What you'll learn

Our training provides practical, evidence-based frameworks,  strategies, tools and language to help scientists and clinicians understand both conceptually and from a day-to-day perspective how to manage others in academia or industry efficiently or any of the countless career paths and industries that ultimately result in your managing (setting expectations about, evaluating and giving feedback on) someone else's work.

Participants will learn:

  • Core people manager skills: We provide frameworks and strategies for each of the 7 core supervisory tasks: set expectations; teach, train, and delegate; provide feedback (kudos, corrective, and evaluative); recognize progress and reward achievement; articulate and implement consequences fairly; manage conflict and change; and provide appropriate support.
  • How to implement inclusivity skillfully in your managerial role: Our framework helps you identify the day-to-day decisions, actions, and behaviors that define inclusivity and how to consider what boundaries are appropriate to maintain high-functioning and productive diverse teams. 
  • Strategies to navigate role conflict with integrity: Our training helps mentors with managerial responsibilities and people managers with mentoring duties develop a balanced approach aligned with your values to manage the productivity, morale, and well-being of others while navigating the many expectations from your team and your organization.

Our Curriculum

Module 1 - Assess Yourself: Which of the 5 inclusive strategies would work in your lab/on your team?

  • Many scientists with mentoring/managing responsibilities have the best intentions but need more clarity about which specific decisions and actions result in their diverse team feeling a sense of belonging and invested in the overall success of the lab.
  • In this session, you will learn a framework to benchmark which decisions, behaviors, and actions define what it means to be inclusive as a mentor & manager.
  • Secondly, we will outline the 5 overarching strategies that most inclusive efforts and best practices map to and discuss balancing the work of making space for and setting boundaries around inclusive approaches. Finally, you will practice applying these principles to your own work-life by intentionally designing inclusivity into a common work task(a 1:1 or lab meeting).
     

Module 2 - Assess Yourself: Which of the 7 people manager (supervisory) responsibilities will you use to manage your mentee/employee's productivity?

  • In this workshop, participants identify the skills they have and those they need to develop to effectively manage the productivity of their mentee/employee. First, you will self-evaluate your strengths and growth areas in executing the 7 fundamental people management responsibilities: (setting expectations, teaching/training and delegating, the three types of feedback, rewarding achievement, addressing performance issues, managing the inevitable conflict inherent in even the most functional teams, and providing appropriate protection and support).
  • Second, we'll dissect the specific strategies individuals with research mentoring and/or managing responsibilities can use to equitably balance decisions in fulfilling their roles as a scientific mentor and/or a manager. Finally, participants consider ways to receive support and further develop their skills and abilities in these areas.
     

Module 3 - Effectively supervising people who aren't you: Managing different work styles

  • In this module, participants consider how individual differences in values, approaches, and relationships to work can impact productivity, morale, and team member retention. We also discuss tangible steps mentors/managers can take to cultivate inclusive environments intentionally. We consider several factors that may make up our individual' operating systems' when we engage in work, including how we prefer to communicate, make decisions, feel organized, and manage change/conflict.
  • Participants will also have the opportunity to assess some facets of their own work style preferences and develop the vocabulary to discuss others' preferences without pathologizing their approach to work. Finally, we discuss and brainstorm tactics that team leaders can use to manage multiple work style differences inclusively and reap the benefits of working in diverse teams.
     

Module 4 - How to transparently set (performance and conduct) expectations

  • Have you ever been surprised or frustrated that someone in your lab isn't meeting performance or conduct expectations? Are you wondering about organizational management benchmarks, strategies, and best practices for setting expectations transparently? Then this is the session for you! In this workshop, we'll discuss challenges and tactics to share the wide range of expectations that need to be set - from promptness to productivity and problem-solving.
  • Participants will also learn organizational management best practices for articulating, refining, reinforcing, and/or updating expectations. Next, we'll cover how skillful leaders avoid common pitfalls (e.g., articulating only the "what" but not the "how" of expectations, failing to include tacit expectations, setting boundaries around key expectations such as problems, etc.) Finally, we'll point out links and materials to institutional resources for further support.
     

Module 5 - Teach/train and delegate: Using best practices to train your diverse team

  • Effective training practices are essential in any organization but particularly important in research and clinical organizations. The constant evolution of knowledge requires a solid training process to stay up to speed on innovative technology, best practices, and expertise, and the consequences of errors can be high.
  • In this module, we discuss common training issues that can result in a loss of productivity for individuals and their teams. We propose evidence-based approaches to avoid, detect, and correct these training issues.
     

Module 6 - Communicating inclusively: developing your own feedback strategy and style

  • Do you feel most comfortable offering positive (or kudos) feedback? Do you tend to avoid or sugarcoat corrective feedback? Are you unsure what 'evaluative' feedback is? Then this is the session for you. In this module, we begin by dissecting the three types of feedback that everyone (including you) needs to be productive: kudos, corrective, and evaluative feedback.
  • Participants will practice giving feedback using a protocol that works for both kudos and corrective feedback. Next, participants will modify the protocol as they consider their style (including their personal values, approach, and language). We'll discuss strategies to gain buy-in and determine how the recipient can best hear and act on that feedback, as well as how to engage when the recipient has a strong reaction to feedback.
     

Module 7 - When someone isn't meeting your expectations: Strategies and resources to manage performance equitably

  • When someone repeatedly fails to meet performance or conduct expectations, many research mentors/managers frequently under or over-correct and mistakenly attempt to handle the situation alone (rather than reaching out for support). In this session, participants will learn tactics to determine how their particular organization expects them to manage performance or conduct issues, how to access organizational resources to help them navigate the situation (including HR, Learning, and Development, etc.), and common mistakes and approaches (including building a circle of support/self-care) to manage one of the most challenging responsibilities for any mentor/manager.
     

Module 8 - How to inclusively hire: Which strategies will you use?

  • In this workshop, participants will learn evidence-based strategies to assess and select the strongest candidates using tactics from four inclusive strategy clusters: 1) adding intentional respect to your hiring process, 2) adding diverse voices to your decision-making, 3) adding accountability to benchmark the knowledge, skills, and abilities you seek, and 4) leveling the playing field so every candidate has an equal chance to excel.
  • Participants will learn how to transparently structure the overall hiring process, begin developing their own questions/rubrics to assess their priority qualifications, consider steps to prepare and manage a hiring committee, and discover tactics to mitigate others' and their own unconscious biases, which could result in choosing the wrong candidate or overlooking the right one.