Inclusive workplaces?

One of the trends/ideas that surfaced in my former workplace around fifteen or so years ago was the idea of having the workplace be inclusive. I googled the term 'inclusive workplace' recently, and this is what popped up as the first link: Inclusive Workplace - Canadian Association for Supported Employment

An inclusive workplace is more about culture than anything else. It is about creating a workplace where everyone is treated with respect and valued for their contributions. In an inclusive workplace, colleagues and customers are treated with dignity, respect and equality, and these values are reflected in the company’s mission and vision. Policies and procedures are implemented and managed so that employees’ rights are preserved.

It sounds nice, reads well, and leaves a good taste in your mouth. My question is what happens when workplaces are not inclusive even when they purport to be so? When it's all talk and no action? When there are no consequences for treating employees disrespectfully? What then? What happens when a disrespectful culture is what defines a workplace? What happens to employees' self-esteem and sense of self when they are not valued for their contributions?

I bring this up because today I met with a former colleague whom I haven't seen in a while. She still works at my former workplace but wants to retire soon. It's been three years since I left my workplace behind, and I don't miss it. More specifically, I don't miss the workplace culture. I don't miss the lack of real interest in employees, the lack of interest in their contributions, the many indifferent leaders, or the unending talk about change and how employees should just acquiesce to leaders' wishes. I don't miss the tasks that were assigned to me that ended up stranded halfway because they were tasks that required the collaborative efforts of several individuals. In other words, they were not tasks that one person alone, without personnel or a budget, could perform. It was sad, really, because I poured my heart and soul into several of them, but without support from above and below, they ended in limbo. Luckily, I could focus on my cancer research projects, and they were successful because they were well-designed and supported. I wouldn't have had it any other way, since being a research scientist was my chosen profession. I did not study science for many years and pursue a doctoral degree to become an administrator, but that's what my department would have preferred I ended up as. But had they really wanted that, they would have supported me with personnel and a budget. As it was, I had to supply my own budget for a specific department activity by writing a grant proposal for it. That was my initiative and I got grant support, not for myself, but for my department. All well and good, but this is not how things should have been run. Money should have been appropriated by my department for the task at hand. My department never had much money to spare. It was chronically overstaffed with mediocre leaders and understaffed with competent employees who knew what they were doing and who were willing to work with me on solving some of the departmental issues. In the end, we concluded that the department talked a good fight but couldn't 'put their money where their mouth was', as we say in the States. Sad, because some of the tasks could actually have been successfully accomplished and finished. 

My point with this post is that my former workplace was not really interested in inclusiveness. You were left on your own, left alone, to work it all out. Emphasis on alone. I spent most days alone in my office. I don't envy others as a rule, but when I hear people describe their workplaces in glowing terms, I envy them. I wish I had had another type of experience during the past decade; I wish that I hadn't felt abandoned, ignored, bypassed or irrelevant. I have gained a perspective and understanding now that I no longer work there. How much of it had to do with age and how much of it had to do with a dysfunctional workplace, I'll never know. I do know that the turnover rate among lower-level employees was high. I do know that there was a lot of dissatisfaction among many employees. Many of them said and still say (when I meet them socially) pretty much what I've written here; they did and do not feel appreciated by their leaders, and many of them worked very hard, so laziness was not an excuse for the disrespect. It's odd how a dysfunctional culture can gain traction and then end up permeating every aspect of one's work life. It's odd when you gain perspective after no longer working there--that the workplace wasn't an inclusive one. Had it not been for one leader (a friend of mine) who worked there briefly and tried her best to change the culture (and failed) during the last four or five years of my work life, those years would have been among the loneliest ever. I have a friend here, in her early sixties, who is still working and feels that she still has a lot to give. She doesn't want to retire. But she is treated poorly by her workplace (not my former workplace); she is bypassed, ignored, and frozen out of major decisions. She calls it harassment. I think it is. But nothing will change and she will end up leaving that workplace because as one person, she cannot fight a team of indifferent leaders who don't care about her or whether or not she is happy at work. It's pervasive, the non-inclusive workplace. But it's more common than one might think. 

Reflections on relevance, leadership, and freedom

Once you are no longer a part of the work world, a certain amount of your professional relevance disappears. For many people, that is the same as their professional identity, and it can be difficult to deal with that 'loss' of identity. Perhaps it is most difficult for those who had leadership responsibilities; it seems to be difficult for some to acknowledge that they are not 'in charge' anymore. They may cast around for new venues that will allow them to be in charge once again, and that can be somewhat disconcerting for those who know them. I don't feel that I've lost my professional identity now that I am no longer working. I am no longer relevant to my former workplace, that's true, but I trained as a scientist and a scientist I will always be. It's in my blood, in the same way as my love of books and movies is in my blood. I've always focused on keeping my personal identity alive. After all, even when I was working, I still had nights and weekends and vacations to pursue my hobbies and interests. And I did. 

There is a lot of freedom in no longer having to be relevant to a workplace. I am now free to write and to verbalize about many aspects of workplaces with which I was dissatisfied. It won't lead to much in the sense that workplaces will continue doing pretty much what they've been doing; my opinions won't change them. But it feels good to have that freedom to comment on them, to not have to be so careful about what I say or how I say it. I've always taken good care to not be rude or destructive in my previous posts about workplaces, and that won't change. But I can now state more emphatically that I agree or disagree with this or that way of doing things. I was able to do that this past summer at a garden party, and it felt good. And one of my former leaders (who is no longer a leader) actually agreed with me, whereas when she was my leader, she would have probably told me that my comments were out of place. It made me view her in a new light, because I thought, ah yes, she too had to report to a leader above her, and that was probably not always the easiest thing to do. So I gained a new understanding of her and her attempts (mostly unsuccessful) at being a good leader. As I've stated before, most of the leaders I've had to do with have not been good leaders. And a few are honest and say that themselves. I'm not sure I would have been a good leader either, at least not a top-level leader. There's too much blah blah ad nauseam. I am solution-oriented; I don't want to meet and talk for hours about how to get something done, I want to discuss what needs to be discussed, come up with some plans for a solution(s) (if there are problems), and execute them. I am practical by nature, at least where the work world is concerned. 

I've been a team and project leader and I've reported to several leaders above me during a long career. I've also participated in committee work at the highest leadership level at my former workplace and found it rather disappointing. I had a (rather) utopian view of it; I thought that there was much more freedom at the top level to set things in motion, to be innovative, to be efficient, to effect change. I found out that that wasn't necessarily the case; more often, it was frustrating work. There wasn't more freedom, because in the end, we are always having to answer to other people; we are never truly free. Top-level leaders must answer to the politicians who deal out the money that keeps public sector workplaces going. And unfortunately politicians don't always understand what's at stake or what is needed. Sometimes it amazes me that anything gets done at all in the public sector. But it does, so that's proof that things do work, albeit very very slowly and in a frustrating manner. I probably would have experienced less frustration in the private sector. But it's a moot point at this juncture in my life. 

Real change in the workplace

I got the chance recently to tell a former leader what I thought about my former workplace when it came to attitudes toward research and the politics it practiced. We were together at a garden party hosted by another former colleague who seems to have managed the workplace politics better than I did. It's not that I didn't try; it's just that at some point I refused (inside myself) to compromise my beliefs and how I view dealing with employees and the jobs they do. I am totally uninterested in micromanaging employees or in forcing them to accept change just for the sake of change. I am interested in engaging them in useful and productive work and in listening to what they have to say and to teach me. The latter is important, and more leaders should try to listen better and to learn from their employees, rather than preaching to them that they are 'resistant to change', ineffective at their jobs, or treating them as though they are little more than a budget post on an accounting sheet. 

