Lab management is a complex set of responsibilities and accountabilities. Most lab managers are trained scientists who earn the role through their technical excellence. To help prepare future lab managers, Jeanne M. Isabel, EdD, MLS, SH, Patricia J. Ellinger, MSEd, MASCP, MLS, SBB, and Dana Griffin, MBA, MLS have written a book titled Laboratory Operations and Management. The textbook is intended to help STEM students understand this potential role and provide some baseline skills and training in topics like lab organization, lab operations, workforce management, and financial management. The authors recognize that future lab leaders require broader skills than the technical knowledge gained by the typical undergraduate student. Lab Manager had the opportunity to ask the authors about this book and the journey to create it.
Credit: Jeanne M. Isabel, Patricia J. Ellinger, Dana M. Griffin
Q: What is the most challenging aspect of learning to be a manager?
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A: Much of management is learned on the job and through experience. This book helps the reader understand major management topics through real-life examples and exercises to help them practice learned skills.
The value of the book is that all three authors share experience gained through professional practice at the bench, academic experience, and administrative experience. Often when a lab professional is promoted to a managerial position, they must quickly learn how to manage their peers. Relationship dynamics change quickly and drastically, and this textbook can help people make that difficult transition with grace.
Q: What was your goal, as the authors, when writing this textbook?
A: This text is a conversational approach to help laboratorians and recent graduates embrace management. Our goal was to take the stigma of fear and the thoughts of, “I can’t do that” away from laboratorians. We want to encourage confidence through a foundational skill set that will grow with each reader’s personal experiences on their career path.
Q: How will this text help a laboratorian become a manager?
A: How often does one hear, “I can’t apply for the job because they want experience, but no one will give me the opportunity to get experience.” This text shares those tidbits of knowledge to give the reader a feel of real day-to-day management scenarios, which can help them prove to their supervisors that they can excel in a managerial position. It may also give readers the confidence to ask for extra responsibilities or training opportunities that exist within their organization.
Q: Each person has such an array of experiences; how will this text help individuals?
A: This entry-level text is designed to meet the reader where they are. It offers a wide range of management topics and high-level discussions of the laboratory’s role in the American medical system. It also covers a wide range of topics including financial basics, emotional intelligence, and handling microaggressions.
Q: Give me a quick overview of the managerial topics covered.
A: The text has an organic flow to allow the foundational growth of topics. It has five parts, and it starts with ethics, communication, and the assessment of educational processes. Then it explains the role of the lab manager including their day-to-day responsibilities. It covers the responsibilities to the employees in terms of safety and compliance with regulations. The next section takes it a step deeper and discusses personnel management, including leadership and evaluation. The book wraps up with discussions on financial management with real-life examples of cost analysis and revenue reimbursement.
Q: What are your favorite parts of the text?
A: We love how versatile the text is. The basics are covered in the text, and the learning is in the special features. There are many interactive elements to support the learning objectives, including multiple choice questions, stop and thinks, role-playing, and journal entries. For example, if the instructor is teaching a course in the classroom, they can utilize traditional learning tools. Or, if the lecture is happening at the internship level within a hospital setting, the instructor can use the Setting the Scene to introduce real-life situations that happen in the laboratory and have staff laboratorians share their experiences with the students as to how they solved the issue at hand.
A wide breadth of information is covered in language that can be easily understood and applied. We wish we had a text like this when we became managers to help understand the role of a manager, as well as basic responsibilities.
Q: Tell me an interesting topic you learned in researching this book?
A: Two areas stood out. One is chapter 3, “Developing and Assessing Educational Processes.” As a manager who also ran the internship program, I quickly became aware of how overwhelming the transition from bench tech to educator can be. Writing a test question is easy; writing an effective question is a whole new ball game. I think this is the basis for why teaching in the laboratory is so daunting and the root reason we wanted to write this book. Chapter 3 brings everyone (students, bench techs, and educators) to the same level so expectations are made clear and defined.
The second is researching emotional intelligence and how it applies to individuals either in a management position or looking to transition to management. This brought us a new sense of how to manage different people's situations. Exploring numerous resources to identify unconscious bias, blind spots and imposter syndrome was very eye opening.
Q: Drawing from your collective experiences, what’s one piece of advice you’d give to the new or aspiring manager?
A: Management is cyclical. Even with new technology, old ideas come back around. For example, laboratories were broken up into small rooms to allow laboratorians to focus on the task at hand, then it became popular to have large open concept laboratories. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Now, it is becoming more popular to have certain departments compartmentalized again. Take advantage of the experience around you. Ask an experienced co-worker or supervisor if they would be your mentor. They have an amazing base of knowledge to share with you!
