LIVE HELPCareering and Careening: Optimizing Your Life Science Career
Piece #2: The Career Business Plan
Peter C. Johnson, M.D.
At any point in one's career, a new beginning can be declared. While we all know that careers, like rivers, often twist and turn unexpectedly, it often pays to craft a plan. This can be called a Career Business Plan. Like all business plans, it should be revisited frequently once it has been created, in order to adjust to the dynamics of a career.
The rationale for creating such a plan can be summed up in two old adages. "Begin with the end in mind" implies that adequate future visioning can create a goal that solidly aligns career decisions for maximal benefit. "Well begun is half done" implies that if the planning is done well, career development often occurs much more rapidly than otherwise.
How far into the future should you plan? A reasonable planning period for most careers is six to ten years, with perhaps a longer duration for careers that require mandatory periods of fixed training before truly creative careering can be done. Beyond that amount of time, unforeseen events make planning an improbable exercise. Nevertheless, regardless of where you are in your career (unless you are retiring soon), you can activate very effective, focused planning for yourself, thereby making sure that "well begun is half done."
As an example of the planning process in action, let's follow the steps taken by a man we will call Tom Spectrom, who recently completed his Ph.D. in molecular biology at a major midwestern university. Tom was always an excellent science student, and his thesis, entitled: "Microexpression of genes as a homeostatic mechanism in the zebrafish" seemed to position him well for a strong academic career. Tom, however, spent considerable time considering career alternatives as he pursued his Ph.D. and learned that while he loved science, he had also developed strong interests in laboratory administration and in technology commercialization. This made him wonder whether he was destined for something other than a purely academic career track.
One Saturday several months before his thesis defense, Tom relaxed at home and did some career self-analysis. He challenged himself to really consider what he would enjoy doing ten years hence. He reviewed a host of options including industrial science, the medical profession, the law, public service, and others. He was surprised at the result of his deliberations, given his basic science heritage. He realized that he would very much like to be the CEO of a start-up biotechnology company and lead the development of meaningful technologies into patient care.
Having had no business experience, Tom knew that he would have to make careful decisions over the next several years in order to position himself properly to gain the experience he needed to perform well as a CEO. As an organizational exercise, he asked himself, "What ten things will I need to do in order to achieve this goal?" He found a time when he could completely relax, thought carefully through the problem, and crafted the following list of necessary steps (in no particular order).
- Obtain formal business education (MBA)
- Engage in biotech business networking
- Accept employment opportunities that provide graded, well-mentored business experience
- Learn about the university commercialization process
- Learn about the FDA regulatory process
- Learn the mechanics of reimbursement
- Read extensively about entrepreneurship
- Learn technology- and market-assessment systems
- Learn the mechanics of venture and angel financing
- Read about human resources management in small companies
Tom was pleased that he was able to outline these steps, all of which would clearly propel him in the proper direction. However, he was unsure about which the most important first steps were, or even the relative importance of the steps themselves. He recalled a strategic-planning session they had had in the lab in which multiple distinct but related scientific opportunities were compared in order to determine their optimal order of execution. He thought that he might be able to adapt the same process to his needs. To do this, he started by creating crisp names for his steps, as follows:
MBA
Obtain formal business education
NETWORK
Engage in biotech business networking
GRADED JOB EXPERIENCE
Accept employment opportunities that provide graded, well-mentored business experience
UNIVERSITY COMMERCIALIZATION
Learn about the university commercialization process.
REGULATORY
Learn about the FDA regulatory process
REIMBURSEMENT
Learn the mechanics of reimbursement
ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROCESS
Read extensively regarding entrepreneurship
TECH/MARKET ASSESSMENT
Learn technology- and market-assessment systems
FINANCING
Learn the mechanics of venture and angel financing
HR MANAGEMENT
Read about human resources management in the small company
In order to determine the relative importance of these categories (and the best sequence of approach), Tom knew that he would have to cross compare all possible combinations to determine their relative importance (and sequence). He recalled how this was done in the lab and he created a graphic that held all of the category names in a circle. He then performed a "pairwise comparison for dominance" of all of the categories. During each comparison, he asked "is there a relationship between these categories" and "if a relationship exists, which is the more critical or dominating category?" When a relationship existed, he drew an arrow from the dominating to the dominated category. When all comparisons had been made, the following graphic emerged, whose arrows clearly outlined the most and least dominant categories with respect to the pursuit of his goal.
Figure 1. Pairwise Comparison for Dominance
O = The number of out arrows, indicating dominance.
I = The number of in arrows, indicating that the concept is dominated.
R = The number of connected arrows or relationships.
P = The degree to which the objective has been completed (1=no progress, 10=complete). In this case, none of the objectives have been completed, so all of the values=1.
