This is the Happy Scientist Podcast.
Each episode is designed to make you more focused,
more productive, and more satisfied in the lab.
You can find us online@bitesizebio.com
slash Happy scientist.
Your hosts are Kenneth Vo, founder
of the Executive coaching firm, Vera Claritas, and Dr.
Nick Oswald, PhD Bioscientist and Founder Bite-size bio.
Hello, this is not Nick Oswald welcoming you
to this bite-size bio webinar,
but Tom Warwick, content creator here at Bite-size bio.
Today, we have a live episode
of the Happy Scientist Podcast.
If you want to become a happier, healthier,
and more productive scientist, you're in the right place.
With me, as always is Bitesize Bio Teams, Mr. Magi, Mr.
Kenneth Vo. In these sessions,
we hear from Ken mostly on principles
that will help shape you for a happier
and more successful career along the way.
I'll pitch in with points from my personal
experience as a scientist.
If you have any questions for Ken,
please put 'em into the questions box at the side
of your screen, and I'll put them
to Ken at the end of the show.
Today, we'll be discussing urgency
and how to keep it from ruining your day,
your project and your career.
So over to you, Ken.
Alright. All right. Nice to be with you again, Tom.
Yeah, it was funny, I was thinking about, uh,
about you when it came, this topic came up
and I thought, you know,
this would be a good one to have time on.
And just so happened
that Nick was not available at the recording
time, and here you are. Yeah,
I'm, it's magically show. I'm like a genie.
So everything works out.
You know, it's, it's funny, we have a, uh,
a project management system that, that we use here.
Yeah. And it, it's great, you know, it,
it keeps things on track.
You know, there are a lot of moving parts.
There's a number of people involved,
but every once in a while, somebody namely me,
doesn't do a task on time.
So I think I actually told Tom the questions,
I wanna make sure we answer for this,
for this session on the weekend.
And it's, we're recording on a Monday.
So, so I created a little urgency perhaps
for Tom. So, I'm sorry
I'm fast. I'm fantastically
prepared. Got all my
Notes. Well, there we go.
So it, it, it all works out.
But, but that is what happens sometimes, you know,
it's just, it's, nobody's trying to do it.
It's not happening on purpose.
It was, nobody's creating drama. It's just things happen.
And of course, um,
things can happen that'll still ruin everything.
So we can't just look at it
and go, oh, well, you know, what can we do?
Well, we, we need to figure out what we can do,
because sometimes we just have to deal with it.
Now, there are times when you'll just suffer it,
like you suck it up, and you'll call that all nighter
or whatever it is you gotta do.
You'll push things that are also important to you.
But, you know, but sometimes it, it's the end of the world.
And, and so you gotta,
you gotta ask yourself, what am I gonna do?
So I go to my, my first slide here,
and the question is, what is urgency?
Kind of the first blush that seems, well,
that's an obvious question.
Maybe not. So I'll actually put that question to you, Tom.
What do you think urgency is?
I think a, a a task that
you are dependent on to get done, um,
that will have negative consequences for other people
who are reliant, um, upon
that task further down the road, I would say.
Got it.
Yeah. Yeah, I would, I would agree with, with
that take on it, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna put some definitions out there that may be helpful
for people to, to think about.
Urgency is the application of time to an objective
now, just, just that there's two factors.
There's something, some object that you wanna get done,
and then there's the impact of time on that objective.
So just that, just the cold, hard facts of
that can create urgency.
But what makes it really interesting for us humans
is when you add emotion,
because now it's like, this has to get done,
and then it's like, then it's more like, oh my God, this has
to get done, get done,
or it's gonna be end of the world if it doesn't get done.
Or somebody's gonna be really ticked off if it doesn't get
done, or somebody's gonna be really in, you know, have,
they're gonna have huge problems if this doesn't get done.
All that stuff. Our factors and urgency
and our, our, uh, call it our emotional reaction
to urgency really does matter.
