13- Prof. Ralph Mueller- Leading teams into their own power

You would think that starting your 1st fellowship straight out of your PhD with a PI who has just left for a sabbatical could be quite challenging and frustrating. It turns out that for Ralph this perceived challenge became a massive learning opportunity. 

He learned to build a team without the classical hierarchy observed in most labs. This influential experience shaped his perception of what it means to work well in teams, and how he has now structured his own research group in a way that promotes the research leadership transition of others.

 
About Ralph

Ralph Müller is Professor of Biomechanics in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology as well as Deputy head of the Institute for Biomechanics at ETH Zurich (Switzerland).

Get in touch with Ralph:

https://www.bone.ethz.ch/

Find out about:

·      How the departure of your PI on a sabbatical could be the best gift you get to boost your research independence   

·      What building trust with your research team could look like

·      How not rushing the recruitment of your 1st PhD students may be a wise choice

·      Why your leadership approach is a journey of reinvention

·      How transparency in promotion panels can turn the hidden process of ranking academic performance into a collective learning opportunity

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You can get this episode shownotes here on the website.
 
Get in touch to become a contributor to the podcast: 
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Transcript

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Dr. Sandrine Soubes: Hello, dear listeners. You are, yes, indeed on the podcast Research Lives and Cultures. I'm your host, Sandrine Soubes. I work as a facilitator, trainer, and coach, and I love interviewing academics and people who work in a research environment. I have the pleasure to have on this episode of the podcast, Professor Ralph Müller from ETH in Zürich in Switzerland.

In this interview, we talk about some of the challenges that academics face when they are setting up their research team, challenges in terms of discovering their own approach to leadership, discovering how they may want to recruit researchers who work with them, and also issues to do with the hierarchy that you are creating or not in your research team. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

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Sandrine: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, everyone. Today, I have the pleasure of having with me Ralph Müller, who is from ETH Zürich. It's a university in Switzerland. It's a very famous, very prestigious institution. I was put in touch with Ralph through the ITN network Fidelio, which is a research network, which is part of the European community. I will be working with some of the PhD students from the Fidelio Network, over a number of workshops.

I was really interested to hear the experience of Ralph working with researchers, PhD students, and postdoctoral researchers because when we talk about the research environment, there is always this one thing of the interaction between PhD supervisor and PhD students and the impact that this has on the career of both the research leader, but also the PhD student. To start off our conversation, Ralph, could you tell us a little bit about the early years in your research career? How did it all start for you?

Professor Ralph Müller: Thanks Sandrine, first, for having me. It's going to be a pleasure to actually talk about that. I think the important thing, for me, is that actually when I studied, I didn't have actually really the desire to do a PhD. I was first of all just looking at finishing my master's thesis or diploma at the time. It was actually only the interest in medical applications of electrical engineering. I was an electrical engineer, mostly signal processing, mathematics, and I go like, "That's interesting, maybe I could do something like that." I was thinking, "What kind of career could I have? Which company would hire me for that?"

Actually, there was nobody around, so I went on with this research, "Maybe I could find a job in research." The professors around me were very encouraging. They saw a potential at the time. They actually [unintelligible 00:03:01] "I think you would be a wonderful candidate to actually research. You seem to be well-educated and interested in the topic, why don't you start the class?" I decided on a team that was actually very small, five people, and very focused on imaging. It was interesting for me in two ways. First of all, I could use my signal processing theory and apply to trying to help people.

I think that was very important. The small team was also helping me. The supervisor, he was a physicist, and he was very organized and all day long, he would tell me, "This is what you can do." Gave me purpose. "If you can do all of that in three years, then you're going to have a PhD." I took that very literally, and I really just worked on all of these issues and was actually done in three and a half years or something like that. I think the supervisor that helped me was really the person that, she said, "I think, I believe in you, in that sense, I think you have the talent. Here's what you could do. Try it out, and then come back when you're done."

He did not have this very close relationship all the time and telling me what to do. I think, for me, it was extremely important that I could actually develop myself and find new ways of solving problems. That was one side. The other side, for me, as being a person that likes going to meetings, talk to people, is not something that I feel very uncomfortable with, but he was a classical physicist. He was just not really interested in meeting people. We did actually found quite some application in the community, people wanted to hear about that. He would always say, "Ralph, why don't you go? I don't want to go."

