Coming soon · Book Profile
At the helm a laboratory navigator
A practical navigator for new scientific principal investigators on managing the people, processes, and politics of running a successful research laboratory.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
The move from postdoc to Principal Investigator is a cataclysmic shift, for which years of scientific training are often poor preparation. Suddenly, you're not just a scientist but a manager, fundraiser, leader, and mentor. "At the Helm" is the essential guide to navigating this transition, offering practical advice on everything from hiring the right people and building a productive lab culture to managing your time, writing papers, and dealing with interpersonal conflicts. Based on interviews with numerous successful P.I.s, this book provides real-world strategies and hard-won wisdom to help you avoid common pitfalls, develop your leadership style, and build the lab where everyone wants to be, ensuring both scientific success and personal satisfaction.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- The reader is a newly appointed Principal Investigator (P.I.) or a senior postdoc aspiring to become one. They are highly intelligent, ambitious, and an expert in their scientific field, but they want to successfully run their own research lab, produce great science, and build a fulfilling career.
- The problem
- The P.I. is suddenly responsible for managing people, budgets, projects, and institutional politics, tasks for which their scientific training provided little direct preparation. They are overwhelmed by administrative duties and personnel issues that distract from the research. They feel unprepared, overwhelmed, isolated, and anxious about their ability to succeed. They fear making critical mistakes in hiring, management, or funding that could jeopardize their lab and career.
- The plan
- Know What You Want: Envision and plan the ideal lab culture and research program from the start.
- Become a Leader: Understand your own leadership style, manage your time effectively, and learn to delegate.
- Choose and Nurture Your People: Follow a structured process to hire the right individuals and then effectively train, mentor, and integrate them.
- Organize for Success: Implement clear policies, effective meetings, and organizational systems to create a productive research environment.
- Communicate Effectively: Use communication as the glue to manage diversity, resolve conflict, and maintain high morale.
- The payoff
- You lead a well-funded, highly productive lab where talented people are eager to work. · You are a confident and respected leader who effectively mentors the next generation of scientists. · You successfully balance the demands of research, management, and your personal life, finding both professional success and personal fulfillment.
See our guide
Additional reading
- Tomorrow's Professor: Preparing for Academic Careers in Science and Engineering · R.M. Reis
The book recommends this text specifically for its excellent discussion on finding academic jobs and handling start-up package negotiations.
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People · S.R. Covey
The author directly incorporates Covey's Time Management Matrix as a core tool for teaching P.I.s how to prioritize their overwhelming tasks.
- Finding and Keeping Great Employees · J. Harris and J. Brannick
This book is cited for its insights on workplace culture, hiring, and creating an innovation-driven environment, aligning with this book's focus on personnel management.
- Never Good Enough: Freeing Yourself from the Chains of Perfectionism · M.R. Basco
The author recommends this book for a deeper analysis of perfectionism, a trait identified as a potential double-edged sword for scientists.
- At the Bench: A Laboratory Navigator · Kathy Barker
The author refers to her earlier book for details on the physical side of lab management, indicating it is a companion volume for more granular, bench-level topics.
- Creativity, Inc. · Ed Catmull
Provides a real-world account from the CEO of Pixar on managing the tension between creative projects ('Ugly Babies') and established franchises ('the Beast'), which directly parallels the book's loonshot/franchise dynamic.
- Science: The Endless Frontier · Vannevar Bush
This 1945 report to the President is the foundational document for the book's model of organizational and national research, outlining the principles that inspired the 'Bush-Vail rules'.
- How Life Imitates Chess · Garry Kasparov
The book uses Kasparov's approach to chess analysis to introduce the critical distinction between an 'outcome mindset' and a 'system mindset,' a key principle for improving organizational decision-making.
- As We May Think · Vannevar Bush
This 1945 essay laid out the vision for a personal information device called the 'memex,' inspiring future innovators with its concepts of augmenting human intellect, hypertext, and personal computing.
- The Whole Earth Catalog · Stewart Brand (editor)
This counterculture catalog celebrated 'access to tools' and helped merge the hippie movement's communal, anti-authoritarian ethos with a belief in technological empowerment, fueling the do-it-yourself spirit of the personal computer revolution.