9728940 Cohen This is a grant for partial support of the second annual offering of a four-hour Workshop on "Management Skills for Scientists," to be held at the 37th annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in Washington DC, on December 13, 1997. While scientists receive extensive technical training in their specific disciplines, they often find themselves at a loss when placed in a position of leading a research team. Lacking the skills required to resolve conflicts, understand and channel motivation and foster a team approach, many scientists focus exclusively on the technical issues of a project. While good science may be accomplished under such circumstances, the premise of this proposal is that familiarity with simple management and team building skills can improve the performance of research teams. The workshop will consist of both a didactic and an experiential component. The principles of team building and management will be discussed and illustrated by examples and by workshop participant experiences. The thesis of the workshop is that the funds which are now spent on outstanding scientific research projects might be more effectively used if scientific work team performance were optimal. In this sense ,the workshop directly supports the scientific mission of the NSF by providing scientists with a new set of tools to help improve productivity, communication and learning.