I'm not saying that this is what you should do if you're a PhD student, but it helped me a great deal because I was able at early years already to present actually the good things that we had to do, and gave me also the feedback. Although sometimes, people feel uncomfortable about that, but that's how you can make, I think, a career so that you are able to present your own things in front of other people. That was the two things, in very different ways, sometimes it can be active, somewhat thinking about it, being a mentor and say, you have to do it, and sometimes, it's maybe a little bit less active, so much as, "I don't want to do that. Why don't you do it?" In any way that this works, I think it's important that you do that with your graduate students as well.

Sandrine: It's interesting because in a way it's quite unusual during your PhD to work with a supervisor who in a way is less keen to talk about their own work themself and actually pushes you to go and do the talking and the presenting, but in you, how did you go then about choosing who you went to work with after? That's one of the challenge for researchers.

That's something that I found really fascinating, is how do we make choices of who we want to work with because there is this balance between being strategic of working in a prestigious lab or working with somebody who does work that really interest us, but at the same time, working with somebody that we really get on with and working with somebody that we think will support us? Often, we can't have necessarily everything, so in your own approach, how did you make these choices?

Ralph: It's a good point. I had two-pronged approach, let's put it this way. I would actually talk to people that I already knew and had some trust that they were interested in me again. They said, "Why don't you join us for a post-doc? You'll be a fantastic addition here. We don't have money right now, but we have some funds you can apply to, and I can help you with that." That was one thing, I knew the person, I had trust that if I would go there, that that will be a great experience, but it wasn't really driven by the person and not necessarily by the institution, and the possibilities that I had at that place where I thought somehow limited.

On the other side, I said, "Okay, I can also try that myself." I can say, "Where would be my dream place to be? I can write an application, actually. I don't need actually anybody that is locally looking for me." There's the National Science Foundation in Switzerland that allows you to apply for a post-doctoral fellowship. It's really great in the country that you have that, or Marie Curie fellowships that are in the European Union. You need a host, but actually, you are the one that is in the driver's seat. If someone comes to my lab and says, "I would like to work with you. I'm going to write an NCA application," usually, that looks good on CV, I go like, "Yes, sounds good. Do it."

I did the same thing. I was looking, interestingly not that my dream place would not necessarily be just where the science is great, but I like the environment, I like the city, I like to explore that. I was looking just had some traveling going on before I did that. I was in the New England area, and I had spent some time in Boston. I really liked it, and I go, "Okay, I think there's a university called Harvard, and it's not so bad." Might I find a person works there and actually, then found out, "Oh, I've read actually papers of that person." I didn't know him, never met him, and I contacted him and said exactly the same thing, "I would like to work in your lab, what would it take? I can write this application."

He goes, "Yes, sounds it would be interesting. I'll help you with that". The funny thing that happened to me when I arrived, I go to the lab, I work really, really hard with my advisor at the time there. When I come, I wanted to say hi to him, and then the secretary in the institute had told me, "Oh, he just left for Switzerland because he's doing a sabbatical." He actually failed to tell me, so I had no clue. I arrived, the person that I had contact with wasn't even around, but that again, was actually an advantage because everybody else had to actually take up a lot of leadership.

Sandrine: In a way, this must have been very influential in terms of setting you to become very independent, very early on which in a way not everybody has in their research career, especially straight after your PhD. How do you think it has shaped the way you build your confidence and you found that you are establishing yourself?

Ralph: That's a very good question, and it's a good point. I think that, of course, again, these are these unique situation where you cannot say, "You have to go through the same experience." It's just a lot of luck. If he would have been around, it would have probably been more difficult for me to become so independent. Of course, the good thing was that I brought my own money, and he would always tell me, "This is your money. You decide on what you do. If I use my own money, then I want to have the say in it." I think this is really great.

That's why I also recommend people to get such fellowship. Even if they get a job offer, and they will be already money available, try to get these fellowships because you can only get them in a certain period of time. Immediately, it elevates you, and allows you to do things that the other ones wouldn't be able to do that are just higher, let's say, knowing that even if they're really great. I understand that's not for everybody. You need to be comfortable with being thrown in the water as well. I never let anything. I had to be responsible for a small group of people because we shared that responsibility amongst the people in the lab.

What it certainly taught me, and that's something I'm trying to do as well now, again, many years later is that you can organize yourselves actually without hierarchy, with a group of people that have the same common interest. It's a research question, broad, and we were just more experienced, but didn't have experience in leading groups. We were working together and then separating still each other. I was responsible for a certain thing, another person was responsible for something else skill-oriented, in that sense. That really gave me the idea that you don't need to have such hierarchy in the system. We do that now, for example, as well.

