and managers/leadership won’t always notice. Getting used to finding your own tactics for staying sane while pushing back on the behaviour that’s getting you down takes time. There are some people – as I was told firmly by a trainer on a course for ‘dealing with conflict’ – that you can never get on with. If you’ve been trying, the chances are that’s their problem and fault not yours. Nevertheless, finding some strategies is important.
I believe, as the world of work is changing, employers increasingly want team players, employees who can work well with others. Yet our education system is more likely to focus on facts that can be crammed in and then examined, than on anything to do with interactions with other people. This is true in schools, and it is true in most university science courses. Just as with promotion in later academic years, we reward the individual. Industry is not like this, and employers typically don’t want individuals like that on their workforce either. Soft skills – such as the ability to collaborate – matter to them as much as the technical, yet universities don’t help very much with developing those skills. We should think harder about the bigger picture, and not just cram facts that can be tested, but which can also easily be found online if needed for future use.