The interesting thing was that my former leader agreed with mostly everything I said, which was not the case when I was still working, and said further that attempts have been made to get current leadership to see new points of view when it comes to research policies, to no avail. Current research leadership thinks it knows best, and has thought that way for the past fifteen years. And they talk about resistance to change. My opinion--start at the top and work downward. Get rid of the heavy weight of too many leaders at the top (six levels of leadership) and focus on using the salary money saved to employ truly professional individuals who actually do useful and productive work. I reiterate, as I've done so many times in this blog before--leadership is not a career in and of itself. Being a leader in one specific area does not necessarily qualify you for all leadership positions. Current management in many places seems to think it does, and it is one of the biggest mistakes ever made during the past twenty years. How one could believe that being a top-level company executive entitles you to run a hospital department with no prior medical experience is beyond me. But tell that to the politicians who leave office and are appointed leaders of boards and companies. What experience do they have that qualifies them for these positions? The worst thing that ever happened to academic research science was giving these bureaucrats the power that they now have to wield over ordinary scientists, many of whom have simply given up and left for the greener pastures of industry. The same is true for many of the pathologists I know, who simply cannot abide the understaffing (a perpetual shortage of necessary professionals) and inefficiency of many public hospital workplaces. 

Things need to change, and if that change entails admitting that current leadership trends are simply 'the emperor's new clothes', then so be it. Admit it. Just do it. Get rid of the dead weight at the top. Hire the people needed to do the necessary jobs, who actually do the work. Stop micromanaging. In short, listen to your employees and respect their expertise. You hired them for a reason. 

Turning off the lights

It's been nearly a year since I left my workplace for the freedom of retirement. I met a former colleague for coffee this afternoon, and we ended up chatting about our former workplace. She has since moved on to greener pastures, as have I. She filled me in on the recent gossip--who has retired, who quit and where they work now, and so forth. As usually happens, we talk too about former leaders, leadership styles and bad leadership. The latter is rampant, and not just at my former workplace, that I understand. It's just that while I worked there, I was always hoping to witness good leadership in action, and I rarely got to see it. It was immensely disappointing. It always seemed as though most leaders were interested in worrying about how satisfied the leaders above them were, rarely about how satisfied the employees who worked for them were. I call it kissing ass up over in the system, a not uncommon phenomenon. 

While I was en route to my coffee meeting, I reflected upon my one year of retirement and leaving the work world behind. Do I miss it at all? No, I don't. I thought about leaving my office, which was the size of a prison cell for two people, for the last time and turning off the light switch. It's a good metaphor for retirement. I turned off the lights--on my job, my career, the perpetual anxiety, the having to deal with arrogant leaders, the stress, and the feeling of never measuring up. How good it feels to have turned off those lights in that old life. And how good it feels to have turned on new light switches in other places; how good it feels to have a new life, one that is totally unencumbered by negative feelings, negative people, and negativity generally. And if I meet negative people in any capacity, I am free to walk away from them, and I do. I am not interested in listening to them or adopting their world views, or adapting in any way to having to deal with them. 

I am free. Whenever I say that to former colleagues, they look at me in surprise. So many people tell me that they never would have thought that I would have retired early. I rejoice inside when they say that. It means I kept my poker face for the last five years I worked there, and never told people about my plans. I could plan my exit well, and I did. I could visualize the next stage in my life, and I did. I am free. It's a wonderful feeling. 

What is there to miss?

There is nothing that I miss about the work world I left behind. There are however several people who seem to be 'waiting' for me to say that I miss working and miss my former workplace. Every time I'm together with them they ask me if I miss working. The answer is always no. I reassure them that I made the right decision since they seem to be worried that I made the wrong decision. They seem to think that they know me better than I know myself. I tell them that wild horses could not drag me back to what was. I've learned (finally) to let go and to live in the present. My workplace belongs to the past. I don't worry about the past and I cannot predict nor do anything about the future, so the best place to live is in the present. I jokingly say that I retired to spend more time in my garden. But it's really the truth. My garden is my happy place. 

I was speaking with one former colleague yesterday since we still socialize from time to time. She had just gotten off the phone with another former colleague who updated her on all the doings at my former workplace. Summa summarum--nothing has changed. Nothing will change. The big egos are still running the show, rude as ever to the researchers they deem worthless (those who don't drag in a ton of money). Rude also to the clinicians who are doing research (or trying to) in addition to their clinical duties. What is there to miss about this type of workplace? Egotistical arrogant superficial uninteresting people (the majority of whom are men). They think they are going to live forever and carry on as though they will. And they can do so for my sake. I don't care a whit about them. 

I also grew weary of the bureaucratic systems that were built up around the practice of science. There are forms to fill out and online systems to learn at every turn. Work life in the public healthcare system is simply about having your every move tracked by one or another system. As my husband says, they exist because there is no longer any trust between employers and employees. He's right. I suppose there are any number of employees who are scoundrels, who cheat the system if they can get away with it, who abuse it and thereby abuse fellow colleagues (in my experience it has been top leadership that has abused the system but that is another story). So the systems grew out of that mistrust. However, the systems now exist by and for themselves. It is very important as a researcher to know how the accounting and ordering departments work in detail, something that has never particularly interested me. I grew up professionally at a time when these departments were support systems for us. Now they dominate the work lives of most researchers, who already use a large amount of time reporting to the granting agencies that give them money to do research. Updating the latter is important, I grant that, but it is not necessary to update them several times a year. Once a year is enough. 

Many pathologists with whom I used to work are leaving the public healthcare system for private labs. I can totally understand this. I wish I had left the public healthcare system years ago. Thankfully there are more private research labs to choose among at present, so that younger researchers don't have to tolerate what we older researchers had to tolerate. The private labs are efficient; they don't waste time on endless meetings and they let their employees do their jobs. A friend of mine, who is now retired, put it this way; he said that all he wanted to do was go to work and do the job he was paid to do. But he couldn't, because he had a boss who insisted that he go to useless meetings and learn administrative systems for which he had little use. What is the point of all of this? He told me that this emphasis on administrative systems is now called New Office Management. Whoopee. I suppose it replaces New Public Management? Who the heck knows, and who the heck cares?

Life has different stages, different chapters. Best to start a new chapter when you have the health and presence of mind to do so. Best to start anew with a sense of anticipation, of fun, of adventure. So no, I don't regret retiring. I transitioned into a new life, one that I'm grateful for and one that makes me happy. If other people don't accept that, that's their problem, not mine. 

Little lies

We are told and we tell ourselves little lies in order to live in this world and in our ambition-fueled society. Those little lies enable us to carry on through our adult lives. They begin when we are students and young adults, usually started by those older and more experienced than us. When I was in college and starting out in the work world, they sounded something like this: study hard and you'll go far, or having a career is very important, or the work you're doing is important, or we need your expertise and knowledge, or you're a valuable asset to our workplace. They're nice little lies, definitely with a core of truth to them, but the danger is when you start to believe them wholeheartedly. Because it's not always true that if you study hard you'll go far, or that having a career is very important, or that you're a valuable asset to your workplace (because no one is indispensable, which you'll find it if they need to fire employees).  I could list up many examples of where the 'lies' don't reflect reality despite the best of intentions, high motivation, and hard work. Sometimes life gets in the way, sometimes workplace leaders get in the way, and sometimes we ourselves get in our own way. Or sometimes a combination of all three. 