A couple of years ago, we tried to organize the lab more in an agile management style where I have right now four team leads. They're not having their own group. It's a team of people that they supervise, and we work together, the five people in a more like executive committee in the lab, say we've got 25 people right now. It's very important that they have now independence to some extent. They have some money, but not always their money. They get some of the money that I have available, and they work with their team set towards common goals and collaborate with each other and establish rules in the lab and all kinds of things.

I think that was very important for me that at the time, because we didn't have a leader around, a natural leader or official leader, and we self-organized. It was good for me. I can imagine that this is not good for everybody. Some people need more mentoring to get their strength up so that they can stop actually leaning. I have to say, in our university, at least, if you think about it, that you may be, wow, I know you're 30 at the time, and I was 30, I think when I when I left for the US, 31. I think the thing is, you don't have so much time actually to get these positions, where, for example, assistant professor position or something like that.

In our university, at ETH, they don't stop that, for example, at the age of 35. They want young people that already are able to lead and take responsibility for the lab to plan a program. This is really helpful. That is something that I think if you are looking for a postdoc position, you should look at the structure and know how other people organize. Is it very hierarchical, or is it something that you have independence if you also then get the trust that you can do the things? That's important.

Sandrine: This experience that you had in the US sounds like it's really shaped the way you are leading your own group now, because very often in a lot of research group when PIs, principal investigators, are establishing their first research group with their first independent funding and are starting to recruit, they don't necessarily want to give the lead to others.

Because a lot is at stake when you're setting your own group, you have a probation mechanism where you are going to be judged yourself, so a lot of pressure is put by new PIs in the way they are leading their research team and don't necessarily want to let go a lot of the control which you understand because it's their own career that is at stake. Learning to let go is difficult. When you went back to Switzerland after the period in the US and US establishing yourself, how did you learn to create a research culture that was really empowering for others?

Ralph: That's also an interesting question that you would need to reflect. A lot of it is not, at that time, not so much by design. That's the first important thing. You'll find that probably many people, they just act the way they feel, they do it right now, they can be influenced by things that happened before, like you said, and they bring a culture with them or multiple cultures with them. They know how to do that, but they do not yet say, "How do I want to be?" The first PhD student that you hire is extremely important because that person is really somebody that eventually will probably grow very close to you.

You go through the same experience. It's just a few years apart, actually, in that sense, and you're helping-- If it's successful which many times it is, of course, then this person is very important. I took a little bit of time actually to find that person. That wasn't maybe the only thing. For me, it was I needed certain skills that I didn't have because I could still work in the lab most of the time. That was one thing, skills, but also personality was extremely important. I think that many people make that mistake when they hire, and especially also in a program like Fidelio, you have to hire within three months.

It's a big problem because you might not have met the person that would actually be the perfect match. If you waited two more months, you would find that person. If you have a chance, then that's a very important part that you wait. Both sides, it's not just the supervisors picking the best people, it's actually the best people picking their supervisors. It's flattering if you get offers, but the people that get offers get more offers. It's typical. The people we want, they're also wanted by others. I think that's something that one really should think about, all these kinds of things.

Personality is something that you are very quick at seeing a connection in a sense. There's a certain connection, professional in that sense. That you feel like, "That person, there's a couple of things he or she said, and yes, that's resonating with me." Whereas skills are more difficult sometimes because you're hiring somebody that doesn't have the same skills than you because you want them to have formal skills.

You might only find out later, actually, whether they actually really have the skills or not. Personality, a fit in the team, and I always hire this way, as I like, "Now, we have started to go a little bit in that direction. I need people that support that spirit that we have around here." I must say that this becomes more difficult as you really grow to a large size. I think that's where it becomes much more difficult.

Sandrine: There are a couple of things that you said that I think are really important. This also the idea of, in thinking about diversity of teams, and working with people, because the way we connect with others, often we like people who are a little bit like us, and in a way, it creates biases, whether we want it or not in the people that we are recruiting. It has an impact in terms of who belongs to research in some ways.

How do you think that you've tried to tackle this challenge of recruiting within the context of trying to diversify who enters the research profession? Also, how do you then create a dynamic within your team with all these people who have default aspiration, default motivation, and when your research is building and you have all these different dynamics to manage and leading the way towards actually achieving your common purpose? It gets very messy at some point.