And you might look at yourself, think, you know, I'm, I'm a,
you know, full of analysis.
I'm a clinician. I, i don't worry about that stuff.
Like, don't kid yourself. You do.
And even if you don't, other people do,
and they will absolutely pour their emergency on you.
And, you know, and you're still gonna have to deal with it.
You still have to face it.
So it's good to recognize when there's urgency present, um,
because it will start to, to impact the decisions you make.
And we've talked in the past, uh, um, you know,
on the podcast about urgency versus importance,
and, you know, they're not the same thing.
There are things that are important, but not urgent.
There are definitely things
that are urgent, but not important.
And we've all had somebody, you know,
just bust into our office like, oh my God, we gotta do this.
And of course, you, you leap to it
because, you know, this person is,
is showing emotion about it.
And, and then
after a while, sometimes we realize
as we're halfway into it, like, this is so unimportant.
Why are we bothering to be distracted by this? You know?
So that, that is a factor in dealing with urgency.
And I'm not so much gonna deal with the, of that matrix
of urgency versus importance today.
I wanna specifically key on urgency and what happens.
And, and it's a natural thing to have
in any work environment.
There's gonna be, there are gonna be times when things are
urgent and people have different opinions about
what's urgent and what isn't.
And, you know, we'll,
we're gonna deal with that in a little bit.
But just for right now, just to recognize what is urgent
and when it happens, if, if we go into a realm
where we never respond to urgency,
you're gonna find people don't like working with you.
That they, they care that when they think something has
to happen, now that you are paying attention to them, um,
you know, obviously people aren't always right.
And, and sometimes people have no authority over you.
So they, even if they are right, they can't force you.
But how well will you fit into the system?
Will you respond to urgency in appropriate way, uh,
for not just appropriate for you,
but appropriate for your team, appropriate for your lab,
for your, your company, your university,
or whatever it is, you know,
for whatever your objectives are.
And, you know, your objectives can define what is relevant
when it comes to urgency.
And you can decide from there, you know,
when you stub your toe, it's urgent, right?
It hurts. Is it urgent that you rearrange all the furniture?
So this never happens again, right now, probably not.
But then again, if it's been the,
the 10th time you stubbed your toe on that,
maybe it is about time you did what, what needs to be done,
you know, then that urgency is a flag to, to clue you in on,
on where you should go next.
So the first, the first task there is determining is this,
or is this not urgent?
Once you make that determination, okay,
what is the appropriate response to urgency?
So, um, again, I will, I will,
I will put you on the hot seat here,
Tom, and say, what do you think?
What is an appropriate response to urgency?
Well, you mentioned pouring emotion on, you know,
someone further down the line in
the, in the series of tasks.
That definitely isn't, um,
it definitely isn't an appropriate response.
I guess it depends on the task in hand
and how urgent you, you know, you view it is,
'cause one option is to stop what you're doing
and get it done right.
Um, but then you need to, you need to speak to, you know,
the people or persons who, who've made something urgent
and explain how that has impacted you
and your other stuff that they might not be aware of.
Um, sure. So case dependent, I guess,
but definitely not emotional.
Yeah. Well, it's definitely case dependent and,
and we shouldn't inappropriately use emotion,
but emotion isn't necessarily bad.
Like, for instance, in a legitimate emergency,
an emotional response is part of the, you know,
the biological mechanism to perhaps save your life,
you know, so it emer, uh, emotion isn't the enemy.
It, it's a tool that we can use.
But, you know, recognizing first step when somebody presents
something as urgent is to ask yourself,
is this in fact an emergency?
Because it, it, just
because somebody else's emotional doesn't mean it's
that it is in fact an emergency.
So, you know, we wanna check that out.
So now, once we're there,
and we're, we've dealt with the emotional part now,
and I'm saying this is happening in split seconds in our
head, but the next thing is to figure out,
out is whatever this person wants to do in response
to the urgency, is it in alignment with our objectives?
