Transcript—Building a Team
Debra Zabloudil: Hello everyone. This is Debra Zabloudil with The Learning Studio, and I am so pleased today to be introducing Dr. Corey Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds is a regional medical scientific director for Merck and an associate adjunct professor at Baylor College of Medicine. Welcome Dr. Reynolds, happy to have you here.
Corey Reynolds,...: Thank you for having me.
Debra Zabloudil: We are here today to [00:00:30] talk about teams. And our series that we are working on right now is teams, team dynamics and culture. And specifically, we'd like to talk to you about building a team, what that looks like. Perhaps you can start by telling us a little bit about how you have built a team or two in the past and what some of the biggest challenges have been.
Corey Reynolds,...: Okay. Sounds good. When I first took my first faculty position at Baylor College of Medicine, [00:01:00] I was managing a phenotyping core. And at that time, there was already one lab technician that was working in the core facility. So that was kind of my first foray into managing another person outside of myself. And once I took over, business kind of took off from there and we needed some more hands to help out to get the work done. And that was when I started to build my team at that point. So I think I started out at one person, and by the time I transitioned out of Baylor [00:01:30] to go to Merck, I was managing a team of around 12 to 14 people.
Debra Zabloudil: Great. And in that time, obviously there were probably a lot of different twists and turns along the path. But were there any so specific challenges that you felt you had to overcome in going from one person to 12 individuals?
Corey Reynolds,...: Yeah. I think one of the main challenges in the initial part of the process was that I had never really interviewed or hired anyone before. [00:02:00] So that was kind of a learning process in itself. And I learned that it was better to bring in the technicians that I had at the time to kind of assist with the interviews, as opposed to me just doing them totally on my own, because they were the ones that were going to have to work with these people. They were the ones that were going to be responsible for training the new people. So they had to be able to get along with those people as well.
So I think that was one of the main things that I learned in the beginning [00:02:30] parts of the process was that to integrate the current people that work for me into the interview process, because a lot of times they would see stuff that I wouldn't see. And that feedback became quite helpful when deciding who to choose for the position.
Debra Zabloudil: That's great. So you not only had their buy in because they were part of the decision making, but you had additional insights of things that maybe one person can't see, but when four people are interviewing someone, they have a chance to [00:03:00] really see different things in that person.
Corey Reynolds,...: Exactly. And you said buy in, and that's the perfect way to put it because they were more invested because they felt like they were a part of the process to choosing this person. So they had a lot more at stake in terms of deciding who they wanted to work with and who they wanted to bring into the team.
Debra Zabloudil: That's great. What about skills that you look for? Are there certain skills that you absolutely expect someone to have [00:03:30] as you bring them onto your team, as you hire them? And are there other skills that you're willing to train for once someone is on the job?
Corey Reynolds,...: Yeah. Especially working in a lab environment, it's a little different than probably some other positions. But the way I looked at it was I actually didn't want somebody to come in with a whole lot of experience, because in my opinion, it's a lot harder to undo bad habits than it is to teach and train someone to do the job in the way in which you want it done. So [00:04:00] I often looked for people that were coming straight out of undergrad, so that was generally their first position, or had little bits of laboratory experience at that time.
But the main thing I would look for is how trainable or coachable somebody is. If they came into an interview and they presented themselves with confidence, that's good. But if they presented themselves with confidence to the point where I felt like that they wouldn't want to listen to what I was trying to say to them, or they wouldn't be able to take criticism or critiques [00:04:30] for myself or the other staff members, then that was someone that I didn't want on the team. So I think the main thing that I looked for was for somebody to be trainable and coachable.
Debra Zabloudil: That makes perfect sense. And I always used to say, when I would hire people, I looked for intellectual curiosity too.
Corey Reynolds,...: Yeah.
Debra Zabloudil: Is that something? How important is it that they're asking the right questions, and that they seem curious about the job, and the work and all those things?
Corey Reynolds,...: I think to me it's more important not for [00:05:00] them to necessarily ask the right questions, but just to ask questions in general. If you are interviewing someone and you ask, you get to the point of the interview and say, "Hey, do you have any questions?" and they say no and they just look at you, then I'm like, "You don't know anything about this lab for real. You've never worked in this lab, so why wouldn't you have questions?" So definitely curiosity, inquisitiveness, and just showing a general interest in the position in the lab is something that I would definitely look out for.