Ralph: Yes, I think it does. It's very different at early age in that sense, and when you're progressing, when you're going in maybe multiple times. I think the easiest things that I have always tried to do that is you have to somehow reinvent yourself in terms of how you do that every so many years. I've been at ETH as a professor 21 years now, and I had maybe four different management styles during that time. Maybe the longest period, I would do seven, eight years or something like that of a similar type of approach that I thought that peak and I need to change something. The good thing about our environment is, of course, the people need to change.

You will usually not leave, so you stay, but the people will leave around you. This is always a problem. You're losing a lot of know-how when people are leaving at both on the PhD level, or postdocs or group leaders or something like that. They'll go to a better place, and then it's actually easy to then say, "You know what? I'm not going to do the same thing, I'm not going to find a replacement for the person, I'll find something new." I think this has really helped. There can be this dynamics of building something. Sometimes, it can be challenging for people that are still around. They can say, "Now, we're changing the system."

They like to have this kind of structure that tells them it's always the same, "Got my good coffee in the morning, and I need to thrive on that. I want to have stability." On the other side, if you're building something, at some point, you usually get some dynamic. It's a lot simpler to lead because people are just in that stream. They cannot avoid. They cannot swim against it for a long time. I think that what I always tried to do, get some of these dynamics. Can be hard, can be challenging, and needs good skills. I've always done my best, I guess. For me, it was also more interesting. That's very important.

If it's more interesting for me, I'm also a better mentor, I'm a better listener, I just have a better time. I think that is actually something that you pass on to the people that you work with in that sense and all. Of course, as the older you get in the system, you're getting more detached from-- I know that maybe some of my colleagues have the ability to still be in the lab and say, right, and want to do something themselves, but typically, it's more difficult to actually as a professor, certainly because you're not just the researcher, you're also an eductaor, you're an administrator, all kinds of jobs that you have. That brings you a little bit away from the people now to manage to be close.

I'm still sometimes struggling to find new ways of how to interact. This is something that is important. In general, though, I think the only way you can survive in that is if you give the people that freedom that they can operate independently eventually, and work on establishing trust. You really don't have to check. We had a lot of discussion about that as certainly in the time of corona. Now, this is special because you see people in our class, so and to have, do they have trust that they're doing well? That's something that is sometimes confused that you don't trust them doing anything.

I think this is something is very difficult to them. You have to build that trusted relationship that you know they're actually doing well. I think the people know, "I don't need him, I can really do independently." That takes a little bit of time. It's the philosophy that people would say, you have to trust people, whatever. Not necessarily of that category. I think that can work. I think that not necessarily have to earn trust, I don't think so, it's not something you earn, but you have to work on this trust relationship on both sides because the people have to also trust me that if I need to make a recommendation, they should really pick it up, rather than to say, "No, I need to listen to myself. Trust me, I can do that."

I go like, "Why don't you trust me as well? I recommend you doing something differently because I have experience." That's very important. As soon as this trust is established, then people can work extremely independently, and it doesn't matter so much how much supervision you actually have. It's just knowing that if there's a problem, you go talk to the person, but if not, you move on and you work with your other team members, you interact with them and they don't have to worry so much about, "What would my supervisor think about that?" For example. "Is that the right decision?"

Sandrine: Can I ask you, what do you think is really essential as a research group leader, in terms of building trust, and having the conversation that are necessary, because there are lots of reports about challenges in the research culture and the tension between PIs, students and postdoc, and so on. Reflecting on the ways you've tried and the way your research leadership has evolved over the years, what do you think is really the essence of establishing good relationship between research leader and postdocs or PhD students? What's really the secret elements or the magical element that really make powerful interaction, good collaboration, and so on?

Ralph: That's a tough one, and that really needs a lot of self-reflection. What went well, and what maybe didn't went so. Obviously, overall, let's say, when you're young, and you have a lot of enthusiasm things, and you can actually infect people for that, I think that is oftentimes a hallmark of young, successful investigators. They have enthusiasm can enthuse others with them. Of course, this goes away with time. The advantage that you have with time is that you have a lot of role models for them. You can say, "Look, that's a person similar to you, and look how successful they were. They were able to do it."

Whatever the success actually means. I think working on success stories together really is-- Then, if you are successful in that, then you will build trust because you say, "This will be successful, trust me." It happens, then, of course, you have that trust. People do not necessarily have to trust you on that. Expectation management, what success means is also very important. Again, for me, to be honest with you, the most important thing at that point in my career and certainly now is that the people can enjoy themselves doing what they do, really performing at the highest level and enjoying.

