How Not to Chair a Committee

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Athene Donald

Whether as a student or a professor (or indeed at any level in between) I would suspect there isn’t a reader of this blog who hasn’t had to sit through a meeting of some type or other where the Chair has intensely irritated them somehow. There are of course a huge variety of ways to fail to chair a committee well. What follows are some descriptions of those failings I react worst to; in other words the six sins I see as most egregious. You may want to share some other experiences of your own in the comments. (I appreciate I am laying myself open to those who have suffered at my own hands to describe my foibles and worse, but so be it.)

1 Inadequate Preparation

Any committee member can turn up to a meeting not having found the time – minutes or often hours – necessary to read through the paperwork in advance. As a mere member it is easy enough to keep your head down, to rely on prior knowledge or native wit to get you through. Not so the Chair. If the Chair doesn’t know what’s on the agenda/in the paperwork or is fully aware of what else is going on relevant to the topics under discussion, it is improbable that things will go well. How often have you seen the Chair turn to the secretariat for help or simply pass the discussion across trying to disguise their own ignorance? If it is a clearly agreed tactic, discussed with the committee’s secretary in advance, of course that’s fine. If it arises from a position of weakness it means that the Chair is unlikely to have a firm grasp of the key issues that should be discussed and therefore may be at the mercy of the more Machiavellian committee members to steer debate and decisions in the directions they please.

2 Lack of control, including of committee members’ behaviour

I’ve written often enough on this blog about bad behaviour: people who are rude, overbearing, talk over others or make overtly inappropriate remarks (sexist or racist for instance). A good Chair will stamp on this at the outside. Not allow individuals to grandstand, to hog the limelight or to be derogatory about others. Point scoring in committees is all too common but should be eliminated: it really isn’t the way to reach good decisions. But even perfectly well-intentioned people may need judicious oversight. Perhaps they are too inclined to rabbit on inconclusively and need a reminder of the time, or maybe they are inaudible to half the room. A Chair who hasn’t fallen asleep can make a difference in quite a light touch way and make the session much more pleasant for all. Too often they fail to do so.

3 Being incapable of personally shutting up

This failing is a real bugbear of mine, because it is very hard to do anything about it. I have seen some extremely senior people fall into this trap. They probably were prone to do it everywhere but (perhaps mercifully) I didn’t have to endure it on multiple committees. Once was quite enough. Sometimes it is absolutely crucial for a Chair to set out a scenario very carefully, to explain the pros and cons of contrasting options or to talk the committee through some complicated legal niceties. The Chair needs to hold the floor then. But at other times the committee is there for a purpose: to discuss the matters under consideration and that requires them to have sufficient time to speak and to set out their own views. However it is a brave committee member who challenges the Chair to shut up in a situation like this! No doubt some Chairs talk incessantly deliberately, but others I suspect are completely oblivious of the fact that their waffle prevents genuine debate from ever getting going. In my experience Chairs who dominate the time in this way tend simply to cause their committee members to opt out and give up. Not the way to do constructive business.

4 Failure to keep to time or get through the agenda

When I’m going to Chair a meeting, particularly a new one or one with a complex agenda, I like to get a briefing from the Secretariat along with suggested timings. Or if it’s a grant-giving (or equivalent) to work out how far down the list of proposals I want to get by some obvious break or hour. It isn’t always possible to keep precisely to time, but at least with such a plan I have some idea of how far I’m deviating from it. It has to be said not all Chairs appear to follow such simple guidelines. Having observed a fresh Chair recently seem completely oblivious of the time brought this home to me. He seemed unfazed as one committee member left (at the time the meeting was scheduled to finish), another challenged him as to how long the meeting was going on for, and yet other members ostentatiously put their iPads away and took their reading glasses off. It was not an instructive scene. Personally, one of my major challenges is with those evening College meetings that are immediately succeeded by dinner. I haven’t yet had to keep the Fellows from their food, but it once came to a close-run thing. I don’t believe this was down to bad chairing (well, I wouldn’t, would I!) it was down to a particularly difficult decision we had to make, but I did try to make sure the debate kept moving on. We left the room with five minutes before the gong, literally, rang.

5 Inability to find a consensus or at least agree on next steps

When first taking on chairing responsibilities one key piece of advice I was given by a more experienced colleague was to make sure to allow enough time for discussion but be conscious of when the moment came to draw the debate to a close because a consensus (or near enough) had been reached. This can be a real challenge sometimes, but the Chair who doesn’t manage to do this is going to fail to come out of the meeting with anything very valuable. If general agreement is not forthcoming it is sometimes worth spelling out the sticking points and the consequences of different decisions – or indeed not making one at all. Making concrete what members may be only half aware are the logical outcomes of their positions can be helpful. But some Chairs allow discussions to go round, and round and round ad nauseam with no progress forthcoming, simply the same old chestnuts being worked over. Sometimes sleeping on a debate, accepting that folk need to go away and ponder more or do more digging around to get additional facts, is wise. Allowing old sores to be aired indefinitely is just aggravating for all concerned.