From his analysis, Tom saw the following breakdown in priorities on the basis of category dominance. The numbers listed are simply the numbers of "out" or "dominant" arrows from each of the categories listed:
| 9 | |
| 8 | |
| 7 | |
| 5 | |
| 4 | |
| 3 | |
| 2 | |
| 01 |
Based upon this analysis, Tom created a short business plan for himself. He fortified the outline of his plan with specific tactical steps.
- Pursue an entry level job in science in a smaller company that would require him to take part in business discussions at all levels.
- Work in a laboratory-services company to maximize early customer contact
- Volunteer to be part of the proposal development team, providing proximity to sales and marketing
- Work within a company that would support him as he pursued an MBA
- Perform web searches and canvass hiring managers to determine which companies support continuing education
- Determine his costs and those supported by the company
- Determine financial aid opportunities for second professional degrees
- Identify institutions providing MBA degrees nearby and online and weigh pros and cons of all programs
- Establish a budget that would include educational expenses as an investment
- Take part in all available local, regional, national and international networking opportunities
- Through close contact with sales and marketing, all such opportunities would become visible
- Volunteer to staff the booth at trade shows
- Join local and regional biotechnology business groups and assume committee member positions
- Take focused regulatory, reimbursement, and entrepreneurship courses
- As opportunistically available through biotechnology groups, local universities, online formal education, podcasts, and periodic programs run by the FDA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Kauffman Foundation.
- Participate with the commercial officers in his company on technology and market assessment
- Serve as the scientific representative on the technology-assessment team for all in-licensing opportunities
- Assist the commercial development team in their assessment of market opportunities and learn how to use market and related databases
- Serve as the scientific representative when his CEO is making finance pitches
- As his capabilities and intracompany efforts became clear, this would naturally occur, providing him with a direct view of the issues facing the CEO.
- Upon completion of his MBA, traverse internally to the business development/sales and marketing teams of the company and while there, learn the necessary details regarding university technology commercialization and human resources management.
Tom was wise enough to know that some of these developmental steps cannot be rushed. In order to provide each with the time they would need and also to be able to visualize a realistic sequence for his development, Tom built these activities into an early-career Gantt chart, the first six years of which are shown below.
Once he had made a realistic assignment of times needed to accomplish certain objectives, Tom set to work identifying the types of employers for whom he could best work. Taking the advice of a family friend who ran a small business who said, "What you see daily is what you will accomplish," Tom created a small notebook for his plan and taped a copy of his Gantt chart to his home office wall. For the front of his book, Tom wrote an executive summary that told the story of his plan. Tom knew that planning even six years into the future is fraught with guesswork and that his plan represented a gross oversimplification of how the future might unfold. However, he also knew that if he had a task structure in front of him, he could at least prioritize the things that needed to be done first and that having his planning capabilities well honed, he could adapt and replan at any stage going forward.
So how did all of this planning work out for Tom?
Flashing forward a few years, the following events have unfolded:
- Tom researched multiple companies and ultimately joined a moderately sized laboratory-services company as a director of assay development and validation. He chose the company on the basis of its CEO's strong emphasis on employee continuing education.
- He was quickly recognized as a major supporter of the business development and sales and marketing teams and attended networking events and trade shows with them.
- He identified an MBA course at a premier university that enabled him to attend classes on weekends and online, allowing him to complete his MBA within two years. He established a personal budget that allowed him to pay for half of its cost; the other half was paid for by the company.
- Unpredictably, he chose to remain on the scientific-development team for two additional years at this point because they were in the completion phase of an important new assay technology.
- Two years later, the CEO moved him to the business-development team where he also serves as the scientific assistant to the CEO.
- Tom consistently attended networking events and rapidly became a leader in his local biotechnology business organization. He is presently its vice president.
- Every two years, Tom revisits his Career Business Plan and reworks its particulars. On his Gantt chart now, he projects having the potential to run his own biotechnology company within a three-year time frame.
Beginning a career with the end in mind and putting substantial forethought into the process pays dividends with respect to personal and professional development. Since a new beginning can occur at any stage of a career, Tom's tools can be applied successfully at multiple stages of life. Careers are unpredictable rivers. However, with a modest amount of planning and the discipline and tools to replan as needed, you can stay in the middle of the current. If you do, you will enhance the chance for optimal progress as your career unfolds.
© Peter C. Johnson, M.D.
Peter C. Johnson is president and CEO, Scintellix, LLC and principal, Headway LifeScience Resources in Raleigh, NC. He focuses at the interface of talent and technology to accelerate the enhancement of patient care. He welcomes your comments and can be reached at pjohnson@scintellix.com.
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