I was reminded of how much we want to believe the little lies when I was in conversation with a co-worker today. I have never really understood him or how he views his work life, but I've always made time to talk to him. He is a perpetual procrastinator, a dreamer of sorts whose ambitions are way too big for his personality, and a person who claims to have self-insight but who nonetheless believes the lies he tells himself. In his case, those lies extend to his view of himself as essential to his workplace. I know employees much older than him who think the same way. They have inflated views of their own importance and they believe those views, often propped up by others. They talk the talk--that they're going to do this and that, that they're going to take a positive approach to their jobs (when they've spent years being demotivated), that they're going to 'ordne opp' (sort it out) as the Norwegians say. Ok, I think, perhaps this time it will happen. But it never does. In a few months, the demotivation and procrastination have returned. I believe that demotivation and procrastination drive some people. They need to talk about feeling demotivated in order to feel relevant, in order to perhaps feel something. When you are unsure of your relevance to your workplace, you can feel demotivated, especially when you are not recognized for your contribution. Likewise, you can feel motivated when you are recognized for your hard work. The problem is that many employees feel demotivated, which tells me that many employees are unsure of their relevance to their workplaces. The reality is that most of us are dispensable. Modern workplaces are too big, and most employees are merely very small fish in very big ponds. Some employees never get used to that. If you do get used to it, you eventually lose the ability to become demotivated. You understand your little place in the scheme of things, you find your niche somewhere, and you join the ranks of the faceless anonymous employees who were once looking for recognition but who realized after some years that they will never get that in a huge workplace. You understand that very few people, if any, are truly relevant to their workplaces. You can always be replaced. Leaders shift jobs every three or four years--starting over at a new workplace and hellbent on making their mark. Middle managers shift jobs as well, as do their employees, advisers and assistants. 

Today, I could see through the veil of little lies. I realized I am tired of the lies, of listening to the same old spiel--the motivational spiel that we hear from leaders and co-workers. My soul is tired, tired of hearing about fake ambitions and competition that leads nowhere, tired of the elitism and egoism of academia. I am tired of vague and non-committal leaders and of employees who won't stand up for fair treatment of other employees. I've opened my mouth time and again over the years with regard to the latter, but much less so during the past few years. More and more, it began to feel pointless, as did so many other things I could have complained about. Some things change, but mostly, workplace behavior and certain workplace environments do not. I became pragmatic over the years; I said very little to co-workers, but set about making small goals for myself and fulfilling them. While the others were talking 'big', I was thinking small and working small. I prefer small. And in that way, I fulfilled my modest ambitions. I realized that my ambitions have always been modest. That was probably a problem for some leaders, but not for me, because I understood that I don't have what it takes to talk 'big'. I leave the big talk over to others with sky-high ambitions. But now I know that the big talk can merely be more lies to convince others and themselves of their importance. I wonder sometimes if they can see through their own lies. I do know that I'm not likely to get an honest answer to that question. 

Weary (and wary) of change

There are at least two sorts of changes, perhaps more. The first sort is the type of change that life brings about, that you can do nothing about--innate change. We age, we grow older, we grow old. There are many changes connected to aging that we can merely observe in ourselves and others; we cannot stop the progression of time. Illness and death are part of the journey. We learn to accept this type of change, albeit grudgingly at times, mostly because there is nothing we can really do about it. At some point you realize that it's best not to think too much about it and to enjoy the days and years that are given you. Because not all people get that chance, as has become all too clear to me during the past decade. 

The other type of change is external change. It is not a natural part of human life as is innate change, but it is a part of our lives that has consequences for us. It is often a type of change that can be forced upon you by a workplace or an organization, or by events in one's personal life that you have not instigated. It can be unsettling change, in that you have to react to it in one form or another, either passively or actively. Many choose the passive route, others choose the proactive route. Regardless, this type of change will affect your life and change it irrevocably--marriage, children, divorce, a major move, a bad job, a good job, retirement. They are changes we can choose, but sometimes they are not. And it is when this type of change is forced upon us that problems can arise. 

During the past two decades or so, modern workplaces have put a tremendous amount of emphasis on the necessity for employees to be able to change (almost at a moment's notice). I remember when I took a year-long leadership course here in Oslo; the operative (Norwegian/Danish) word was 'endringsparat' (ready for change). As a leader, it was important that your employees were endringsparat. An entire module was dedicated to how to lead employees through major workplace changes, and how to deal with those employees who were resistant to change. It was an interesting module, to say the least. Discussions of major mergers came up, and our teacher took an informal poll of the class--how many had been through such a major change as a merger and felt that the outcome was successful. Only one or two people raised their hands. The majority did not, and when quizzed, told stories of fiascos and failures to communicate that torpedoed such workplace changes. There was massive resistance to the changes that ensued in the wake of the merger. What was not commented upon or discussed was the timescale involved in such major changes. How quickly do leaders expect employees to adapt to change? Mergers, for example, are such major changes that it wouldn't surprise me if it took a decade or more for employees to become used to the idea. I don't think most leaders look at this aspect--the length of time involved for employees to adapt to and to accept change. I think they should look more closely at exactly this aspect. 

It is possible for employees to become weary and wary of change. Just hearing the word 'change' can be anathema for some employees, and I think that's because they feel that they have had no say in the matter. Yet another change has been forced on them, that they are expected to accept immediately. That can only lead to conflicts and failure to communicate. I think the time window for measuring the outcome of change should be long. I think management should allow at least five to ten years for employees to adapt to major changes. But that is rarely the case. It all has to be wrapped up nicely with a pretty bow, so the package can be displayed as a 'success'. But how do you measure that success? Did you talk to your employees?

I know several leaders who are young (in their forties) and older (around sixty or in their sixties). All of them have faced situations of major change that they have had to implement or are responsible for initiating. All of them have expressed mild to strong surprise that many of their employees appear to be resistant to those changes. They don't get it, they don't understand what they've done wrong. I try to tell them that perhaps their employees are weary of change. And that some are most likely wary of change. I was, during a period of too many changes about fifteen years ago. I listened to the svada (empty words, empty phrases, meaningless talk about great ambitions for this and that) and thought 'been there, done that'. So many times I can't count. How many times can you change yourself, start over, reinvent yourself, market yourself and your dreams, and to what end? Are we all to conquer the world? Most of us are good at what we do, and that should be enough. But in today's modern workplace, it's not, at least not for many modern workplace leaders. They have to do something, they have to effect change, they have to be remembered for such things. They have to 'motivate' their employees and make them endringsparat. It borders on hysterical. I prefer the non-hysterical approach. 

Through all the years, there has been change, whether modern leaders see it or not. Workplaces change, not because of artificial changes forced on employees, but because the world around us changes. We communicate via internet and digital meetings because technology in the world has made it possible for us to do so. That changes a workplace. Emails changed workplaces for good. They also changed personal communication for good. Smart phones likewise. IT departments are large and necessary entities in most companies; just try living without your computer when it's down for two days. So changes have been implemented gradually over the years in response to the external world. It is the artificial changes, the forced and often unnecessary changes, that cause problems. Leaders who are truly interested in the wellbeing of their employees should learn to distinguish between what are necessary and what are unnecessary changes. The latter can wear down the morale and motivation of many employees, whether modern leaders like it or not. 

 

Working from home and the least engaged employees

I read an article today in the New York Times about the CEO of WeWork who meant that employees who enjoyed working from home were those who were 'least engaged' in their jobs (WeWork’s CEO: ‘Least Engaged’ Employees Work From Home - The New York Times (nytimes.com) I had to laugh. I thought to myself--another dinosaur. Another entitled leader without social antenna or emotional intelligence. My advice to him is to join the 21st century before it leaves him behind. 

The pandemic has shown us all how it is possible to keep on working productively and effectively while working from home full-time (or mostly full-time). Those of us who have administrative jobs have not experienced major changes in how we do our work. The greatest challenge I've faced during the past year has been getting my hospital's VPN to work at home; my company had to work that one out. It took some time, but they did. I need to have access to work emails from home and it has to happen via a private network. Does it always work? No. But 90% of the time it does. So I won't complain. When it doesn't work, I find another task to occupy me. The days go by, and work gets done. 