It's like, Hey, there's been a change.
The presentation has been moved up from Friday to Monday.
Uh, okay, we want this presentation to go, well,
it's really important that lines up.
Okay? The other thing that we wanna look at is, does this,
does this urgent situation
and our response to it align with our values?
So there are some things that you're just not willing to do.
Some things that like, no, that we're not gonna do that.
That's just wrong. You know,
and I don't, I don't necessarily mean wrong morally,
maybe it's wrong from a, you know,
just a, a factual standpoint.
Like, that's just not, not gonna get us closer to our goals.
But, you know, we, we can look at these things
and from those two different viewpoints, there's our, our,
what have already have been established is our objectives.
And will responding to this urg this urgent problem,
help get us closer to that.
And then for yourself
and for your career, you do want
to pay attention to your own values.
I mean, there are, there are the, the general values
of the group you're in or the lab you're in,
but you have your own values too.
There's some, there's some things
that you will personally consider just
to be a bridge too far and you're not willing to do.
And, and I'm, I don't wanna bring up any hot button issues
'cause I'm not, I I not even in a position
to choose sides on that,
but there are some things that people have been willing
to do in silence in the past that are no longer, uh,
ethic considered ethically viable, right?
And then there are some things that maybe it's just you,
like, you know, I, that's just not a place I want to go.
I don't wanna do that. And if you're finding
that somebody is jumping you with urgency about something,
you know, you don't wanna sell out your own
values to get that done.
You know, some people will, you know, it, it can be,
it could be a, you know, uh, an ethical kind of situation
that isn't even about science.
It just could be about people relations,
about social relations.
Somebody is wanting you to do something that is going to
have a negative impact on somebody else,
and you know, in your environment, on your team, whatever,
and you're just not willing to do that.
Um, and maybe they got a good reason why they want that.
Like maybe they're really trying to,
they're trying to cut some red tape.
They wanna get something done that other
person's gonna have a problem with.
Oh, well, they'll get over it.
You know, those are positions people take,
and it does impact what it's appropriate
for you to do in response.
Now, maybe you have to, then
you gotta come up with a hybrid.
How do I respond to what this person
who is demanding urgency wants and also get what I want?
Because often we look at
situations, we think they're binary.
It's either they get their way or I get my way.
Like, come on, you, you know, that's not true.
There's often, there's often opportunities to get what both
of you want, or at least
to get most of what both of you want.
And then you, you can wait how much they should get versus
how much I should get.
The other side of this question is one,
is it not appropriate to respond to an urgency?
Which, uh, I noticed that was the first thing you started
with when I asked about what is appropriate.
Well, there's stuff that isn't appropriate. That's true.
There certainly is. And you know, the,
the first thing is just
because they're acting like it's an emergency doesn't mean
it's, and maybe the appropriate response
for you right now is to calm them down or to, and
or to fill 'em in with facts that they may not be aware of.
Maybe, maybe their response is entirely appropriate
based on their, you know, they're limited data.
You give them more, and now they're okay.
Now they realize, okay, it's not as urgent as I thought.
And we've all had that happen.
Like, we gotta get this done by Friday and no leak cow.
Like, don't worry.
So-and-so's gonna be taking care of 90% of that tomorrow.
And so we don't really have that much on our plate.
Like, oh, okay, well then we're good.
The other thing is, when you find things that are really out
of alignment, um,
and I wanna key on the difference between something that is,
that is unaligned
and something that is non-aligned, that is, there are things
that there are, they go against alignment
with your objectives, right?
And then there are other things that are just not related
to your objective.
It's, they're not aligned because they're just not involved
and, you know, so you don't necessarily have
to pick up an adversarial position.
It's just like, that doesn't matter.
So don't worry about it. You know?
Um, and again, this,
this comes down sometimes just the social interaction and,
and the relationship we have with the people
that are bringing urgency to us.
