This comment was brought from the post "Any suggestions for upper management"
It calls a spade, a spade!
First, management needs to understand how past WFO projects outside the weapons area have started -- a scientist or group of scientists had an idea and convinced their division leader to support it. They then developed it and found sponsors. A main motivator was that they would be rewarded by their division leader with higher pay, responsibility, and prestige in their division.
The current situation is completely counter to the the process that has worked in the past.
We now have middle managers whose primary responsibility is to bring new money in the door. This means that any efforts or initiative to do so by "lower-level" scientists/engineers are not rewarded. Indeed, the credit is usually stolen by the middle managers and they will take away control of any funding. The scientist's division no longer sees any of the money -- so they can care less. Scientists who rely on these middle managers for ranking get low grades (or else they would have to admit who actually brought in the money). The problem is now exasperated by the fact that the middle managers now often sit in different organizations than the scientist. As alluded before, this means that the division has less incentive for the scientist to bring in new money.
The increasing trend towards pure "matrixization" at the Lab that has occurred over the years is leading to less and less financial control in the hands of line-level divisions. They no longer have the flexibility to deal with their local needs (employee development, bringing new funding) because they rely or compete with organizations that they support for "overhead" funds. These latter organizations, by the way, have their own people as their highest priority.
An unintended, but serious consequence, is that scientists who bring in projects in subject areas, whose funding stays inside his organization, will get rewarded more highly than those who bring-in money in subject areas where funding control is under the support organization.
It only makes sense that WFO opportunities require subject matter expertise at the division level where management directly works with scientists. This has worked before. Now the Lab has created a broken system that disincentivizes workers and prevents divisions from bringing-in new work.
A personal experience -- the division, in which I belong, used to be a world leader in its scientific area until it was arbitrarily declared to be a matrix organization and it's own programs were given to another organization. Now the division is literally disappearing and leadership is lost. Employees in this division are scrouging around for work here and their. A colleague brought in several millions of dollars in a new subject area but his efforts were ignored and complete project management was taken away. His annual ranking was mediocre. Another colleague has a new idea and works to find several gov't sponsors. When word gets around, he is promptly contacted by a middle manager in another organization who is eager to "manage" his project.
If the above fundamental problems are not fixed, obviously, the Lab won't last very long.
14 comments:
Down-sizing and not being so diverse in projects is the name of the game. The number of different project LLNL is being diminished for a very good reason. One of the most successful labs has stood up and told DOE, no, we only want to do this ( XXX ). You can take the rest of those menial task someplace else. They are looked upon as being successful so I'm sure LLNS will want to follow their lead.
The fundamental problem is many of the middle managers don't bring in money and got those positions because of who they know and npt what they did!
Also, In chemistry they will provide PMC funding to middle managers to compete against the PIs for funding. How does this help grow things?
Most of middle management just needs to go. I only know a very few individuals that are capable of providing the role of bringing sponsored projects and scientist together!
9:30 -- I think the main poster was not talking about "menial tasks" but projects that started small but grew into $10-20M /yr projects. I know that is small potatoes compared to other mega projects at the Lab, but a lot of the R&D that the Lab boasts about comes from projects like those. Also, these projects form the base and incubation for new projects. This is a point that DOE and the ULM Lab management are missing. If they want to turn the Lab into a production facility then so be it, but if they want a vibrant research facility then they need to nurture a diverse set of scientific capabilities. Trying to hit a home run (mega project) everytime we come to bat doesn't hack it.
This is, even with all the other crap, really the main reason why I'm leaving the lab. I'm tired of middle management money grabbing and them stealing credit for work and ideas that they had almost nothing to do with. It's sickening and I'm looking forward to being able to sleep at night again. LLNL is no place for a career as a young scientist - you will be crushed by middle managers kissing each others' butts to maintain to their fake status.
The hardest thing to do when I leave will be to do it gracefully and not tell all these parasites what I really think of them. At least I know that several WFO sponsors will follow me to my new job rather than stick with paying the lab's overheads - I figure that's enough of a middle finger to subdue myself!