I'm an older worker without children to care for. Many of the younger couples in my neighborhood who are new parents have enjoyed working from home this past year, for good reasons. They have been able to spend each waking day with their infant/toddler, and I've watched them take turns caring for their children. The fathers are outdoors pushing the baby carriages while the mothers are at home working. Or vice versa. They are relaxed and their babies are relaxed. Of course, we are talking about parents with one child each. Families with several children each may not experience the same amount of relaxation, especially if the children are of school age and were stuck at home during the last year. I've read articles about the parents who have used a lot of time on home schooling and the challenges involved in trying to work from home and home-school children. It can't be easy. As always, I would guess that much of the work falls to the women in the family, who do all of the above plus clean and run the house. So the WeWork CEO is most likely referring to mothers when he says that those who enjoy working from home are the least engaged. As I said, he lacks social antenna, because if he had them, he'd understand that maybe these women appreciate the extra time gained not spent commuting to and from work. Perhaps they appreciate being able to use that extra time on their actual jobs when they are at home, despite all of the other things they are asked to do. As always, it's a man commenting on these issues. I'm really so tired of hearing what men have to think. Why not ask women CEOs? Oh, I forgot. Men still outnumber women when it comes to occupying those coveted CEO positions (Women Business Leaders: Global Statistics (catalyst.org). Why doesn't that surprise me?

I've worked in academia my entire career (dominated for the most part by men at the higher levels). All I've seen are men who have prioritized their careers at the expense of family and friends, at the expense of hobbies and other interests. Many of them (now old) are divorced and alone. They face old age and sickness alone. Many of them were unfaithful to their wives along the way. Many of them were never there to help raise their children. It seems strange to me that society would expect men and women to behave this way and then expect them to have a decent family life. My brother hit that wall when he had children; suddenly sitting in his office until late hours did not appeal to him, and it caused him trouble with his bosses who thought he should not be leaving at 5 pm every day. But he wanted to be with his children, and it cost him one job. But if you get your work done within regular work hours, why shouldn't you be allowed to leave at 5 pm without that being a negative thing? It's because we Americans were raised to think that 60-hour work weeks somehow make you important, invaluable to your company. And for some decades, it probably was that way. But no longer. Companies are no longer loyal to employees who dedicate every waking hour of their lives to their companies. Younger people want a life, and thank God for that. They enjoy their work, but they also enjoy their family lives and friends. And most younger women would not tolerate being married to a man who worked the way men in my father's generation worked, or even men in my former boss's generation (close to 80 years old now). They gave their all to their jobs, but for the life of me I cannot see what they got back that was so much more important than their families and friends. 

So working from home gets two thumbs up from me. Being able to be flexible about when one needs to focus on work, or on family, or on home life and friends, is worth gold. If the WeWork CEO has a problem with that, it's his problem. Society is changing rapidly, and it has passed him by. Good riddance to these types of men. 

The demise of workplace loyalty

Modern leadership courses emphasize many things, but loyalty to one’s workplace is not one of them. Loyalty (my definition of it) is considered to be old-fashioned; what’s important is being able to navigate the many and continual changes that come your way as an employee. Don't become too attached to anything because it could all change tomorrow. Don't become too attached or loyal to a project, a job, or a good leader. Be ready to let go of all of it immediately, because you may very well be asked to do that. Be ready for change at all times. That is the modern workplace mantra.  

As long as employees do not resist the many changes that are foisted upon them, they are considered 'loyal' in the way that management likes. That is the modern definition of workplace loyalty. If management decides that an employee should move to a new location and start anew, it is expected that the employee do that without questioning the wisdom of their decision. Modern workplace loyalty is doing and saying what workplace leadership wants you to do and say; it is not doing and saying what is often the truth and what is often best for oneself and one’s workplace, because the truth is generally not appreciated, or rather, management does not often wish to be reminded of it, especially when it comes into conflict with the plans and strategies that management wishes to implement. Most managers are not interested in hearing your thoughts/opinions about their decisions, whether they are about your job or the workplace at large. If management decides that a merger is the best course of action for a workplace, they effectuate it even if most employees are opposed to it. That has been my experience in huge public sector workplaces. Employees must simply find a way to deal with the outcome, even if it is an obvious failure on many levels. If management decides that personnel budget cuts are the way to reduce operating costs, they effectuate them, despite the protests and complaints by the employees affected directly by them. If management decides that the remaining employees are to do the work of the employees who have been let go, they will put a spin on that decision and foist it upon the remaining employees. If productivity decreases as a result of this decision, management will not allow employees to remind them that this is a direct result of the budget cuts. Management refuses to face the truth--that it is not possible for two people to do the work of five. Modern workplaces are all about saving money ad nauseam but making sure that top leaders get the generous salaries they feel they deserve. And so on. 

Leaders would rather not have to deal with such a tiresome virtue as loyalty, with employees who want what's best for their workplace, who like their workplace, their colleagues, the camaraderie, the shared history, and the interesting projects. It's difficult for most employees to live up to the version of modern worker that most modern workplaces want. The same idea applies when discussions of open office landscapes come up; management will push through that idea despite protests from employees who know from the start how the noise and chaos of open landscapes will affect their productivity. They are not listened to. They are expected to be sheep; just follow management's lead and accept the consequences. If the decision proves to be a huge mistake, they'll find a way to gloss over it so that it is never defined as a mistake. Ergo, it will not be possible to learn from mistakes because there aren't any. 

I don’t understand workplaces that refuse to listen to the good advice and ideas of their employees who have worked there for many years, who know the history of their workplaces and the risks involved in going down a particular path. It’s almost as though the longer you work in one place, the more risk you pose to the implementation of the plans and strategies of management, because they know that long-term employees perhaps cannot adapt or might not want to adapt as readily as short-term employees. They are too loyal to the old way of doing things. I can understand this from management’s point of view, but it’s disconcerting to realize that history, experience, and general knowledge are not valued in the same way as they once were. It’s disconcerting to watch a workplace under new management make the same mistakes as were made ten years ago under an older management. It’s disconcerting to know that they did this because they did not want to listen to the long-term employees. It's disconcerting to watch how long-term employees are pushed aside or frozen out in favor of the younger ones who are more malleable. Eventually, the longer you stay in one workplace out of a misguided sense of loyalty, the less valuable you are to that workplace. That is the definition of a modern workplace. It is no wonder that younger people are less ‘loyal’ in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Why hang around when your ideas and advice are not valued? Many of them shift jobs without compunction after five or seven years. I’ve come to see that as a good thing. I started my career with that attitude, because I felt that at the seven-year mark, one perhaps needed a change of venue. It was important to move on in order to grow and develop. But that was a different era when loyalty between employer and employee was a two-way street. Employers may not have wanted you to leave, and they did their utmost to keep you. That is no longer true. But then I moved to a small country with considerably less career opportunities, and suddenly I had to face the reality that it wouldn’t be easy to shift jobs the way I might have been able to do had I stayed in my own country. So I stayed in one place, in one department, at one hospital. I pursued a doctoral degree, did a postdoc, and became a scientist, all at the same workplace. Many of my colleagues have been the same people for the past thirty years. I grew to like that for the most part—the sense of familiarity and shared history. Thirty years went by. But during the past ten to fifteen years, much has changed, perhaps not unexpectedly. The sense of familiarity and shared history are gone. They have been replaced by a feeling that the sands are constantly shifting under one’s feet. Employees come and go. Decisions are made, work groups established to implement them, and then they are abandoned for reasons that are unclear. Few people seem to complain about the waste of time and effort involved in this type of decision-making, not to mention the huge costs involved. Everything has become very fluid and relative. It often feels like the foundations are no longer strong, or that they are now being built upon shifting sands rather than on solid ground. Many long-term employees have adapted to multiple and continuous changes, but it took time, probably much longer than management preferred. The result however is that long-term employees stand alone. They feel alone and perhaps abandoned. They feel devalued and useless to some extent. The sense of shared history is gone. The sense of pulling together for a real and important goal is gone. It’s a strange feeling. I haven’t decided yet whether I like it, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that management likes this way of doing things.