6 Regarding the committee as a personal rubber stamp

The last failing is when the Chair doesn’t actually want debate: they’ve decided what they want and they’re determined to drive it through regardless. In their view the committee is simply there as a governance fig leaf, although sometimes they go through the motions of allowing other views to be expressed (though not attended to). If the committee do have other views and are determined to press them, things can be uncomfortable. However in many cases the committee just throw up their collective hands and let the Chair get their way. This is not usually a good way to make decisions, unless the Chair is remarkably prescient.

Most people end up chairing committees without any formal instruction other than watching their predecessors. Too often such learning on the job actually only propagates bad practice. New Chairs (or even old hands) might wish to take advice from their most trusted colleagues as to whether they can improve and if so how. It is always useful to get an objective outsiders’ view. It may, however, be painful! Nevertheless, for the sake of your co-workers it may be pain worth enduring…..

 

 

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Dare to Dream: Parent Carer Scientist

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Athene Donald

This post first appeared here on the Huffington Post on 9th March 2016.

‘Science Needs Women’ says L’Oreal’s tagline succinctly for its For Women in Science Campaign. Science needs women to ensure the best science is done by the most talented individuals, whatever their gender. It needs women to be creative and to think laterally because currently far too many drop science prematurely at school. Even for those who stick with it post-18 the so-called ‘leaky pipeline’ is still leaking despite many years of hard work by a wide range of organisations including WISE and the Institute of Physics. The challenge is particularly acute in the physical sciences, with only around 20% of A level entrants for physics being women. Without physics A level many university courses and careers are closed off, most notably the different strands of engineering.

The problems at school are largely cultural, being affected by societal and parental expectations as well as those of peers and teachers. Stereotypes abound. If girls are expected simply to wear pink and model themselves on Disney princesses they may be reluctant to admit to a burning love for mathematics or chemistry. Subsequently the societal problems are rather different. Far too often young women hear the message that a career in science and motherhood don’t mix, can’t mix. That it is ‘too difficult’ to combine the two, despite the evidence of many women to the contrary. Students believe this message. Despite being a professor and a mother of two, female students have said to my face ‘it can’t be done’.

In an attempt to demonstrate that what might be called ‘real life’ and a career in science can be combined, for women and men, the Royal Society has launched a new book in this week of International Women’s Day, highlighting the very different paths and solutions scientists at different stages in their careers have worked out. Single mothers, gay couples, those with disabilities and those in a more standard family setting are highlighted in the new publication. Parent Carer Scientist is the title of the book, a title which says it all. You can be all these things successfully and there is no ‘right’ way of doing it.

I think too often young women receive messages that say there is only one way to live your life, a nice linear progression from school to university, then into a career and a relationship. And if the relationship leads to children the presumption frequently seems to be that children are a ‘women’s problem’. There are so many things wrong with those two sentences! First of all, few people’s lives, however successful they may be, follow the ‘ideal’ model. Most people have setbacks be they personal or professional. You may get derailed for days, weeks months or even years if you are unlucky. You may be in the wrong place at the right time or the right place at the wrong time. Or, everything may go swimmingly until you break your leg (or worse), your parent dies or becomes dependent or your partner needs to move to the other end of the country. Life is never straightforward.

Furthermore, children do not turn up to order – there may be years of heartache first or they may turn up unplanned. They will almost invariably absorb more time and energy than is imaginable beforehand, as well as give more rewards. However, in the twenty first century children are not the mother’s problem. For couples they are the responsibility of both parents and the advent of shared parental leave in the UK makes this easier financially and practically.

The stories in the Royal Society book illustrate all these points, with vivid examples of scientists who have found their way through the maze of caring responsibilities and careers. No one is saying it is a trivial problem to crack. Every family is different. But it is time to move on from seeing success – in science or indeed in any other of the professions – as something that can only be achieved by giving up the rest of one’s life. As long as people continue to propagate that message we will, as a society, be effectively deterring many young women from flourishing. The business community will go on crying out for scientists and engineers. Young women will feel they cannot follow their dreams because these are incompatible with motherhood. Surely it is time we moved on. Read this book and be inspired. Share this book with your friends, your family and children to spread the word.

