Resolution

Random note: This is my 103rd blog post since coming to Japan.

It's been a weeks since my last presentation to the lab about trying to make improvements and getting shot down by the German guy. His name is Jan and actually he isn't such a bad guy., he just needs work on finding less aggressive ways of giving constructive criticism instead of bringing down the hammer on someone that he doesn't think is on the ball (he sort of has a habit of this when questioning others in our lab meetings during their presentations).

Since that last week, we still have been going for lunch and dinner as part of our group, still talking and he invited me out with a Japanese friend from a company for dinner. There is no animosity because in general, I do believe him to be a fairly nice guy. I was just incredibly pissed after getting hammered by him.

On a Thursday night while working in the electronics building of the lab I decided to ask him what was up with him with those questions of his. Apparently, some lines of communication were crossed and we weren't interpreting each other quite properly. I was giving the presentation in Japanese that day (not exactly that good at making detailed discussion but I was trying) and it seems that Jan didn't entirely understand me (this is my second language, for him it's his third). After a few questions, he thought I was dodging his questions... he was asking me about one thing (which I didn't think was relevant.. and hence trying to steer the questions in another direction to show things in a different perspective) while I was trying to move the conversation in another. As a result, he thought I was dodging and has an instinctual reflex to hold someone's feet to the fire and kept hammering on one point resulting in gridlock. I used to be something like that, but have changed since.

To give an illustration it works like this (some of the Japanese presenters are horrible for this):

1. Presenter gets asked question from Jan: "have you considered what happens when you do blah-blah to your sample?"
2. Presenter says: "no, it isn't an issue."
3. Jan asks a leading question: "So tell me what happens to (property) blah-blah to your sample when you do something-or-other?"
4. Loooong pause --> the presenter has been caught and embarrassed and is looking for a way out or for the question to blow over.

Sadly this is very typical at our lab with Japanese presenters. It is my opinion that they are very shy of admitting mistakes (they have a tendency of being embarrassed) so instead they try to pretend there isn't one and keep moving on. It's been happening since I've started attending these meetings. I don't believe that people should be embarrassed when admitting mistakes or limitations in knowledge, it's a fact that we don't know everything... just wish that people are more comfortable with understanding the limitations of their own knowledge.

Now that we've got some dialogue going, we have both come to an understanding that this lab does need improving. Communication wise, better understanding of why we hold some of these meetings... I have a great example when one very annoyed undergrad student complained about why we had to attend weekend meetings.

I was told the same story he explained, that these meetings are to help improve people's presentation abilities for conference proceedings and questioned why is it necessary for us to attend. The prof immediately quipped back that attendance is optional and that these presentation meetings aren't for conference practice, it's to present your research in more detail to the professors so they can keep track of the students.

It's communication problems like these that are major problems. If people don't get what is going on and why things are being done then how does one know that objectives are being achieved? It's incredible sometimes that things aren't explained properly. Is this a problem of a big lab? I'm not sure but it's a problem.

It's problem like these that sort of bother me; it's like people aren't communicating or thinking. Jan told me that when he was here close to 5 years ago, that the students at the lab were much smarter, people were much more involved. He was telling me about all the fundamental knowledge that these people don't know, that and they assume that it isn't a problem. Knowledge isn't passed around and it seems that people are inherently ignorant.

This is a little bigger problem than I initially thought (ie more problems) and after thinking about all of this, I don't see the "big picture" of what is affecting what. Jan and I have agreed to find time to sit down with some of the students to figure out more on how this lab works and what are the problems and how to solve them.

Of an interesting note, some of these problems are cultural (if I can go as far as to call them that). Poor communication with superiors is often a result of students sometimes being afraid of questioning their professors (ie respect of authority). If the problems we are trying to solve end up requiring cultural changes, things might get even more... "interesting".