Remembering Frank

I found out yesterday that one of my former bosses at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where I worked in the 1980s, passed away this past August. Frank was one of the cytometry triumvirate at the Laboratory for Investigative Cytology together with Zbigniew and Myron. Myron passed away in 2013 after battling pancreatic cancer for six years. I remember when I interviewed for the job of daily manager of the flow cytometry core facility, I ended up interviewing with Myron and Frank, as well as with Don, who was another senior scientist in the lab. I had experience in biophysical techniques from my first job, and I guess that contributed to my getting the job. 

Myron, Zbigniew and Frank were wonderful men to work for, and I treasure my time in their lab. I've written about this lab several times before in this blog. I had most to do with Frank on a daily basis. He was my immediate boss and he taught me everything I know about flow cytometry. There was almost no scientific question he couldn't answer, and he was generous with his time and help. He was also very protective of his employees and stood firmly on our side whenever conflicts arose with external labs. He seemed to be unflappable, but when he did get mad, which happened once or twice in the seven years I worked with him, it was best not to be on the receiving end of his anger. I pitied the scientists who ended up having any sorts of conflicts with him. They knew that without his help, their projects would become stranded. If he thought something was stupid, he said so, complete with sarcastic comments and a roll of his eyes. And he was usually right. He didn't waste his own time or others' time, and he didn't allow anyone else to waste his employees' time. He put his foot down firmly and simply stopped the nonsense in its tracks. I learned a lot from him about how to protect my own employees through the years. I could wish that some of my other leaders in recent times were as good a leader as he was.  

I have fond memories of my time in the lab--we worked hard together and traveled together to conferences. In August 1987, our lab went to a Society for Analytical Cytology meeting that was held in Cambridge, England. It was my first trip abroad, and I was so looking forward to having a proper British tea experience. I am quite sure that I never shut up about it, and probably drove most people around me crazy. But when we got to Cambridge, I wandered around the city together with Frank and Jola, a postdoc in the lab, trying to find just the right tea shop. It had to be just the right one. Frank was very patient while I hunted around and settled on just the right one. And then we enjoyed great tea, good scones, raspberry jam and clotted cream. I was in heaven. I'm sure Frank humored me, but that was the kind of man he was--he had infinite patience with people he liked, and I was one of them. 

I also remember that all of us (there must have been at least six or seven of us from the lab who traveled to Cambridge) decided to go punting on the river Cam. Frank and another senior scientist Jan took turns trying to punt, which turned out to be not at all easy. Steering a large boat without banging into the other boats and without losing your balance were quite challenging. Frank managed it, but just barely, and I remember thinking that it would be terrible if he fell into the river. There were a couple of times when he and Jan very nearly fell into the water. The fact that Frank was the consummate New Yorker--well-dressed, with nice shoes and leather jacket--would have made falling in even worse as it would have ruined his clothing and shoes. But that was Frank; I don't think he considered the possibility that he could fall into the water or that he couldn't learn to punt. They didn't fall in, and they did learn to punt. Other things I remember about him--he smoked too much, and we were always trying to get him to quit cigarette smoking. One of his technicians would bring him a big bowl of sliced carrots, celery and cucumbers so that he wouldn't smoke on Great American Smokeout Day in November of each year. But he never quit as far as I know. I also remember that at one of our lab parties at his Manhattan apartment, he played Roxy Music's Avalon album for us. To this day, I cannot hear the song More than This without thinking of him. 

As fate would have it, I met my husband Trond at the same conference in Cambridge when he came to sit with our lab group one evening at one of the local pubs. That was the kind of lab group we were--welcoming to others from all countries. You could sit down with us and just start chatting. Our lab in New York was multinational, with scientists from many different countries--among them Poland, Italy, Sweden, and Germany. Scientists visited the lab while traveling through on their way to other meetings in the USA. My husband did just that; he said that he remembers seeing me in the lab when he came to visit Frank and the others. I don't remember that. But we did end up meeting again in Cambridge. Even though I moved to Norway, I stayed in touch with the Memorial lab. Working there was one of the best experiences of my life. 

Today's guest blogger--Mary Jo Johnson--writing about tools for organizing your workday

Guest author--Mary Jo Johnson

This article is published by paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no based on a Content Marketing Partnership with the author Mary Jo Johnson. 

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5 Best Tools that Make Organization at Work a Breeze

Organizing your workday can be very tricky. Whether you belong to a big or small enterprise, getting through the gamut of workday tasks will always have its challenges. With the popularity of remote work gaining a strong foothold in today’s “new normal,” managing your workload while making sure that everyone stays connected and on top of things has become twice as hard. 

It can be a bear trying to get everyone on the same page. Too many tasks, meetings and collaboration, new information coming in daily, new employees joining, old ones leaving, trying to preserve and update knowledge within the company — how do you not get lost in the chaos?

Luckily, there are tools out there geared towards organizing your work and helping you run your workday more efficiently. There are hundreds of them floating around the interwebs and you can get lost in the chaotic list of organizational tools, ironically enough. So how do you choose the right one for you?

Choosing the right tool

First, you will need to take stock of what you have and what you need. What kind of service are you looking for? Are the tools you found equipped with the features you need in your organization? Compile a list of possible apps that might be useful for you. 

Second, once you've compiled a list of possible organizational tools that you might use, consider their ability to address all the things that you need them to do for you. If you can find just one tool to do all the organizational tasks you need to be done, then why get two or three separate tools to do what one platform can do?

Third, read up on the reviews. You’ll need to hear what actual clients have to say about the tools you are considering. Feedback is a key component to an informed decision; and once you’ve picked the tool/s you need, return the favor and write an honest and constructive review. 

Fourth, test them out. You really won’t know if the tool will work the way you envisioned it if you don’t try it out. Go through your picklist and take the tools for a test drive. Put them through the tasks you need them to run and see how well they hold up or how fast and efficiently they can accomplish those tasks for you. 

So now that you have the initial steps in choosing the perfect organizational tool for you, let’s delve into our list of tools (our absolute top favorites!) that we think might just be what you need.

The Best Organizational Tools for Work

Trello

Let’s start our list with Trello. This is a project management and organizational tool that uses task cards and project boards. This tool allows you to write down your daily tasks into virtual cards, assign due dates, and add attachments. You can invite your team and assign tasks to them, as well. 

Their project boards allow you to put your visualizations into an organized platform where you can monitor your project’s progress. You can collaborate with your team regardless of where each of you is based. It is very easy to use, and best of all, Trello syncs across all your devices. 

Slab

As their headline says, Slab is a “knowledge base that democratizes knowledge.” It’s a nifty tool that lets you create, store, and organize your data. It also integrates well with your existing tools, so there would be no need to replace your stack and relay new instructions to team members. Its Unified Search feature allows you to pull any needed data from any of your existing tools. Sweet, right? This shaves off time trying to remember which tool has what data. Another useful feature is Slab Topics, which not only organizes data into folders and tags, but also provides relevant context for easier browsing, learning, and transferring of knowledge within the company.

It also offers dozens of templates from industry leaders to get you inspired and give you ideas一so whether it’s onboarding new employees, documenting weekly team meetings, or creating user manuals, Slab has an extensive library of templates designed for your organizational needs.

And a bonus: it’s easy enough to use that creating and organizing can be done even by the least savvy members in your organization.

ProjectManager.com

If you manage large and diverse teams, you might want to consider ProjectManager.com. This award-winning tool has over a thousand integrations including Microsoft Office, Salesforce, Dropbox, Slack, and Google Apps. 

It has Gantt charts, kanban boards, and task lists. They have project management software, planning tools, and project dashboards among other things. You can collaborate and plan projects with your team quickly and easily. It works on both PC and Mac and doesn’t need any downloads or complex installations. 

Box

Box is one of the most secure cloud storage services available today. You can choose with whom you want to share your files. You can store all your confidential business information into the Box Drive and rest easy that it will remain secure. 