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A Tale of Politics, Policy and Nerves

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Athene Donald

Walking in to the Babbage Lecture Theatre in the centre of Cambridge last week took me straight back to what I suspect was the first lecture I ever attended (or should that be endured?) in Cambridge as an undergraduate. I’m sure I must have been back in this particular lecture theatre since that time when I was a timid fresher, but I can’t remember when. Then the lecturer was bizarrely attired in a see-through black shirt with a bootlace – apparently – for a tie, tight trousers and sandals. The topic was mathematics, as designed for natural scientists, probably something about vectors. The lecture theatre was huge. The size was what struck me first as I entered it again this week: it appeared to have shrunk! Maybe this was something to do with the reupholstering of the seats into a tasteful blue plush, something that looked far more comfortable and less drab than I recalled. But it no longer looked so impersonal and large, even though it undoubtedly was the same size.

Was I as daunted this week as I was in 1971? Hard to tell, but I certainly did not feel at ease as I entered this week to chair a couple of talks followed by half an hour’s Q+A. The occasion? A visit by the EU Commissioner for Research and Innovation Carlos Moedas accompanied by the UK’s Science and Universities’ Minister Jo Johnson, to talk collectively on the subject of Reinventing European Research and Innovation for the Information Age. Jo Johnson had chosen that morning to pun on his brother’s name Boris, conflating that with our VC Sir Leszek Borysiewicz (always known as Borys) in an article in the Financial Times ‘Want to know what Brexit would mean? Ask Boris’. The Boris in question was of course actually Borys, who has spoken up frequently in favour of the EU, in stark contrast to Boris Johnson the London Mayor and MP who has come out for Out. Most recently Borys had made a passionate speech the day before Moedas and Johnson (J)’s Cambridge visit at the International Higher Education Forum and this speech provided the jumping off point for what Johnson (J) had written that morning and then said in person on the platform – in front of the VC .

Personally I am, as perhaps my membership of the ERC Scientific Council hints at, a staunch believer in the value of staying in the EU. Indeed my guess is that Cambridge collectively is pretty enthusiastic. In the 1975 referendum Cambridge apparently came out as the constituency with the highest overall pro-vote and there are probably those here who expect the same outcome this time around. Time will tell, but in the meantime I am more than happy to chair an event with committed pro-European speakers. Additionally Carlos Moedas is a strong supporter of science and innovation and is wishing to see the creation of a pan-European Innovation Council to mimic the success he undoubtedly sees in the ERC, something he stressed in his Cambridge speech.

However, my nerves as I stood on the platform welcoming these two politicians were not just down to being overawed by the company I found myself in but because 25-30 minutes of Q+A has the potential for disaster if everyone else decides to be overawed too. You stand there waiting for the hands to shoot up and panic courses through you when they don’t. We kicked off with one long-winded question and then nothing. I was reduced to stalling for time by saying that everyone must be feeling stunned and trying to frame my own question (of course I should have done that in advance! I’d expected there to be no shortage and so hadn’t) – and then suddenly there was a sea of hands and the time sped by. In the end I had to cut off a number of people because of the need to keep to a precise schedule (otherwise known as the press wanting to get their time with the politicians). I stepped off the platform with a sense of relief.

That was not the end of my high level company of the day. The evening saw the Biennial Roskill Lecture in Churchill College. Originally this was intended to be given by John Major about his time in office and the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 made in conjunction with the Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds. However in the end he had to have a hip operation a few weeks ago and he kindly nominated the diplomat Sir Roderick Lyne, who had worked closely with Major at the time, as his substitute. And what a substitute he was! We had a fascinating lecture about all the groundwork that was done in securing peace in Northern Ireland and why the time was ripe (and the key individuals of Albert Reynolds and John Major the right people with a good working relationship and mutual trust) to move things forward. Over dinner we also had a shorter talk from the Irish Ambassador in London Daniel Mulhall, who put the Irish take on the events back then as well as the current state of play. He also spoke up strongly about his hopes that the UK would stay in after the referendum – and his fears if we did not.

One of the wonderful things about being Head of a Cambridge college is that one gets exposed to events like this lecture and dinner. I may have enjoyed history at school (I did); I may increasingly be involved with politicians (as per the morning’s event) but I probably would not find time to head off to a lecture about recent history without a prompt. But when one gets to such an event it is brilliant. And then to have the opportunity to talk over dinner to Lyne and Mulhall, to quiz them privately and ask the dumb questions that are on the tip of one’s tongue is also a privilege. Even if it also highlights one’s shortcomings in politics, policy and history.

