JACD 71-4 - American College of Dentists

National Leadership Symposium
34
that drives the engine of technology.
Science is an international enterprise.
Science can be a noun, an adjective, and
a verb, as in “doing science.” Scientific
activity can be “disciplined-based” or
“interdisciplinary.” Science and its
offspring, science-based technology,
have both lengthened the human life
span and lightened the human workload
during the twentieth century. Science
has enriched our acquaintance with the
universe, our planet, and ourselves.
Science at its best is the light of enlightenment
and is fascinating. The wealth,
well-being, and creative powers of our
culture depend heavily on science and
technology. The very essence of science
is truly a passion and state of mind. Its
aim is to get at truths about how reality
works. Of course, science requires leadership,
management, and genius.
My thesis is “leadership and organizing
genius.” All too often the public
perceives science as a lonely profession,
the province of the lone genius working
alone in a laboratory, clinic, or hospital.
Ironically, modern science has become
a profoundly collective enterprise. The
modern realization that science is highly
competitive while being highly collaborative
emerged during World War II,
and continued in the postwar years.
Teamwork, collaborations, and the
organization of genius into “great
groups” have proliferated and have now
become the norm. I want to explore
“leadership and organizing genius” by
using three examples or models: 1) The
Manhattan Project led by J. Robert
Oppenheimer; 2) The Human Genome
Project led by Francis Collins; and 3)
The International SARS Consortium—
ironically “led” without a “leader.”
In each of these three examples we
will discover individual genius, high
adventure, high competition, the
emergence of interdisciplinary teams of
scientists, and enormous collaborations,
either driven by a remarkable leader or
driven from within by highly gifted
scientists working in “great groups.”
The common threads that are woven
through these three examples will
highlight “the need to recognize the
division of cognitive labor,” as science
and disciplines have become increasingly
specialized, and the growing realization
that scientists who collaborate with
each other are more productive, oftentimes
producing better science, than are
individual investigators working alone.
Manhattan Project
In the first example, the Manhattan
Project was established by the United
States government in 1942. The Department
of Defense recruited U.S. Army
Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves to be
the leader of the Manhattan Project with
full control—authority, responsibility,
accountability, and budget. The project
was based in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
General Groves was in charge. He recruited
Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer, a
world-class academic physicist, who in
turn functioned to recruit and organize
a genius team of scientists such as
Enrico Fermi and Harold Urey, and then
to motivate, inspire, cajole, and eventually
synthesize the scientific and technological
results that produced the first successful
atomic bomb test on July 16th, 1945.
Thereafter, two atomic bombs termed
“Fat Man” and “Little Boy” were dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August
1945. This remarkable accomplishment
was achieved in the context of war,
extreme secrecy, fear of competition
with German technological talent, and
the truly remarkable collaborations
between disparate and often conflicting
scientific genius.
The Manhattan Project model has
been used by many government scientific
projects for the last fifty years such as
polio in the early 1950s, the mission to
the moon in the 1960s, AIDS in the early
1980s, and anti-bioterrorism at the
moment. This model reflects a defined
problem or goal (e.g. “The War on
Cancer”); the complexity as well as
multiple tensions found between
government-oriented, industry-oriented,
and university-oriented scientists; and
tensions over intellectual property
and “who gets the credit.”
Mapping the Human Genome
The second “leadership and organizing
genius” example is the Human Genome
Project (HGP). Curiously, this model
evolved from dreams of mapping the
fruit fly genome. Leadership is kindled
by hopes and dreams of what could be.
From my perspective, “none of us is as
smart as all of us.” The HGP demonstrated
and continues to demonstrate that
collaborative leadership is that often rare
characteristic that can achieve true greatness
in science, technology, and in the
arts. Collaborative leaders are able to
assemble great teams of talent—to organize
genius. Such leaders read and listen
and internalize disparate points of view.
They discover essential “truths” and
communicate in direct and simple language.
Great teams reflect highly
creative individuals working closely with
one another in collaboration to achieve
often high-risk objectives.
Consider the dream and opportunity
to map the human genome. The mission
2005 Volume 71, Number 4