It is also integrated into Mac Finder and Windows Explorer so you can use it in both Windows PC and Mac. You can edit any file, even CAD, in your browser and it will automatically be saved to Box. 

The app itself takes up little disk space. It allows sharing large files without having to download anything. You can just share the link to your files with your team. It doesn’t bog down your systems with large downloads, and it allows for easy and real-time collaboration within your team. 

Microsoft OneNote 

If your company has a subscription to Office 365, you most likely have access to Microsoft OneNote, a great and secure collaboration tool that organizations can utilize in project management, process improvement, and daily operations. OneNote is ideal for managing projects with members in multiple locations as the tool allows real-time correspondence and feedback. 

A feature called SharePoint allows teams to create their own “wiki” and organize and store large amounts of information in one place, making streamlining ideas and resources easier for everyone. 

Conclusion

No matter how busy you get or how chaotic your workdays seem to become, there is always a tool, or several, out there that can help you keep your tasks and schedules organized. These things are there to make your work a lot easier, your collaborations more fun, and your team engaged no matter where each of you is based. All you need to do is find the right tools that will work for you. 

One long scream

Some people will assume that this is a Covid-19 post because of the title, but it’s not. The pandemic is a part of what I write about, but it’s not the sole focus. One long scream has been building for years in many workplaces, not just mine. But during the past decade, life in my workplace changed irrevocably for many. As in, there was no going back to what was, only moving forward to what could be. The focus became the future. The past was never talked about; the history of my department, how it came to be the way it was, was unimportant. Those of us old enough to remember the past, or who had worked there long enough to know about it, were told that it wasn’t important; no one wanted to hear about it. The present was just ignored in favor of the future. But the present was what needed to be dealt with, except that no one knew how to deal with it or wanted to deal with it because the problems were too many. So it was ignored in favor of all the fancy buzzwords, slogans and catch phrases that would create the future that ‘everyone wanted’ or said was important to have for the sake of productivity and effectiveness. When we were children that was called ‘let’s pretend’.

I don’t mind playing let’s pretend. It’s just that let’s pretend has gone on for many years, and has worn down those employees who tried as hard as they could to implement the many changes and trends that were laid on the table and prioritized. The problem was that there were too many changes and trends, and one could never be certain which change or trend was the one to be prioritized, since priorities shifted on a monthly basis. Courses in how to lead were important, but they didn’t produce better leaders. They produced leaders who were only interested in forcing their employees to adapt to change for change’s sake. There were never good explanations for why this or that change or trend was important. Employees who were resistant or critical were pushed aside, and are still pushed aside, in favor of those who are receptive to every change or trend that gets suggested. It doesn’t matter if the changes or trends cause a lot of upheaval, waste time, are ineffective, or lead to demotivated employees. The leaders and their loyal employees continue on, while those who are critical find it harder and harder with each change to start over and plod on, dreading the next major change, the next trend to attack the workplace that its leaders will embrace warmly and force down the throats of their employees. The pandemic has brought to light how stupid some of these trends that workplaces adopted without question actually are. One of them is packing as many employees as possible into tiny offices, with little room to move or to spread out. Another stupid trend is open office landscapes—placing an entire workforce into one large room, no individual offices, no dividers, no cubicles, no privacy, no quiet time, constant distractions, and a lot of noise. The party line was that open office landscapes were conducive to interaction, communication and collaboration. Employees should embrace them without question. The reality was something else entirely. Most employees want and need some private time, some quiet time, at work. That’s the purpose of offices—one can close a door and shut out the noise if one needs time to think. But that was no longer ‘allowed’. The reason for open office landscapes, as we all know if we cut through the piles of bullshit that have built up, is to save money. Workplaces save money by forcing their employees to sit in one large room together. The pandemic however, has shown just how stupid this trend is. Suddenly the hunt is on to find new solutions for dealing with this problem—the spread of Covid-19 (or any virus for that matter)—in an open office landscape setting. So the solution has been to tell employees to work from home if they can. That must really rub some leaders the wrong way; after all, they lose the ability to totally control their employees. I’ve seen other solutions that have to do with erecting Plexiglas dividers between adjacent desks, or enclosing individual desks in Plexiglas cubicles. It seems to be a return to some kind of individual office thinking. Dare one hope? Can one dream?

I’ve come to the conclusion that leaders and employees who can shift from one change to the next, from one trend to the next, without problems, are surface skaters. They are not interested in depth; it’s unclear what they are really interested in except control. They should be interested in depth; they should be listening to their employees. Because not to do so is simply to invite trouble. Some few do at present. But most do not. They have their visions and preferred ways of doing things, and they simply expect employees to fall in line. After a decade of multiple leaders, multiple leadership styles, fragmentary visions, shifting priorities, stupid changes, stupid trends, wasted time, wasted breath, useless meetings, endless budget cuts (to no avail), poor strategies, poor planning, yet more meetings to undo what was decided upon two or three years ago that took up valuable employee time—some employees experience only one feeling—the desire to scream into the wind, into the boundless future that was promised them, the golden land of promise and opportunity, the utopian landscape, where all workplaces are effective and productive, where all work output can be measured and controlled, where all employees can be controlled. It’s one long scream, a primal scream, a plea really for a return to sanity and to peace, a plea for a return to a time when freedom from control was still to be found in a workplace.

Summing up and getting ready to move on

This article resonated with me: Why Are Men Still Explaining Things to Women?   https://tinyurl.com/yxnvabr2

This has been my experience in academia for so many years, I can't count them. How many times my expertise has been ignored by men who need to explain to me how it really works. How many times I've laughed it off, retorted with a sardonic comment, or simply stood there and accepted the idiocy of it all. Mostly the latter. How many times have I done that? How many times have I kept my mouth shut, when I should have opened it and said 'please please please please please stop talking' (like the woman in Hemingway's story). I should have said that so many times, instead of stewing about the injustice and idiocy of it all. What I have done is discussed it with other women, ad nauseam. Today in fact was another such conversation with a woman twenty years younger than me, who has been raised to be respectful and to defer to her elders. In academia, that means to older white men. She has been rudely treated by her doctoral mentor, and he continues to behave that way toward her, even when she has called him on it in a respectful way. I have also called him on it several times. He simply doesn't and won't listen. So many of his type of men are rude, crude, arrogant and conceited. They truly think they know it all. And really, how could we expect them to think any other way when very few people (men or women) have ever challenged them on anything? These men don't know what it is like to be corrected for anything they do, and they don't like it when someone tries. I tried when I was younger, but ended up being labeled as difficult. I was told to smile more. I was told that they knew best. The problem was that they didn't. Sometimes they knew best. Statistics would back that up. No one knows best all of the time. Sometimes they knew best, sometimes they didn't. I have watched men open their mouths and stick their foot in them so many times, I've lost count. They rarely apologized for their arrogant or boorish behavior. Rarely apologized for shouting people down, talking over them, interrupting them, finishing their sentences, destroying their thought processes--in other words, rarely apologized for their bad behavior. In nearly all the cases I've seen in academia, the people they did this to were women--PhD students and post-docs. You take a lot of crap in academia, and you might think you'd be prepared for some of it based on how the world is and has been toward women over the years. But you're not prepared to be told that you're essentially ignorant when you know the opposite is true. You're not prepared to be told to keep your mouth shut as has happened to me several times in the past couple of years when I tried to correct someone's rude and humiliating behavior toward women who were simply trying to be professional about finishing their doctoral work. This particular man was irritated because his student wanted to 'discuss' some ideas with him; he thought she should just accept his ideas as the correct ones. These men are pathetic. They are threatened by women, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why, because these men sit in the positions of power and prestige, not the women they treat like crap. I think what sets them off is the knowledge that some women (like me and the doctoral student) cannot and will not be broken by these men. That was tried on me to no avail when I was younger. My will and my soul would simply not be broken. What is the meaning in that? The meaning in it is that God has a purpose for those lives. God did not want me to be broken. So if I ended up where I am supposed to be, then my life has had meaning. I have stood up for what I thought was fair and just and right. I have dared to correct men, to contradict them, to state my own opinions, to believe in my own ideas. I am proud of myself, proud that I believed in my own ideas and the ideas of other women. My most cited article, and the one that I am most proud of, was one that was rudely ridiculed by a male reviewer. Rather than being crushed by the review, I became livid. I wrote to the editor of the journal to which I had submitted my article, to criticize him for allowing such a review to reach an author. It caused all sorts of repercussions, for which I am glad to this day. I doubt that the editor had ever received a letter like the one he received from me. I still have the letter I wrote and the response I received from that editor. I should have framed both. But it was a glaring indication that I was the author of research work that had threatened the reviewer, one of the reigning gurus in the field, and that was over twenty years ago. Another example of the same was when I thought I was having an interesting conversation at a conference dinner with a well-known Norwegian professor about a particular signaling pathway and the expertise my research group had with how to detect proteins on that pathway. I don't remember if I offered advice or help with some of the detection methods, but my God, how insulted he became. How dare I assume that he needed help. He regaled the entire dinner table with how rude Americans were and how rudely they had treated his sister when she had been studying in the USA. The saving grace of that experience was the Norwegian women who supported me and who later told me privately that he was an arrogant asshole. They laughed at him behind his back. But no one dared stand up to him at the dinner table; he was allowed to be rude to me. 