If you don’t know whether I’m trying to talk about impostor syndrome, my amazement at and interest in the company I find myself in, or the importance I personally attach to staying in the EU that is because the three strands seem so intimately linked this week. When presented with ambassadorial company you can be sure that your ignorance will be treated kindly. This is not something you can count on when faced with fellow academics or politicians! However losing one’s nerve when dealing with any of them in a public situation is not to be recommended. Perhaps that is the advice I would have given my 18 year old self walking into the Babbage Lecture Theatre all those years ago – had that self had any idea of what life might throw up so far ahead. Added to which I would say, note the feelings of being out of one’s depth and stamp on them.

Perhaps most importantly, the comparison of my role in the lecture theatre then and now reminds me that you never know what is just around the corner (as my husband once said shrewdly said to me after I was nursing feelings of failure following an apparently major setback in my career). It is impossible to predict how things will turn out. All you can do is seize the next opportunity, make the most of what does come your way and not run away from challenges just because they feel challenging. Life can be interesting and exciting in all kinds of ways the teenage self cannot possibly imagine.

 

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National Academies and the Gender Mix Around the World

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Athene Donald

National academies of science serve a variety of purposes including recognizing the country’s eminent scientists and providing an impartial (usually) voice to government and other policy makers. If this voice is to be truly representative it needs to be inclusive. For too long academies have not lived up to this. This isn’t simply a case of Western academies, as a new report (Women for Science: Inclusion and Participation in Academies of Science) published by the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), supported by the InterAcademy Partnership makes clear: this is a global problem. The countries of South America and Africa are better with regard to gender mix than their counterparts in Europe and North America. But not much. The reality exposed by this report is that no country does well on the gender mix of their academy’s fellowship. Across the Global Network of Science Academies, the average share of women members across 69 national science academies was a mere 12%, with nearly one half having a percentage of less than 10%.

There are some things in the report I find even more disturbing than the absolute numbers, notably the apparent lack of ambition or strategy to change. I have often written about the work the Royal Society has been doing around diversity, increasing the pool of candidates and changing the imagery in its public spaces. Unlike the Royal Society, many of the academies questioned for this report seem to be unaware they have a problem. The survey explicitly asked each academy whether they had any document (e.g. a strategy or policy document) which mentioned the need for increased participation by women or a gender policy. Only 40% indicated that they had one or the other. Less than a third had a ‘women in science’ programme, loosely defined. And for those national academies that also sponsor and evaluate research, little attention seemed to be paid to any possible gender implications, with only just over a third factoring this in for their sponsored research, and under a third in the context of research evaluations. Unconscious bias would seem to be an unfamiliar concept to the majority of the academies.

Put in this light, maybe the Royal Society itself looks less like a pariah and more like a beacon for many other organisations! Just in the last week they have announced a new prize for work in diversity, the Royal Society Athena Prize (closing date March 29th). The aim of this prize is to recognise individuals and teams in the UK who have contributed towards the advancement of diversity in STEM in their institutions and organisations. Its aspiration is to inspire innovation and leadership in diversity issues. The main event associated with the award of this year’s Rosalind Franklin Prize also took place this past week. This prize, supported by BIS, is made to support the promotion of women in STEM and was won this year by UCL’s Rachel McKendry. As part of her prize she ran an ‘appathon’ and I had the pleasure (despite being hardly an expert in apps) in participating in the judging team. The afternoon’s activities, when the prizes were awarded ,were great fun and included a brief reminiscence by Rosalind Franklin’s younger sister Jenifer Glynn of her sister, trying to counter some of the myths that have grown up.
Jennifer GlynnJenifer Glynn speaking at last week’s Rosalind Franklin Appathon

The final strand in the current plethora of Royal Society diversity events will be next weekend, when the updated successor to Ottoline Leyser’s wonderful book Mothers in Science: 64 Ways to have it all  (itself the product of the 2007 Rosalind Franklin prize) will be launched to coincide, roughly, with International Women’s Day. I am looking forward to seeing this new book which has now been widened to cover diversity much more broadly, no longer being just about mothers.

There is absolutely no doubt the Royal Society is doing its best to move the climate forward for women in science. The imagery has been updated, as I for one have publicly called for. There are images of women in various parts of the building, including this group

RS entrance images

of photos by Anne Purkiss at the entrance. Unconscious bias training is being introduced and I can attest to the fact that committees are much more likely to discuss any sorts of inappropriate comments in references or around the table than a few years ago. There is a long way to go. People can still point to the low numbers overall of women in the fellowship, but progress is being made. And, as one of the 50 or so women who are FRSs I can assure you there is a strong desire to involve us centrally in the different aspects of the Society’s work. If we turn down some of the opportunities on offer it is because we are overworked!