Debra Zabloudil: Great. And do you feel you learned [00:05:30] anything along the way about going from one to 12, about what ... Do you feel you got better in the process? Do you feel like you sort of were able to read between the lines any better than you did when you started out?
Corey Reynolds,...: Yeah. It was definitely a learning process, for sure. I think one of the main things I learned is that you have to be very intentional and careful in who you pick to be part of your team, because if you pick that one bad person or that one negative person, [00:06:00] they can literally bring down the whole team. So you definitely have to look out for people with good attitude. Of course, we all have our bad days. But you have to pick somebody who's not coming in everyday and doesn't want to be there, and doesn't want to do the work, and is constantly complaining. There has to be some good days in the mix, preferably more good than bad, but we're all human. So definitely that.
And another thing I would say is that when you go from a very small group of people to a larger group of people, personalities [00:06:30] and differences in personalities definitely come into play. So that was something that I had to get used to because I think in my head I had a very cohesive, harmonious group. And of course sometimes things happen and people are going to argue, they're going to have disagreements. But how they handle those arguments and disagreements is the tell-tale sign. And if they're flying off the handle, and yelling, and being inappropriate, then that's not somebody I necessarily want to keep [00:07:00] on the team. So I think that was one of the main things that I learned going from one to 12 to 14, is that you have to, one, find the right group of people, and two, figure out ways in which to help them get along with each other. [crosstalk 00:07:12].
Debra Zabloudil: Absolutely. And how did you do that? How did you get them to a point where they could get along with each other? Was there coaching? Were you mentoring, shadowing? Did you have any specific approach or just a lot of good communication and feedback?
Corey Reynolds,...: I'm big on communication. [00:07:30] I'm not a micromanager at all. But if I see you doing something wrong, I'm going to fix it and I'm going to make sure you understand why whatever you're doing wrong is wrong and why you need to alter it. I think that the main thing I do is I'm ... Like I said, I'm big on communication and coaching. So I definitely would kind of float around from room to room or space to space, and just see what people are doing, [00:08:00] see if they need any help.
But I also would have them just check in with me regularly just to let me know how they felt things were going. And if they saw something that they thought needed to be addressed, or if they needed help with anything, then we could definitely take care of that. And if it wasn't necessarily me providing the assistance, it could be anybody else in the lab because that was another thing that I made sure to do was cross training people, because it's much easier to run a laboratory when multiple people know how to do multiple things as [00:08:30] opposed to having certain people specialize in one thing or another.
So I think at the end of the day, I think the most effective thing that I did was I made sure that everybody knew their importance to the group, they knew and understood the part that they played, and they understood that if they didn't play their part, then the whole thing would fall apart. And at some point giving them that level of ownership kind of inadvertently cost everybody to be probably way more invested than they wanted to be [00:09:00] or initially thought they would be. But at the end of the day, everybody wanted to see everything succeed. They didn't want to see stuff fall apart.
Debra Zabloudil: That's great. And they didn't want to be the cause of that falling apart I'm sure.
Corey Reynolds,...: Exactly.
Debra Zabloudil: Yeah. So you talked a little bit about cross training, but can we talk a little bit more about employee development overall? How important do you think employee development is? And what do you think are the long term and the short term benefits? What are the immediate benefits of developing [00:09:30] someone? And then down the road, what are some of the benefits?
Corey Reynolds,...: I think employment development is very important. And that goes from people on the staff level, all the way up through the higher ranks of faculty. In my situation, one thing that I was very adamant about was encouraging the, and I call them kids cause they were younger than me, but my employees, I encouraged them all to take advantage of the ability of Baylor College of Medicine [00:10:00] to audit courses. So basically, if you were an employee of the college, you could take a certain amount of credits of courses and you could either audit them or take them for credit.
And not everybody that worked for me wanted to go to graduate school. But I felt like that kind of gave them the extra push to know, "Hey, I could stick it out at Baylor College of Medicine. So I should be able to handle another graduate program." Or it helped them to know that graduate school isn't for me at all. So that was one of the things that I tried to do in terms of employed [00:10:30] development.