"The hardest thing to do when I leave will be to do it gracefully and not tell all these parasites what I really think of them"
Why not tell them?
Worried about burning the bridge?
I have never seen someone leave the Lab that has given the real reason for leaving. They always give the politically correct reason during th exit interview.
Can someone explain that?
"They always give the politically correct reason during th exit interview.
Can someone explain that?"
It's because no employee who has been here for any length of time really believes that upper management will really listen. Instead they will be labeled a troublemaker.Everyone here knows of instances of whistle blowers who were blacklisted when it came to support. Why burn bridges when you don't have to.
Regarding the 'middle manager' dilemma. LLNL managers have a distorted view of themselves as 'senior research professors' with staff scientists and postdocs as their 'students'. The problem for the staff scientists is that these managers often provide little intellectual or political support for them, meanwhile siphoning off the already meager research funds. This situation is exacerbated by LLNL's perverse manpower configuration: many managers, a dearth of technicians and few postdocs. This top-heavy structure locks the staff scientist into a servile position, where he does all the work, writes the proposals, takes care of safety notes, and struggles to maintain a publication record- basically he is a 'perpetual postdoc'. Finally, it is almost unheard of for anyone in a 'management' role to be demoted for any reason at LLNL- once you hit salary category 14 you have gained entrance to the Country Club. Once you are in management, you are not held accountable for your time and your salary will continue to climb, even if you are a bully who forces productive scientists into early retirement, takes projects away from the originator and gives them to your friends after which they collapse, etc (the list of LLNL manager bad behaviors goes on and on). In the recent layoffs, no managers were ousted. So they are emboldened to continue their bad behavior. Meanwhile, the staff scientists lost the few technicians and flex terms they had who could help them-against our protests and although these workers were fully funded. I want to be sure to mention that there are a few good scientists who have made it into management at LLNL, and some who continue to do technical work and who mentor their colleagues, but it is very, very few, and none higher than group leader that I can think of.
Want an example? Look at the management of the supercomputer center.
Incompetent project leaders, bullying the developers, cheating the workers out of overtime pay, nepotism. It's all there.
Anyone complains and they get reminded, "This is not a democracy!"
Want an example? Look at the management of the supercomputer center.
Incompetent project leaders, bullying the developers, cheating the workers out of overtime pay, nepotism. It's all there.
Anyone complains and they get reminded, "This is not a democracy!"
Ditto for CMELS...the leadership and mentoring capabilities are a lacking.
In answer to the question "LLNS: Can you hear this?", no they can't. That's because it is extremely clear that they don't want to hear it. Neither do the people running things over at NNSA.
It's over for the NNSA labs. You would have to be crazy to think of serving out a career here as a scientist.
Nevertheless, have good cheer because no matter how badly the science rots away, you can be sure that the "for-profit" LLCs will be loud cheerleaders for any of the little pieces of science that get left behind. They'll juice it to the max so they can receive their big bonus. Likewise, you can expect that NNSA will be too frightened to acknowledge that they've ended up killing off most of the scientific talent at their labs.
Expect to see the science graded on a huge curve with lots of "Rah, Rah, Rah.. we're still the best!" from both NNSA and the new LLCs.
llns can you hear this???? the NLRB just ruled against you!!!! you have to hire back the 9 llnl skill craft union workers back that you illegaly laid off!!!
we know you already said no , so now the NRLB is taking you to fedral court to do so; also the law firm that is representing the other laid off employees is going to sue the dog piss out of you. SL,FR,HW,RR and the rest of the rechtel boys a nasty frieght train is bearing down on you and it is called the law if i were you id get my affairs in order jails are cold and lonly.
Well, 10:31 PM, know that LLNS has deep pockets when it comes to hiring lawyers and stalling cases. It could well be over a decade before any justice is seen in this matter.
Well, we no longer have the UC legal team so I assume that any legal work will come out of the Lab's overhead budget. Don't worry -- more layoffs of science and support people will pay for the lawyers.
I'm seeing lots of managers who are charging their time to projects that they are not really supporting in any meaningful way. In many cases, projects now have more managers than scientists doing the actual work!
This Ship of Science is going down fast.
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