So there are three different cases there actually. There's building a team from
scratch, there's remotivating a team where
it's recognized that the team needs something new and then there's the third
one which is the tricky one, which is trying to motivate a team where they
don't realize that they have fallen behind. Building something from scratch
of course is always exciting, you know. Either it's something that you've
invented yourself, in which case you have a dream but you probably haven't turned
it into a plan. More often, it's someone else's dream and you've been appointed
to implement it. But there's not, in fact, that much difference. Ssually they have a
dream but they haven't worked out how to deliver on that.
So starting something, new starting from things from scratch is exciting
because there will only ever be one first director, right. Your place in history, if
you get it right, is assured. All the people who follow will, in some sense,
inherit what you have created. The job there is to convince people to take the
risk because doing anything new is a risky thing. It might not work. It may
work but not as well as you'd hoped. And so one of the things you have to do is,
when you're recruiting people, is you have to explain to them the vision and
you have to convince them that if they participate, if they share that
vision, then together we can achieve something great. And so it's not easy but
it's fun and if it comes off, you have a great sense of achievement. Being put in
to fix a problem where it's recognised either by the people themselves or by
the people who employ them, or where the previous director or whatever has left
in something of a cloud, is not so different
in fact, because the people have already recognised the need for change. So what
they need is a new vision. They need confidence that you're going to
come in there and help them achieve what they want to achieve. So it's
not easy, again it's not easy, but it's easier. The really tricky one is
where you're put in charge of something and they don't realise that they've
fallen behind, because your first job is to convince them that they're not where
they ought to be and that requires enormous diplomatic skills. You first
will have to analyse what's wrong and then you have to find a way of
explaining to them, or better you have to find a way of getting them to realise
for themselves that things have to change. Now change is always unsettling.
There's always risk in change. One of the other key attributes of a scientific
leader is the ability to identify risk, manage risk, accept risk, to have a good
risk appetite and when you're taking over a failing organisation, particularly
if they don't realise they're failing, is that they are at risk. If they don't
improve then they will be out of a job, to put it crudely. But if you put it
crudely like that then you will not take them with you.
So they have to discover for themselves and then you need to work on a plan.
And in all three cases you need the standard essences of any plan, you need a
vision, you need a mission and you need an implementation and that's a test of
your skill, not so much of a manager than as a leader.