So many 'learned men' in academia are always saying how the reigning gurus in the field in which they themselves work are wrong and that they instead are right. It's envy; they all want to be the reigning gurus. The most disappointing aspect of academia was finding out that there is very little real thinking going on. The search for truth is sidestepped in the quest for power, prestige, and money. Most of the intellectually-stimulating and creative discussions I've had, have occurred outside of academia, with non-academics. Perhaps it's always been that way. I am so glad I am nearing the end of my academic career. I will not miss the male privilege and the bad behavior, the arrogance, the rudeness, the lack of creativity and the lack of real thinking. I will not miss the staid way of doing things. I will not miss the dinosaurs. And I am fairly certain that they will not miss me. 

My office was never mine to begin with

My husband has had his own office at work for as long as I can remember—twenty-five years or more. I have never officially ‘had my own office’; it has happened that for short periods, I have not shared an office with anyone, but for as long as I can remember, I have shared my two-person work office. I have no complaints, actually. I’ve met some wonderful people who have been officemates and who have become friends. I’ve been lucky in that sense. I can’t imagine what it must be like to share an office with someone with whom you do not get along and who makes your daily life a living hell. People who are loud, arrogant, aggressive, nosy, or who don’t understand the definition of personal boundaries. People who invade your personal space when they talk AT you. Such people do not understand the definition of discussion or conversation, only what their ego-laden brains tell them is important. And of course, we all know that for those people, they are the most important people in the world. Everything of importance happens according to their timetable. It would be hell on earth to share an office with these types of people.

So I have no problem whatsoever working at home. My husband goes to his office and self-isolates there. I stay at home working and self-isolate here during these coronavirus times. This is the beginning of my third week at home full-time. The amount of work is tapering off gradually as people understand that we’re in this for the long haul. Perhaps until the end of April. So they’re stretching out the projects, which is a good idea. We’ll see what the health authorities have to say about when it will be deemed safe to go back to work. In any case, I’ve adjusted to being at home full-time. I’m a structured person, and I live my life as though I was still going to my workplace each day—get up at the same time, shower, eat breakfast, drink my coffee, and get started on my workday. I am thankful for the fact that I CAN do this. I am grateful for my job, that I am still being paid a salary, because many people in private industry have been laid off temporarily. Our leaders trust us to get our work done at home instead of goofing off. It’s a matter of trust and it’s good to know that they trust us. Grateful is the operative word. Work is getting done, even though there is less of it. I don’t mind; it gives me time to reflect and to create new strategies for future research projects. We don’t always have that time when things are at their busiest.

Finding our true direction

Sometimes in the waves of change we find our true direction.
--Unknown

I saw this quote recently and it struck a chord in me. During the past decade, I've been witness to more changes in my workplace than occurred during the first twenty years I've worked there. The biggest change was the merger of four separate hospitals with different work cultures into one large mega-hospital. After ten years, it is clear to most people that we may be one hospital, but that the cultures often remain as they were, with some exceptions in some departments. People often hold fast to what they know. It's safer that way.

But we know too that moving out of our comfort zones is often very good for us. We may be dragged out of our comfort zones kicking and screaming, or we may willingly leave them. Either way, we move into an unknown sphere, one that may test us, challenge us, and make us uncomfortable. And that's the point of change. It should make us uncomfortable. Feeling insecure, a bit fearful, somewhat anxious, are all parts of change. We don't want to feel those feelings, but we cannot grow or progress without them. I have discovered that situations involving change often provide answers to problems that I would not have otherwise come upon, and that is because they upend our sense of order, of what we perceive to be the right way of doing something. They force us to consider new and hitherto untested and not previously thought of ways of doing something. We find new solutions to old problems, or new solutions to problems in which we have become stuck. Or we find that we are not the people we thought we were, which should perhaps be obvious, but often is not. Life is about change, but that change is often gradual, so that we don't notice the changes that are happening to us or to those around us. We are not the same people now as we were at twenty, thirty, or forty, even if we like to think that we are. We were once single, then married, then parents. We were once students, then inexperienced employees, then managers, and then experienced employees. Some are now retirees. We may have been politically liberal as young adults, but are now more politically conservative as older adults. The point is that we are always changing and growing. Those people who resent that are often those who have a hard time adjusting to anything that threatens their status quo. The status quo can differ from person to person, but it would be safe to say that each of us can feel threatened by some change at some level, especially if that change touches some deep core part of us, a part of us that perhaps reminds us of unpleasant experiences in childhood.

After many years in the workforce, after many years of working in the lab, I now have a more administrative position in an area that makes use of my scientific background, but that is a new area for me intellectually. My current boss suggested me for this position two years ago, and I said yes to it without really knowing what it would lead to. To my surprise, I found that not only do I have aptitude for this type of work, but that I really enjoy it. I enjoy developing strategies and plans for how to create and integrate specific functions into the daily workings of a department. I enjoy interacting with leaders and with the people working on the floor who are the ones that understand the 'guts' of the organization. I can lead meetings or just participate in them; either way, I've found that I have ideas to contribute that actually get listened to. Not all of them make their way into policies in my department, but I've nevertheless contributed them. I've learned the value of diplomacy (listening to and acknowledging the validity of arguments from two or more 'sides') and of making time to listen to others (something I've been good at before, which is another aptitude that comes in handy). I can summarize meetings quickly and write a meeting report that is concise and to the point. I see the value of the dissemination of information; without that, employees grumble and complain, which will only lead to demoralization and dissatisfaction. I have drawn on my scientific background when it comes to following through on plans; scientific experiments rely on follow-through and the summing-up of the observations you've made. You must organize the data you have into a written and/or oral presentation that can be conveyed to a wider audience. After thirty years of doing that as a scientist, I can do the same in my role as coordinator. In fact, I would say that it is that experience alone that has facilitated my ability to be a coordinator.

I think I was blindsided by changes in the workplace ten or fifteen years ago, because there were too many changes at the same time, none of which were properly explained to us. The visions and strategies involved in the changes were not conveyed properly to us. Was the merger of four hospitals into one done to save money, to concentrate expertise, or to make the running of the hospital more effective? Because the outcome of the merger, according to most employees, has not led to more effectiveness or to concentration of expertise. Most employees would say that the merger has only led to higher costs, to more bureaucracy and an unnecessary increase in levels of management, and to a blurring of roles that has confused employees who wonder what is really expected of them. I would wager that these outcomes were not the intention at the outset, but they are now the reality. So it is possible that these changes were not properly planned or executed, or that the budget that should have been in place to facilitate the changes, was too small.