Now, sometimes, of course, the person bringing the urgency
is you, it's your own.
You know, it's happening in your own head.
You're, you're having a conversation with yourself, right?
Oh my God, I gotta get this done.
I'm, I'm, I'm so screwed if I don't get this done.
Some of that self-talk is, is generating urgency without,
without even looking at what your values are,
without even looking at
what your objectives are without being rational about it.
And I know that can be a, a hard thing
for a scientist to accept.
Like, how dare you imply that I could ever be not rational?
You know? It's, it's core to my job,
and it is core to your job.
However, it's not
mutually exclusive from being a human, you know?
So we're gonna have our moments.
So I will pause for a second here, and I, uh,
and ask you, Tom, if there's
anything you wanna feed in here.
Yeah. So I think a lot of people listening, they'll be,
they'll be curious to know what to do in a,
when it's someone in a position of power, when there's a,
you know, really steep power gradient, putting stuff on you.
I'm thinking lab supervisors, you know,
do you have any comments on how,
how people could deal with that?
Well, funny you should bring that up.
This, this is exactly what I was thinking about here.
Like, who defines what's urgent anyway.
Just like you say, when the boss comes to you
and they say it, they say it's urgent.
And you may not be in a position to say, oh,
it's really not though.
So I mean, we, we do have to look at appropriate hierarchy.
And sometimes, sometimes we are not
as clued in as we might think.
We might think it's not that important,
but, um, that person who is up the chain
may have information we don't have
and may have objectives that, that aren't
totally on our, our plate.
It's not maybe that they aren't sharing those objectives
with you, but they don't really matter to you
that much if your job is to do the work in the lab, right?
If, if you're in that role, right?
And their job is to make sure you stay funded,
and their job is to make sure that, that the,
the resourcing is, is handled and the right staff is on it.
And it's not like somebody who is, uh, you know, more, more,
we're doing the line work is unaware of those things,
but it isn't their job to work it out so
that other person has that job.
So when they come to you and they tell you
that something is urgent, and you're like, yeah,
it's not urgent to me.
Um, it's not just about you.
Sometimes we respond to other people's urgency
because it matters to them.
Um, there, there is, um, you know,
of course there are people that their urgencies are,
are are just ridiculous or they just never stop.
You know, they just, they just run from one emergency
to the next and they generate emergencies.
Sometimes they generate them all in their own head,
but sometimes they actually create problems.
And, and we do have to respond to them as urgent just
because there, there they are and there's nothing we can do.
Um, we need to recognize that is part of the environment.
Though we are never gonna perfectly align with other people.
We're never gonna perfectly align.
But even our boss, even if we have a great boss,
even if we just, we just love the, you know,
our lab manager, we love our pi, what sometimes
we're just not gonna be on the same page.
And sometimes that means that we have to do, you know,
we gotta play on the team.
There are trade offs here.
And, you know, maybe it's not one-to-one,
maybe it's just this time I'm gonna do
what you want 'cause you want it.
And later I'll get some benefit from that
And some people, but I'm not gonna worry about drawing
a line straight from one to the other.
Sorry, Ken, just to jump in.
Some people thrive on urgency as well, you know,
I think it's important to recognize, uh, sometimes people,
and this might be a boss
or a supervisor, they're just not,
they're not organized people and it's just how they work
and it's probably how they work at, at their best.
Yeah. You know, recognizing, recognizing that in people
and then adjusting your response, uh,
accordingly, I think is important.
Yeah. Yeah. Re when the more you can recognize somebody
else's style, their, their core mindset about
how things operate, um, the easier it is for you.
It doesn't, doesn't mean you have to agree with it,
but if you can just understand it, like, okay,
I see where this is coming from.
And it makes it simpler for you if you never bothered
to think about where are they coming from,
that it can just look random and crazy.
And, you know, that makes it hard on you
when you are in a position to, um, to, uh,
to negotiate, to, to ask for trade offs.
