Page 204 - HBR's 10 Must Reads 20180 - The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review

THE EDISON OF MEDICINE

Embrace Turnover
Like all academic labs, Langer’s sees a constant flow of people join-
ing or leaving. Doctoral students typically stay four or five years,
postdocs two or three, and undergraduates participate for as little
as a semester and as much as four years. Newcomers are perpetually
being trained, and people may leave at the peak of their productiv-
ity. But Langer and many colleagues think the turnover has positives
that vastly outweigh these downsides. Problems are viewed with
fresh eyes—he calls it “constant stimulation.” The turnover is fairly
predictable and tied to the length of projects; even huge grants are
structured so that the lab can gradually scale up. The finite tenure
of most of the researchers, combined with the limited duration of
grants (typically three to five years, with renewals dependent on
meeting goals), imposes pressure to get results.
“A lot of cynicism has been thrown on the academic research lab
model. We are told it is inefficient,” Hockfield says. “But it’s brilliant.
To bring together people from different generations and levels of
experience—it’s fantastic. The faculty member has a wealth of expe-
rience and understanding and knows the literature and the history
of the field. Students and postdocs have a lot of energy and ambi-
tion and crazy ideas. The faculty member helps get those crazy ideas
channeled. Undergraduates, wonderfully, often don’t know that
something’s impossible. They don’t know enough not to ask unso-
phisticated questions. There are very few things that make you step
back and wonder about your foundational assumptions more than
a really smart undergraduate asking, ‘Whoa, how does that work?’”
A highly motivated superstar team with limited tenure; an
accomplished scientist leader; time-limited projects; intense pres-
sure to get results—it all sounds like the DARPA formula, proof that
the model has application far beyond academic settings.

Lead Without Micromanaging

One rainy day at their home on Cape Cod, Langer and his wife,
Laura, talked about how his management of the lab differs from the

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