Not for me, not that I get more papers and more citations or more money, it's really not important anymore because that's something that will stop at some point. To see that joy, that if somebody now found a way and is successful in meeting their aspiration, which is something that I discuss with them is also matching my aspiration for them, this is one of the best things you get. This is something extremely enjoyable, if that comes together. Typically, it will with PhD students because we spend so much time with them. In our system, we do not have so much time set. It's not like, "Okay, PhD is three years and that's it." It's like, "A PhD is done when it's done."

When you have achieved what it takes to have a unique contribution, and I think most of the time overseas, people are done, when they're comfortable with what they do and enjoy it, and they actually now have a problem and say, "Oh, now it's so enjoyable. I know all my things, I could go on forever." I say, "Now, maybe we should do PhD and finish and get out again, do something else after that." This is something, again, it was always a driver for me. Many of my decisions have to do with being able to enjoy. That doesn't mean that all the things that I've done or that people have to do are enjoyable time, of course.

It should be a general thing that you not always feel like, "Okay, can I do that? Can I fail?" You see that a lot. A lot of people don't trust themselves. It's not so much even like a trust in other persons. It's actually they don't have confidence in their ability. That's something that maybe at ETH sometimes I think helps me because it's that, it's a well known, prestigious university. I sometimes can tell them, "Why do you think we hired you? I saw something. I had 100 people applying for the job, you've got that job. Look for that quality that's why you're hired and actually work with you on that because you got to make it. You can do it."

That's really something that I know that takes sometimes a long time until the people realize that they have it in them. They always look somewhere else. They compare themselves to others, "Oh, this person already has a paper. I'm not yet there." It's very individual. It's something that I would love to have them enjoy their work. They really know, "I can do it. I can produce something that will be successful." Again, whatever that means.

Sandrine: That's an important element because people start PhDs for all sorts of reasons. In a way, the motivation that a PhD student has about why they're doing this may be very, very different than maybe what the supervisor thinks what the motivation of the student is. When you're applying for a PhD program, the story that you tell the person recruiting you may be actually quite different from the real story of why you want to do this. It's the same for postdocs.

The narrative created to be recruited and the reality can be different. As a supervisor, how do you build an atmosphere where there is true honesty and openness about sharing what the motivation of everyone is? Because it's about getting people to move on in their career and for some PhD students and postdocs career, they don't necessarily want to have an academic career, or maybe they want to move to industry, or to move and work in the public sector. It's something that I've seen often in some of the challenges where the supervisor may not really be interested in what the students wants to do afterwards. They just wanted the research to be done.

Ralph: Again, my basic background is in engineering, and so teams are extremely important. Over the years, so in the beginning, we were developing a lot of technology, for example, and applied it then to biologic or medical questions. Now, with time, I have done a lot more science in that sense, let's say, be hypothesis-driven as you name it. There, you have a tendency that the individual is elevated. The person that asks the right question will actually get the prize, whatever, not so much the team, but I still work very much on the team. I need to tell people that they have to form teams because they have not the skills of doing the projects themselves, even in the science projects.

They need the other type of skill. There will be, very rarely, having let's say two biologists working together [unintelligible 00:32:29], but it will be a physicist and a biologist, a chemist and mechanical engineer. I try to make these teams. That's where you have not so much pressure anymore, actually, to follow your own ideas. You're forced, to some extent, to agree on a common way forward. It doesn't have to be me that tells you that. It's just naturally that bounding, actually, this team that gives you purpose and actually gives you a way forward. I think this is really, really important that you can do that, to work on teams.

I know, I said the alternative program that I've experienced myself, also, like in Boston area is that, for example, for postdocs, you hire two postdocs, you put them on the same project, the person that actually delivers more results in four months will continue with the project. The other person goes back to square one, and actually, starts again. I think that's so stupid. You put them together and work together and have successful off of them. I know that, sometimes, people say, "I need to have something that identifies me that I'm unique out there so I can be hirable, and so that's why I need to be elevated and somebody to--"

I have not found that. I haven't given into that thought. I see that my people that want to do academic careers, which by the way, are less and less, they all got positions. In the past, we got one case where a person [unintelligible 00:34:11], but actually want to do an academic career, and then never follow the way back actually into that. There was many reasons, but all the other ones have eventually found, actually, an academic calling. Even though they were not so easy to identify, they were part of that team that did some good things. The universities wanted to have an exponent of that team and had actually somebody building a similar system at their university.