Like, okay, I will do this for you,
but hey, later on, could you do this for me?
It's not a bad idea to look at what's on offer when somebody
brings you with something urgent.
It's an opportunity actually. Mm-Hmm.
At that moment, they're gonna be a little more open
because they, if they have a problem, they consider
to be urgent, they're gonna be willing to do things
to get that solved.
Well, that might be the moment to ask for that help.
Now, I'm not talking about doing this in a manipulative way,
but it's, it's about just, you know,
timing things correctly.
Sometimes you got something you did wanna bring up
and you know, I'm waiting for the right moment.
Well, this might be the right moment.
So, you know, make it work for everybody.
You wanna win-win situation,
but, uh, responding to other people's urgency can,
can open opportunities for you
that you might not otherwise have.
So why not?
You know, urgency doesn't have
to be bad, is the bottom line.
It can, it can, as Tom as you just mentioned, it can be a,
a personal motivator.
Uh, what I'm talking about here is it can be just a way to
make better use of your social interaction and,
and you can make it work for you.
And if there was no urgency at all, ever,
wouldn't you be bored?
I, we are looking for excitement.
We are looking for challenges.
We are, we are looking to solve problems.
So, I mean, that's, that's part
of the whole, the whole game here.
It's, it's what we do, it's what you do as scientists, so
why not make it work for you?
All right. Well, Tom,
is there anything else you'd like to add at this point?
Well,
You know, we, we keep going back to this removing,
or it can, it, it, it can be emotional when, when, you know,
people come to you with something you,
you don't feel you have got time
to get it done or it's not your job. Mm-Hmm.
Yeah. Are there any practical,
is there any practical advice you'd have, you know,
what you can do to remove, remove the emotion
from, from your response?
Because, uh, I'm, I'm, I think I'm quite a hot head.
You know, I think I, people ask me in the red
mist descends a little bit.
Um, yeah. So what, what, what advice would you give?
Would you give me as a, as a someone who would just see red?
Yeah. Well, the, the first thing I would say is that I,
I don't entirely accept the premise of the question.
Okay. Some of your, some emotional response is fine.
It's maybe, maybe it's just certain kinds
of emotional responses are the ones you wanna,
you wanna do away with.
So, uh, I love that analogy of the red, red mist.
If it's just mist, it's fine.
But if it turns red, okay, this is the problem.
So, you know, at that moment, it, it's,
it's pause and reflect.
You know, the, I, when we, we have two things
that we can do, and ever we're confronted we can, we can
just respond immediately or we can pause
and determine what our reply will be.
And in the moment when we, you know, our, you know, our,
every system is telling us to lash back, that pause is
where all the strength is
because we won't necessarily
automatically make the right judgment in that moment.
If we will just take a moment and go, you know what?
Hang on, hang on, let me look at my calendar.
You know, and, and it's, it's fine to give your, you know,
give a, give a a reason why you're not responding just yet.
I need to check my calendar. I need to talk to Cynthia.
I, you know, I, I need
to finish this task I'm handling right now,
but I'm, you're my full attention, right?
Is on when I'm done, give your that, give yourself
that chance to pause
and it, it, it's, you know, it all works out fine, then you,
then you're gonna make better choices
and that person will calm down too.
'cause in that pause, they get to, they get
to ponder for a moment too.
And, you know, sometimes people won't accept that.
Like, no, you, I, I have to have this right now.
Well, now, now you got a clear picture, okay?
They're, they're really in a bad spot.
And you know, whether their urgency is, is, uh, caused
by a problem they created
or one that was impressed upon them.
You know, it doesn't matter at that moment that
what what matters right now is that really,
really is bothering them.
And that's the thing you're wanting to respond to now,
more than perhaps the problem itself.
It's like, how can I be supportive of this person right now?
Now, sometimes you don't wanna be supportive.
