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Case 7a :

Collaboration within a Single Laboratory

Sierra yelled loudly,

"Jackson, I am not your personal assistant. You are responsible to train the technicians. I am not. I cannot help that they do not do everything that you want because I am not you!"

Jackson yelled back, even louder,

"Sierra, I am the project manager and if I ask you to do something, there is a reason for it: I am too busy to do it!".

Professor Smith, the Principal Investigator for the laboratory, swung open the laboratory door and announced very sternly,

"Jackson, you go to my office. Sierra, you take a deep breath and sit down".

Professor Smith said soothingly,

"Sierra, being a junior member of a team is always hard. Jackson is not trying to push his work on to you, it is just that, as the project manager, he has many things to do. Also, he is a post-doctoral fellow, so much of this project is what he will use to apply for professor positions soon. He is under stress. Be patient with him.

Sierra came back quickly, making it clear to Professor Smith how unhappy she was,

"Professor Smith…"

"David, Sierra, call me David. We are colleagues now. You are a PhD student".

"Sorry… David. When we first outlined responsibilities for this project, it was decided that Jackson would take charge of all materials management and technician training as it was so important for his work that everything be done correctly. I took over materials management because he did not have time and we ran out of reagent—do you remember?—and were on hold for 2 weeks! Then, I have trained the previous two technicians myself. I have primary responsibility to clean and code the data and it takes a lot of time. To train techs then return to data coding means that I make errors. Can we please have a meeting to discuss responsibilities again please? I am overwhelmed."

David replied reassuringly,

"Sierra, thank you for your honesty. I did not realize that this was happening. I can take over materials management for a while until that second post-doctoral fellow arrives in November. But, we will discuss technician training in our research meeting next Friday. We have not discussed responsibilities in many weeks. It will be good to know what we will need Cheng to do when he gets here".

Sierra relaxed and said,

"Yes, this will be good. You said that collaborative work is a work in progress. I guess this is part of progress!"

• What are the key problems between these three researchers?
• How might rank affect the present arrangement of responsibilities in this collaboration?
• What other factors might be causing problems in the arrangement of responsibilities between Jackson and Sierra?
   

Imagine you are Professor Smith (David):

• How might you change your supervisory strategy to improve the relationship between Sierra and Jackson?
   

Imagine you are Sierra:

• You have been angry with Jackson for a while now. How might you approach improving your relationship with him in the future?
   

Imagine you are Jackson:

• The stress you feel is significant. How might you ask Sierra and David for help in the future?