That's something I've tried to convey to them that in a way, if you are working with experienced researchers that have had some success in some sort, whatever that means, then there is, typically-- Let's put this way, oftentimes, all the universities would like to have such activities, as well. They would maybe like to hire that person that leads that, but they can't, like too old already, they're not movable anymore. The next thing is like, "Oh, maybe I could get a young talent from that group that could help us, actually, to build a similar type of approach for our university because we believe in this effort." I think this happens really a lot.

When you see famous people that they have lots of disciples, let's say, and going to other academic position somewhere else, it's not because they influence the process and call, and you have to hire my person and something like that. It's because the universities want that kind of philosophy. They like it. They say, "This way, I think you can be successful. They work in teams, so it doesn't matter so much the individual. As long as the spirit is correct, as long as you are able to put together the teams, then you will be successful again, also, in a new place even if it's not the founder, let's say, of this-- I think this is a very important lesson.

I think, many times, I can achieve that in the people, but I also have, sometimes, failed that the people are working failed in that sense, that they were not really integrated well with a project and to the whole group, but still were very successful in the end in doing their own work because they didn't have the opportunities. In general, I see that, with time, people start working together in that same team. Again, bringing back to something that, for example, as an ITN, you have, of course, the team is huge and distributed over Europe, but if the person that works with me, I have one ESR with me, and with all the collaborators, the bigger team from Fidelio, it will be very difficult.

This person is also integrated in activities locally. It's my job then to make sure that they fit with, of course, what we want to achieve in a large project like Fidelio. There's other people working on similar types of topics, but not hired by that, but there is interaction possible in synergies that you do. I think this is a very important part that these people are locally integrated into these teams.

Sandrine: Which advice do you give early career researchers in terms of working well with PhD supervisor or PIs recruiting them? What do you want to see in them that makes it, for you, a really pleasurable experience of, say, "This is just a fantastic interaction working with this postdoc"?

Ralph: Gosh, that's a tough one, I think. The thing is that I do not believe that you can treat all people the same, then you grow up. I was the oldest brother of four brothers, and then my parents would always tell me, although 15 years difference between me and the youngest, would always tell me, "We want to treat everybody the same." I think you can't. You have to look at the individual's skills and bring them out, and that's something. That's why I can't tell you, "This is something that you have to do." Some person will have to do this, another person have to do-- I have to see it.

How could I maybe help? I'm more experienced. I don't have to be unilateral. Just that's one way of doing it, and you need to come my way. I think that's very important. I think this is the discussion. To be successful, if you've come from the PhD side, I think you need to ask a lot of questions. That's what you have to is be curious, ask a lot of questions to somebody with this experience, and then, actually, also listen to the answers. I think this is really a very important part. I see a lot of people now and then asking a question, if the answer is not exactly what they wanted, then they try to go. It's okay.

They can be independent, but to have somebody that looks out for your best interests and tries to say that, "If you would do this, I can guarantee that this will be successful," then you have something to hold on to, and then you build on that, then you put more on top of you. Why don't you stop with these factors? Because then you know how this works, and then the next one. For me, it certainly works the best if people are listening to advice that I tell them how to structure their approach, not how to do things. They need to find that out themselves, but what would be in a certain achievement, you should have now. It'd be really helpful, I think, if they can listen to that, and try that, and then come back to me and say, "Ralph, sorry, this didn't work."

I go like, "Okay, well, then, maybe let's think about something else." I can try to help you again." Rather than to say, "No, I want to do it, maybe something else. I want to directly go to that milestone because I lost already some time, I'm falling behind, I want to be faster." That's where I'm struggling sometimes a little bit. I also, on my side, have to ask more questions.

This is something that I would say, as a supervisor, you need to do the same thing. It's really for both sides. I should ask more questions, not providing answers, and then when they answer, I should listen to those and not necessarily take action, just listen. Now, I think this is something gradually you can really build trust with you. If you feel like you can ask a question, and it's not just a solution concept. I think we, as the PIs, often have that tendency that you will immediately try to solve problems.

Sandrine: It's about having an openness to be able to have it, a proper exchange?

Ralph: That is something extremely important, that is, that you have this openness, and that's where I personally do have to work on that. Certainly, a lot of success came by me, some good ideas that I had, and I've forced it almost on people. It can work, but I think it can be much better if you really have the people find out themselves about that. How to do that, I think that's where the supervisors often struggle a bit. They go like, "Now, that works." "We proposed this," for example, "in this grant, you need to do exactly that. Do that first." There's no more time to do something else.