It's like, this is, I can't believe I took this job to work
for this jerk, and he's once again, being a jerk.
And, and we, we forget that that's,
that's a human being too, who's having their own
problems and pressures.
And that's not to, to excuse bad behavior front anyone,
but to just see like, all right,
I see what's going on right now.
And again, even of that, that,
that breath you take is literally just a breath that,
you know, that split second, it could be enough
to keep you from doing something you'll regret. Yeah.
Think a lot of people, they transfer
their urgency as well, right?
Oh yeah. Your boss or, you know, someone you work with,
they're rushed around for something
that's not directly related to you.
And then, and then they, they yeah, exactly.
That, the urgency on you and it might not be your problem
and it kind of becomes yours.
And I guess it's, you know, it's up up to you
to decide what, what you take on.
It depends on your relationship with that, that individual,
but trying to recognize when it's just transferred urgency.
Yeah. Yeah. A word for that is projection.
So maybe they come to you
and they tell you that it's urgent that you do X
what actually, what they're worried about is,
y it has nothing to do with you,
but they just needed to, they needed to push
that urgency out somewhere.
Mm-Hmm. And you just have to be the first one they saw.
And so you got the brunt of it.
So would you try and turn that back around?
Sorry, Kim, would you try and turn that back around on them?
Would you, would your advice be to let them know
that that's what they're doing?
Or would you just suck it up the first few times?
Well, I guess it comes down to first, do you have the kind
of relationship where you can say that, you know, if you,
if you do, it's really great if you can nip it in the bud,
but perhaps that you don't have that,
or in the moment it doesn't feel like, eh,
I don't know if I have an opening here,
but at, at that point, it may be best to deflect.
Like, I'll, I'll, I'll look at that in a minute.
And sometimes that's all they really need right now.
They just, they just needed to know
that somebody's paying attention.
And you know, me, you may well look at it in a minute
and go, yep, it's still not urgent, and off you go.
Right?
But If we just ignore people, if we act like, oh,
that was stupid, and you're stupid, you know, well,
nobody reacts well to that.
So, and it is amazing to me too, how, how often that kind
of thing happens between really smart people, you know,
they're smart, they know they're smart,
they know you're smart,
and yet you're acting like they're stupid.
And so that doesn't, that doesn't add up for anybody. Like,
It doesn't get the most outta
your relationship with them as well.
Going back to, uh, you know, urgency being an opportunity
to get something you want, that's Yeah.
Only if you're dealing well with each other
emotionally actually saying what you mean.
Yeah. And, you know, I'll grant you
that sometimes there are people that you just don't have
that relationship with at this point.
And whether it's because you, you've never developed it
or it's a new relationship,
or there has, there have been,
there's been bad blood in the past,
and so that, that's still hanging around.
You know, you don't wanna ignore the fact
that the relationship is not yet there.
That's fine. But then, then what kicks in, well,
what well I have to kick in is professionalism.
What would a professional do right now with this request?
And you can operate from there.
And what that will often happen there too, is that'll,
that'll take out the, the underlying, well,
last time they really worked me over,
and so they're probably doing that again this time.
It'll remove that. It's just, okay,
what would a professional do now?
And just do what they would do.
And, and, you know, you can, you don't have to even make it.
What would I, as a professional do now?
Just what would any professional do now?
And sometimes if you have somebody who around you
who is a good, who is a good example in this kind of area,
I go, you know, what would Cynthia do now?
What would Bob do now? And, and follow that, you know,
and it's not a bad idea to ask for help from mentor, um,
if you have such a thing in your lab
or in, you know, in your work life
where you can call on them, you know, this happened today
and I didn't know what to do.
And, and see what they have to say.
And, you know, and when you could, you can have
that conversation later.
It doesn't matter what you did, maybe what you did,
you really, well, that wasn't a great solution.
Yeah. But what should I have done?
And just bank that for later,
you know, we're gonna make mistakes.
