STRATEGY 



full of ideas from their own fertile mind and are so keen to 

 try them out that they have a cramping effect on a junior 

 colleague who wants to try out his own ideas. Moreover, it is 

 possible for a man to be a brilliant scientist and yet be quite 

 undeveloped in the knowledge and practice of human personal 

 relations. 



The objection most often raised against team work is that 

 those discoveries which arise from unexpected side issues will 

 be missed if the worker is not free to digress from his investiga- 

 tion. Reming has pointed out that had he been working in 

 a team he would not have been able to drop what he was doing 

 and follow the clue that led to penicillin.*^ 



For his own guidance the research worker himself needs to 



make at least some tentative general plan of an investigation 



at the outset and to make very careful detailed plans for actual 



experiments. It is here that the experience of the research 



director can be most helpful to the young scientist. The latter 



presents for discussion a general picture of the information he 



has collected, together with his ideas for the proposed work. The 



inexperienced scientist usually does not realise the limitations 



of what is practicable in research, and often proposes for one 



year's work a plan that would occupy him for ten. The 



experienced man knows that it is a practical necessity to confine 



himself to a fairly simple project because he realises how much 



work even that entails. From hearing of only the successful 



investigations the uninitiated often gets a false idea of the 



easiness of research. Advances are nearly always slow and 



laborious and one person can attempt only a limited objective 



at a time. It is as well for the beginner to discuss with his 



supervisor any important deviations from the plan because 



although fruitful clues may arise which should be followed, it 



is neither possible nor desirable to pursue every unanswered 



question that comes up. To give advice on these issues and to 



help when difficulties are met are the main functions of a 



director of research, and the successes of those under his direction 



are a measure of his understanding of the nature of scientific 



investigation. As the young scientist develops he should be 



encouraged to become less and less dependent on his seniors. 



The rate at which this independence develops will be deter- 



125 