I think this is an important thing, then in the planning, and how you propose things, and at least it worked for me, that's what they say. In my career is that anything I proposed, I had a feeling that it would take about half of the time for people that would get hired for the project, and then we can do more on that in the rest of the time, related to that, not something else, do exactly that, but just put more on it. I'm a strong believer that is something that the people, they should always under-promise, and then overdeliver. You see so many times that PIs, supervisors go the other way around. They overpromise all the time.

They stretched so thin because can't achieve it because if you overpromise it, and it's of course, as the word says it already, of course, you don't think you overpromise, you think this is the right thing. I think you really need to have a good planning there. I think if you do that, this really enables also your PhD students or postdocs, you tell them, "This is the minimal thing we need, but I don't think you need more than half of your time, go out there and try something else, come back to me and tell me how this worked. Don't forget to do half of these."

Sandrine: That's a really critical element because it's about creating a space for people to develop their research independence and an experiment, which in a way, having interviewed a lot of postdocs, people often feel that they don't have that space to develop their own thing that will then be the elements. In the role that you now have as a very established academic, what do you think that you are doing to create a culture within your own departments? What do you think is your role right now and what are you trying to do?

Ralph: Again, each institution has their different approach of [unintelligible 00:44:02]. Our institution very strongly believes in individuals running their small little companies. It's actually much more on the hiring process where we influence. Once they hear young people are coming, for example, then we believe that we found people that will develop in the right way. It's not correct, of course. It's not correct there. I don't have very good tools. I couldn't give you a perfect example on how we actually empower more the people to do that. One thing that works for us is that we have to give feedback as a whole faculty to young assistant professors every 18 months or something like that.

They have to present, they make their case, and then you have all the people that have already permanent positions versus the best, and say, and you rank higher, let's put it this say, they will actually give feedback to you. You can see many of these things come up. You go like, "There's many comments then sometimes, but I can see that your students never get awards. You get awards, but your student never gets awards, how can that be?" Things like that, and they go like, "I need to get award, I don't need tenure." We go like, "No, of course, you get tenure because your student get award." "Oh, that's how it is?" "Yes, of course, that's measured." So much information.

I think this is something that you need to do, and you actually have to do it with everybody. It's not just one mentor. It's not the department head or whoever is responsible. It has to be everybody in there. All of these people have a mentor that is not any kind of their boss, so they are very independent, but they will get a mentor that helps them go through the process, but then they have actually mentoring from the whole department. They really know what they do, how they present themselves, and I think it's really helpful to happen. When I was an assistant professor, there was nothing like that. It was just independently in the end, there was a decision made.

You had no clue how they came up with that decision. Typically, it would also be positive hopefully, but nevertheless, it's much nicer to be a part of the process. I think that's where the universities have to change. I know this is pretty unique about ETH, and it was only started a few years ago that you have such. We started with the committee, that would be Tenure Promotion Committee.

It's quite large, but then the president of ETH, [unintelligible 00:46:42] be here because we don't want to actually appoint people in the end overall, people that not all faculty know, and that don't give us any feedback that would say, "If you would have no negative points about a person in your evaluation, you have to write down everything, then we don't believe you." You have to be really critical, right, in a good way, in an encouraging way. I think that really helped now, these younger people to understand what maybe are the important, and learn from the more experienced people why they were successful. They do not have to follow it, but they know.

Sandrine: It's a form of 360 feedback in some ways. Do you include the PhD student in the postdoc in the feedback as well?

Ralph: No, their group you mean when they--

Sandrine: Yes.

Ralph: No, they are not present in that sense. We don't look at that. That will be probably too much. It's just the-- [crosstalk]

Sandrine: Maybe that's the challenge. [laughs]

Ralph: At least what we do now is getting some peer pressure in that sense, as well, is that you have to, as a professor in ETH, you have to have a formal annual progress report meeting with all your PhD students. Don't have any postdocs, but just the PhDs. Of course, you can do that but it's before, and now, this is a required thing, you have to write a document, you have to sign it, and you have to put it such that it's accessible for the department if there was anything. In that document is not confidential. It's not sent anywhere, nobody checks, but it's an official document.