Sorry. It's a good point. You make having a, you know,
having, because sometimes things need to get done
and you've got a limited amount of time,
but if you've got someone who understands your situation,
maybe is on a similar, you know, um, wage
or parallel to you within, within
whatever job you have, and mm-hmm.
You know, maybe when the legitimately urgent stuff comes in,
if you develop that relationship
enough, they will, they will help you out.
I, I certainly had a mentor like
that when I was doing my PhD, um, just
because the field we were in protein purification,
we were often working the deadlines
and it was easy for us to just take on a little bit
of each other's job to help, you know,
help us both out in the, in the long run.
And it was, it was a, yeah, it was a fruitful
relationship. Um, yeah.
Sanity check. Yeah. Yeah.
It was, it was, it was a sanity check, you know,
it, it was within reason.
It's like, could you just do this bit of work for me?
Um, I won't be around the lab where if I do it,
I'll actually be hours out my day to come to the lab,
you know, could you just do this?
Um, obviously with the tat agreement
of reciprocation later down the line.
Um, so I think that's something
people in the lab could actively work towards
and not working in isolation.
Yeah, it, it helps too to take these, these, uh,
urgent moments and use them to build your, your, your,
um, social network to build your team to,
to build your relationships that, that will pay off later.
Maybe it'll pay off later next week,
but, uh, you know, maybe it'll pay off later in your career.
You know, having made made a good impression
on a variety of people.
You never know where they're gonna end up in the future,
where you're gonna end up in the future.
And so the, these kind of things are investments.
So it isn't always about, I will get this back later in a,
you know, what, this side of the horizon,
maybe the later will be in the other
side of, of the horizon.
And that's perfectly fine.
And it, it's great to have some of that stuff banked up
because you never know when it's gonna show up
and really make a difference.
One thing as well, that, that I noticed,
and it is true of any job,
but is as you become more experienced,
more becomes expected of you.
Um, and,
and that leads directly to more being asked
of you, um, right.
'cause you can do more and you're capable of doing more.
It doesn't mean you've always got the time, you know,
the time in your calendar to, um, achieve it.
And I guess this comes back to another point I wanted
to make about, you know, workload management.
And do you have any advice for when, you know, when you are,
when you are rushed off your feet,
are there some recommendations you have just
for workload management when there are loads
of legitimately urgent matters,
you know, all happening at once?
Well, I, I guess what happens, we go back to that,
that first point we were talking about is what aligns
with your objectives and what aligns with your values.
Um, if you, if you're fine, you know,
there could be a number of things that align
with both your objectives and your values,
and you just don't have time.
I mean, there are, there are human limits, right?
So at that point, we gotta kind of do triage.
It's like, what really is critical here?
And, and it may be that, I mean, as biologists,
you're often working with living things
and you can't just say, well, I'm gonna take care of two
of the three things that are necessary to keep this,
this sample alive.
You have to take care of all three, right?
Well, that means you gotta find another way.
If it can't fit into your calendar,
then you gotta get some help.
And, and you gotta alert the boss to let 'em know, like,
maybe it's not my job to solve this problem.
I need to alert the boss that this problem exists
and it's gotta get solved.
So, and I can't solve it.
And I, we, some bosses hate, hate for you
to bring them problems without solutions,
but the fact is, they need to know about problems.
Even if you don't know the solution
Often found when I was, you know, doing extra work
for people, all that it took for me to become okay
with doing that is recognition.
It's amazing how far recognition goes.
So I would also advise, you know,
if people are helping you out, do take the time, you know,
just to signal how that, that, that, that is a help. Um,
Oh yeah, in two ways.
Tell, tell them, but also praise them in front of others,
and especially others whose, you know, like their boss or,
or other, you know, people of higher stature, that that kind
of thing really goes a long way.
I just wanted to bring it back to, um,
you mentioned our project management tool,
and then we're also spoken a lot about, um,
urgency trigger and emotional response.