So, as you read the Interacademy Partnership’s report and realise that around the world women are underrepresented essentially everywhere and often hardly considered, it is worth bearing in mind that within the UK progress is being made. Not just in numbers but, perhaps at least as importantly, in mindset.

 

 

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Drinking Habits of the Academic

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Athene Donald

Do we, poor misguided academics drink too much? I am sure many of us could do with drinking less but I was surprised to see the Guardian’s Academics Anonymous complaining that Russell group universities ply everyone with too much alcohol. In my experience – as a scientist so I cannot comment on whether other disciplines do the same – there is actually rather less alcohol available in the course of a working day than used to be the case. This is probably just a question of age since the writer (describing themselves as both PhD student and staff) is almost certainly considerably younger than me.

Many years ago I remember reading a JB Priestley novel and being struck by just how much the protagonists drank. Any time after about 11am. Instead of sitting down with a cup of coffee for a discussion, beer seemed to be the chosen fluid to consume. Of course, pubs didn’t serve much in the way of coffee until relatively recently and Costa and Starbucks were decades away when Priestley wrote. But, for men at least (goodness knows what women drank on such occasions. Babycham? Port and lemon? Or perhaps simply lemonade) beer was drunk almost as if one was worried the water was undrinkable . By 1930– the time he wrote Angel Pavement which was, I think, the book I was reading – this was unlikely to have been the case. I don’t think I know anyone who would toss off a pint of beer or two for elevenses now.

So much for pre-War drinking habits away from academia. Perhaps Dorothy Sayers Gaudy Night gives us a glimpse into the academic customs of the 1930s, but since it is focussed around a woman’s college where drink was barely more than a medicinal sip, it isn’t particularly informative. I think it is clear a female SCR consumed a lot less than Priestley’s cast of characters.

When I set out as a young researcher what I do recall clearly, though, is the lunchtime tipple. When I went to MIT to give my very first research seminar I was offered a drink over the lunch before I spoke. I had no hesitation in saying no, but the professors I was with were willing to crack open a bottle. If I had been male I wonder how much offence I might have caused by declining, but certainly as a young woman it didn’t seem to raise eyebrows.

Once I moved to Cambridge and the Cavendish Laboratory a group of us – usually chauffeured to the village pub by Sir Sam Edwards – would take the seminar speaker out for lunch before the seminar itself. The group collectively tended to drink beer but I always stuck with orange juice. Again I could get away with this as a woman but I suspect people would have looked askance at the male lecturer who opted out. This was in the early 1980s and in the decades since then it is clear that drinking at lunch has become very much the exception not the rule. I have watched a steady decrease in take up of beer or anything else. Even if, at a formal lunch for a visiting dignitary, wine is provided very few academics take it up. Drink at lunchtime and a clear head to think in the afternoon just don’t mix. Sparkling water is a much better bet.

So why does the Anonymous Academic think we drink too much? I suspect it is because of the inducement some departments offer to get students to turn up to talks. My own departmental seminar, designed for the whole department not just sub-field specific, is (just in the last year or two) followed up with a reception where wine is on offer. As is juice and food! No one requires the students to guzzle large quantities of cheap Chardonnay but if its availability acts to encourage them to tear themselves away from their own focussed research and listen to something from a wider field then it is thought to be a good thing. I don’t believe it is provided to bolster the courage of the young so that they dare to approach the visiting prof, I believe it is there to act as an almost literal lubricant to encourage social cohesion in the department.

The Cavendish Laboratory is a huge enterprise, with about 60-70 PhD students starting each year. They come from all parts of the world and carry out research in wildly different topics. Spread across a number of buildings they may never see each other unless they come to such departmental events. Gone are the days when we all congregated in the canteen at narrowly set times for tea and coffee. That habit too served effectively to permit casual interactions. By now most groups run to their own Nespresso machine – or at least a kettle – thereby keeping research groups to themselves. So, the small inducement of tepid alcohol, plus the excitement of a sausage roll or a slice of green pepper and dip seems a small price to pay to facilitate knowledge exchange and social integration. If you are from a remote part of the globe it may be encouraging to find that there are others who are likewise suffering from culture shock. For minorities of all kinds knowing you are not alone can be valuable in confidence building.

So, I for one am not going to knock the availability – and that is all it is, certainly not a compulsion – of a little alcohol at the end of the day. It has to be at the end of the day, of course, or students might be prone to breach health and safety regulations by ‘driving’ delicate machinery after consumption. I haven’t spotted much peer pressure if a student (or staff member) opts for the soft drink option. This is certainly far preferable to the availability of beer at lunchtime, let alone elevenses, and might just bring about some fertile new collaboration or at least some broadening of horizons.

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