I am no longer afraid of change. I look forward to it now, because I know that whatever is thrown at me, I can do something with it. I am no longer uncomfortable with moving out of my comfort zone, although I do miss the comfort zone at times. I see how far I've come in the space of two years, and I am glad that I said yes to taking on a new role. Sometimes in the waves of change we really do find our true direction.

Some reflections on a Saturday morning.

Every now and then I reflect on my work career, and what it has been like/is like to be a woman in a mostly male-dominated profession (at least when I started out). When I started out in science, it was not unusual to find a preponderance of men in the top positions (professor, research leader, department leader, group leader), whereas the majority of women were research technicians, junior scientists, or assistant professors. Very few were department heads or group leaders. There are more women in science now, and more women in top positions, but that has been a gradual development, and the profession still struggles with the loss of women once they reach the critical points in their careers where they have to decide if they want to be research or group leaders. The demands on their time are intense, and it's often hard to combine that with family life. So that is one problem that I see still exists, almost forty years after I started out in science. The married women I knew who had top positions when I was starting out had husbands who chose less demanding professions, or both had help from nannies when raising their children. However it worked out, women struggled to balance it all, and they are still struggling. Even here in Norway, a lot of the recent surveys have concluded that women still hesitate to invest the time in top leader positions because of the inevitable conflicts with family life. I don't have an answer; I think there will always be a conflict, because it is a question of prioritizing. If we prioritize family life, then our work lives can suffer, and if we prioritize our work lives, our family lives can suffer. Finding the balance is not an easy task. I never had my own children, so I was never faced with that conflict. But of course I was faced with the challenge of not devoting all my waking hours to my work at the expense of my family life. Having a husband who works in the same profession and who understands the demands it makes on our time, has been a godsend. When we were struggling to build careers, we invested a lot of time in our work. I don't regret it, because I am sure that I would have done the same thing no matter what profession I chose. I was raised to work hard and do my best. That meant hard work and long hours in order to become good at something. And I am good at what I do.

The latter is something I think about often now as I approach retirement. Have I done the best job I could do? Have I been a good mentor and leader for the younger women and men coming after me? The answer to the first question is yes, I have done the best job I could do given the talents I have. I have become a good scientist, albeit not a great one, and that is fine with me. I found my niche and did my best. I can honestly say that. I've published nearly one hundred articles, have had the chance to lead a small team of researchers, managed to get funding to support my position until I was hired permanently by my hospital, and have mentored Master and PhD students. I have believed in myself even when the odds were against me. I did not give up on myself, and that is thanks to my early bosses. I had bosses early on (in New York) who pushed me and challenged me to take on new opportunities, some of which I feared. But I did. They saw potential in me and were not afraid to push me to do something with it. But they did it in a respectful way. When I moved to Norway, I confronted new challenges, but without the same level of personal interest from my bosses. They were more interested in their own careers than in mine. I have discovered that this was often the case in academic science (that I grew up with), which is highly competitive. If a senior researcher showed a professional interest in you, it mostly had to do with what you could do for them. The outcome in any case was that both won in a sense--the senior researcher got the necessary lab work done by others, but the junior researchers got publications that helped them in their own careers. So even if the latter felt like slaves at times, it often ended well once they moved up the ladder and started research groups of their own. That is the way it used to be well into the early 2000s. And then it all changed. Younger people no longer had the chance to start their own research groups; they were suddenly expected to work for a senior group leader until they were well into their late 40s/early 50s. A lot of young people simply cannot accept this and leave academia for greener pastures that give them the chances that my husband and I were given in the 1990s. We had an intellectual independence and freedom that is no longer encouraged; now it is expected that you work in a large research group for one senior research leader and that you simply accept your role passively. You are not encouraged to start your own research group, and the (natural) desire to do so is frowned upon--you are looked upon as a troublemaker if you go around stating that you would like more intellectual freedom and independence so that you can start your own research group. I do not support this new way of doing science; it does nothing but create frustration and disappointment in young people in their professional prime. But that's the way it is now. When I talk to young people, I tell them what it was like for my husband and me; I don't want them to think that it was always as restrictive and demotivating as it is now. But it doesn't always register, because young people often think that the present is the only thing that counts. We were like that too, I guess.

The answer to the second question is also yes, with reservations. I had to grow into the role of mentor, and I did make some mistakes early on, especially when a student was stubborn or narcissistic. Nevertheless, I think I have done the best job I could do under sometimes difficult circumstances. I have reflected upon the psychological costs involved in pursuing an academic scientific career. The daily assaults on your self confidence, your expertise, your way of treating students--are many. I realize that I have a healthy self confidence; if I think I am right, it is because I have reflected on a particular situation and come to a conclusion that reflects that investment of time and reflection. It will then be difficult to sway me. I operate using principles that I grew up with--I believe in fair play, respect, and justice, and I behave accordingly. I treat others as I would like to be treated. I have tried to encourage my students to think for themselves, to have their own ideas and opinions, to think creatively. I have tried to get women to stop feeling guilty for saying no when it is their right to do so. So many women still think that saying no, as in--I cannot do this or that for you right now, I have no time, or I have other priorities--is a wrong way to behave. It is not. In my experience, saying no is what gets you noticed (and I am not talking about saying no in a rude way to your boss or about being difficult for the sake of being difficult). Saying no prevents you from becoming someone else's doormat. Saying yes all the time may work out well for some people, but it does not work out well for women. Saying no when necessary may get you labeled as difficult, but that most women can live with, in my opinion, or should get used to living with. Because whatever profession you choose, there will come a time when saying no is what will get you noticed. Saying no says--I am doing the best job I can, and if you want me to do more, then you need to sit down with me and negotiate that. You need to negotiate a reciprocal relationship that is win-win for all, not just for the senior leaders. Women often fall back on the service aspect--serving others, and that is fine, but it is also about taking care of yourself and what you want. Women should not be doormats at work, nor at home, and a workplace culture that pushes women to aspire to being doormats is not a workplace you want to work in. Do you want to take on that extra project for no extra pay and no recognition, at the expense of your free time or your family time, just because your boss asks you to because he or she knows it will get done well if you do it rather than giving it to the shirker in the department? Do you want to be available 24/7 to a workplace that won't think twice about laying you off in times of budget crises?

The word 'professional' has taken on a new meaning for me now after many years in the workforce. I define it as behavior that involves doing the best job you can, in an expert way, without becoming too emotionally involved or too loyal to your workplace. It means being aware of your valuable skills at all junctures. It means visualizing how valuable you are to your present company but also to other workplaces. It means never forgetting that. It means standing up for yourself. It means being able to negotiate with senior leaders about how those skills are to be used. It means being rational, logical, objective, rather than emotional, illogical, and subjective. It means seeing both sides and keeping a cool head in situations where others might become irrational (playing it cool). It means remaining centered in yourself; it means not letting other people push you off balance. Women need to learn more of this, and to learn the value of their own worth. Women also need to give up the idea that they need to be ‘rescuers’. Where you would rush in to save a sinking project that is the result of someone else's negligence (too many women I know), you should hold back and let it sink. You should let the chips fall where they may. You should let the shirkers face the negative feedback; let them face being exposed for the shirkers they are. You should let the bullies and harassers sink and not make excuses for them. You should not defend the demotivators or try to explain away their behavior. You should hold other people accountable for their bad behavior and not keep your mouth shut when you see injustice. You should not just blindly follow the crowd. You should stand apart, express your ideas and opinions, and keep on expressing them, in a professional and respectful way. You should remind yourself that 'being respectful and nice does not define you as a weak person', and that 'saying no does not define you as a bad person'. This is what I say to women now--be professional, have a healthy self-confidence, think for yourselves, and don't become workplace doormats. It's the only way to grow into the best versions of yourselves.