It's funny, isn't it? Our overdue things,
they're always in, they're always in red.
We should always, we should put 'em in blue
or something, you know, carbon, ocean colors.
But you know, even the people who've designed this project
management tool, you know,
that they're aware on some unconscious level of urgent,
urgent, urgent, you know, red
and Yeah, I dunno, well, yeah, how deep that goes.
A lot of communications methods we use now, you know,
like, you know, um, like Skype or Telegram
or whatever, I found that, that the,
the hangup button is usually in red.
Yeah. But I'm drawn to red.
How Many times I've hung up on
people because it was red.
I can imagine that into a lot of trouble.
That is pretty funny. Um, well, I dunno if any
of the audience has any questions, um, please feel free
to put them, uh, you know, into the chat box if, if you do,
um, I dunno if you've got any more questions for me, Ken,
but, um, that, that,
that was all I wanted to ask for you in this session session.
Well, here's, here's a, a
barrier your soul kind of question.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation
where somebody came to you with something urgent
and you just, you just reacted wrong?
You, you, you just wouldn't, you wouldn't handle the problem
that they wanted you to handle and it came back around
and now you're like, oh man, I should have listened.
Oh, that's a good one. Um,
Not, not to the point
where it's trashed a relationship or a project.
Um, or at least nothing that jumps out as one
of those things that haunts me,
you know, when I go to sleep.
But, um, I do find my, my barrier to
what I would say is much, much lower, you know,
and I recognize that in, in myself.
So, you know, I'm choppier I'm less productive.
I've become more problems focused and solution focused.
Uh, yeah. And, and, and, and,
and in this job here, um, it's never one big thing,
you know, it's, it's small things.
Whereas if I was in a different
job, perhaps that would be the case.
You know, there'd be fewer, bigger things
and maybe my reaction would be proportionate.
Right. What I was thinking about you,
Well, I was thinking about what, what happened here.
And I mentioned at the beginning, uh, I,
I did learn a lesson here for like,
I did not handle the task of letting you know what,
what the outline of our discussion was gonna
be until the last second.
Like, it didn't turn out bad, you
Know, it didn't turn Out bad.
I know you can handle it, but
I thought it was some massive challenge, Ken.
I thought we're going a couple of levels
deep, like inception.
Well, I, I, I know that there are other people.
If I did that with, it would not have turned out well.
I, and I got, I got a warning,
so I'll not fail that warning again.
Well, I'm glad and it's
Good to look, look for that stuff, you know, like, okay,
I dodged a bullet, but let's, let's not have
to dodge a bullets in the future.
I promise to be nice. Alright.
Alright, Ken, on that, on that positive note,
we've not got any, um, we've not got any questions from our
audience today, but, um, yeah,
unless you've got anything else Ken to add, um,
I'll, I'll, I'll wrap us up. Looks
Good. Okay.
Yeah. So thank you everybody.
We've reached out over time and thanks again, Ken,
for you know, your insight in these sessions as always.
And thanks to everybody who took the time outta the day
to tune in live today, um, and on demand in the future.
If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe
to the Happy Scientist on your favorite podcast platform
and the Bite-sized bio YouTube channel.
You can listen back to our earlier episodes, uh,
which are packed with equally useful wisdom
and of course, tell your colleagues, um,
so we can help spread, uh, the Happy Scientists.
Look out for more episodes in the coming months.
Uh, you can find them on events bite-sized bio.com
and the Happy Scientist facebookPage@wwfacebook.com
slash the Happy Scientist.
Until then, good luck in your research
and goodbye from all of us at Bite-size bio, including Mr.
mgi,
The Happy Scientist is brought to you by Bite-size bio,
your mentor in the lab bite-size bio features thousands
of articles and webinars contributed by hundreds of PhD
scientists and scientific companies
who freely offer their hard won wisdom
and solutions to the bite-sized bio community.