I was also very adamant about promoting and providing mirrored increases when I could. So that was something that they were all aware of and they all worked towards. We kind of kept an Excel sheet of all their accomplishments that they did throughout the year. So when the time came for me to submit them for a promotion or for a merit increase, I had everything I needed in that Excel sheet. So I didn't have to ask them to think back on what you did a year ago. No, it was already there. I just had to write a summary up about it. So that [00:11:00] was another thing.
In addition, I also had summer students come to the lab every summer, and we also had interns come over from one of the local colleges. So I tried to pair one or two of the technicians up with an intern, and they had the responsibility of teaching that intern how to do whatever procedures, they had the responsibility of QC-ing and checking the data analysis. So they were responsible for that person. So that kind of developed them for, I would say, the next stage if they were going [00:11:30] on to manage a lab or just manage somebody in general, or just to be more secure what they were doing. So those were kind of some of the things that I did to kind of develop the people that I had working in my lab.
Debra Zabloudil: That's great. You talked about promotions and that you like to promote from within. I assume in some cases you promoted someone because they were a hard worker and they did a great job at what they were doing, but they needed some skill development once they got the promotion. Did [00:12:00] you ever find a situation like that?
Corey Reynolds,...: Yes. And if there were skills that were required as part of that promotion that I could not provide, I was very good at seeking out other people in the college that could provide those skills. And I would just have them go train with another professor for a week or two to gain whatever it is that they needed to learn.
And in addition to that, we also, sometimes if [00:12:30] there were meetings taking place like scientific meetings or congresses that I couldn't attend, I would prep them, help them prepare the poster, and I would send them out and let them present the poster at the meeting instead of me. So that allowed them to travel, that allowed them to represent the laboratory on their own, and it gave them another sense of accomplishment to know that, "Hey, I can go out to this international conference and present data and research as if it's my own and do a good job at it." So yeah.
Debra Zabloudil: Wonderful. You [00:13:00] had mentioned that you walk around and check in on people as they're doing their work. And what is your philosophy around that? I know with electronic devices now, and email, and texting, et cetera, it seems like we have less face to face communication amongst teams and even employees to their supervisors and vice versa. What are your thoughts about having in person, [00:13:30] or at least face to face, voice to voice, kinds of conversations?
Corey Reynolds,...: I much prefer that over text messaging and emails, just because you may type something in a text or an email, and what you're saying in that email, I may interpret it a totally different way than what you meant. But if I come to you and I talk to you face to face, I can gauge your demeanor, I can see how you're delivering your words, I can see if there's any kind of apprehension in [00:14:00] whatever you're telling me. So it's much easier for me to actually kind of read the room or tell what's actually happening, because a lot of times people aren't necessarily communicating with what they're saying, but more so communicating with their body language and subtle cues in that way. And you don't get any of that from any type of technological communication. So in my opinion, I much prefer to walk around and talk to people.
Debra Zabloudil: That's great. I've heard people say that they have bosses that sit behind closed doors and [00:14:30] every communication they get is an email. And it just causes problems, and riffs and misunderstandings so much more than sitting down and having a face to face conversation.
Corey Reynolds,...: Yeah. And on top of that, when they ... Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. But on top of that, when the people do sit in their office and that's the only means of communication, they really don't know what's going on in the lab or the workspace. They have an idea only because of what they get in return to their email inquiries.
But when you walk around, you can see [00:15:00] what's really happening. And I want to know. I don't like surprises. So I need to see what's happening so I can be prepared to fix or address whatever the problem might be. Even if it's in a rising problem, I'd rather be ahead of it than behind it.
Debra Zabloudil: Absolutely. I think most people probably share your thought there. Well, thank you for offering these words of advice and wisdom, Dr. Reynolds. Really appreciate your time today. This has been a session on building a team with Dr. Corey Reynolds [00:15:30] of Merck and Baylor College of Medicine. And thank you for being part of the series today. We look forward to seeing you next time.
Corey Reynolds,...: All right. Thank you for having me.