I think this really helped to formalize some of the things, some of the discussions as well, that you address problems, you see them coming really, this is really helpful. I would certainly recommend that this is happening. I think there are some universities are further ahead where they have regular in committee meetings, of course. Again, the privileged information with the supervisor, it takes away a little bit the importance of the supervisor. The supervisor might be just the person that hires the PhD student, but maybe not the most influential person to bring them further.

I implement that, again, as I mentioned before, a little bit in my team. I see myself as supervisor, but I don't lead it in any of the teams in my group, so I'm not like-- It will be kind of strange, I think. I have four teams, and they have team leaders, and the PhD students are all associated with these teams. Their first supervisor is the team leader somehow. It's the person they need to--

I have independent meetings with the PhD students because they have a special part, and I will have independent meeting with the postdocs because, again, about mentoring. I can focus on these elements then. I do not have to set every now and then, I can give advice on how to solve the problem. Most time is about these kinds of things, how to get traction, are you happy with how you perform. That's where my role is. I think this has really helped me to give-- Of course, I lose the influence, and every now and then I see myself that, "Oh gosh I would like to have [unintelligible 00:50:11] but I have a great idea. Can somebody do that for me?" You have to learn on how to stand back a little bit and give these younger people then the ability to develop something.

Sandrine: I like to finish just with a couple of questions. Five key things that you will want people to know in terms of having really effective relationships between principal investigator-supervisor and the researchers they're working with. What will be your five top tips?

Ralph: This is a very tough one, of course. It's great if you have many of those, then you'll certainly find something. I think that's very important. Because you've had many such interviews, I can see you've got a nice list there. I think the first tip I gave is choose your workplace wisely, and then also, supervisor, choose the person you want to work with wisely. I mentioned that before, I think that people that we want to work with us, are people that many people want. That's a little bit unfortunate to some extent as well. Of course, it's not necessarily the case that everybody has the same chance.

There is, and that they find still another type of career, but people, early on, you could recognize sometimes. Many people recognize them and they want to work with them. If you feel not so comfortable with one place, wait. If you're not feeling so comfortable with one person, time, or a group of people, wait. Go with that feeling, that instinct that you have, and wait for the good opportunity. The next one is, again, once you have been identified as being this member, you need to believe in your skills that you were hired for. Somebody hired you for something that they thought you can really do well. I think you need to do that and not really compare so much to others.

Don't compare. This is not an achievement by itself, there's a skill there and believe in that. I imagine, before, a very important thing is, for both sides, is about asking the questions, frequently asking, be in contact, ask questions. Do not necessarily explain what you do, but ask questions. It's much more powerful to ask questions and then again one needs to instill a culture where people listen to the answers. Decide what you want to do with it later. You don't have to respond. When you have all of that, I think that's where you can stop working on a really trusted relationship.

If that is coming about, that you have developed that trust for each other, that is the best way to work because hopefully, it's through trust. I think this is something that you really have to work on. I think it's very, very difficult, a supervisor for example says, "I've just imprinted trust all my staffs. I know they are good, and I just trust them." I think sometimes they feel lost. It's not necessarily they are best. It's just you unconditionally trust them. They have a problem, and you say, "I trust you can solve it yourself." It may be not.

Trust needs to be mutual on both sides. It has to be developed, I think in that sense all the time and as quick as possible. The last, for me, still the most important is try to have fun. Try to have fun with the work. I see so many people trying to have fun with other things. I think you can have a lot of fun with the work. It can be a passion, you can do a lot. It doesn't need to be your life, not at all. There should be other things you can have fun with, but why not?

Sandrine: There are so many more questions I wish I had the time to ask you, but I've already taken so much of your time. It’s been really a pleasure meeting you.

Ralph: Same here.

Sandrine: Thank you very, very much for this discussion. I hope that the rest of the pandemic is good for you and your research team and that people are still able to do some good work because obviously, it's impacting many researchers across the world. It's a tough period for early career researchers, and hopefully, we'll get out of it. I hope we have an opportunity to meet face-to-face at some point through the DIT and network. Thank you.

Ralph: Thank you, Sandrine.

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Sandrine: I hope you've enjoyed the discussion I had with my guest. I'm very grateful that you've been listening to us. I hope that you will join me in the future podcast. I wish you a very good day, and if you want to contribute to the podcast, I’m very interested to hear from you, as I'm always happy to invite someone, interviewee, on this podcast. If you've got an interesting story about life in research and about the research environment, get in touch with me at sandrine@tesselledevelopment.com

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