Night and day

We recently had a meeting in my lab to prep people who are making presentations soon to other biologists. The idea was to provide feedback on their practice talks so's they could improve them. This sort of interaction happens all the time in most labs that care about their world-image, i.e. all of them.

What was stunning was how different the session was in comparison to how a similar practice talk would have run in my grad lab. Although there were about 8-10 people in the room, the only people who gave substantive feedback were the two faculty members present. Everyone else stayed quiet. The feedback was pointed and direct: "You need to completely rework the introduction to this talk to make it shorter and more interesting to other biologists. Here's what I would say, and here's how I would rearrange/fix/improve your slides." The people giving the practice talks listened to the feedback, but said almost nothing in response, other than obedient "Ok"s. After the faculty were done giving feedback, we cleaned up the snacks and went back to lab.

In my grad lab, we also routinely gave practice talks. The post-talk discussion was nothing like this. Usually everyone in the room gave commentary both superficial and substantive. We frequently interrupted each other. The person giving the practice talk would respond to criticism by saying things like, "You know, I tried rearranging the slides like that but then ran into this problem when I thought about the setup of the next slide," and the various lab members might respond to that by saying, "Hmm, have you thought about rearranging it in this different way then?"

Then someone else would jump in with their completely different scheme for rearranging or improving the slides/talk, and eventually my advisor would say some (usually useful and to the point) ideas, which we would all then continue to discuss, occasionally ad nauseam. Afterwards, people would often continue the discussion by popping their heads into the presenter's part of the lab and saying, "Hey, I had another idea for how you could rearrange those slides!"

Oh, did I mention? My grad lab was run by a woman (or as Dr. Hyde likes to say, "A lady scientist!"), and over half the occupants were female. My postdoc lab is run by a man, and is almost completely male.

I'll save for a later post a discussion of the merits, and demerits, of both approaches. Right now I am still reeling at the prospect of someday giving my own practice talk in this lab, and trying to stay mute while criticism, no matter how thoughtful and accurate, is dished at me. I am not by nature a good mute.