At a budget presentation yesterday, I was struck by the qualitative increase in Krasnow’s program, particularly when I think back to arriving here in July of 1998. This increase in activity seems to be quite uniform across all of our research domains: computer science, neurobiology, and behavioral biology/cognitive science. At the moment, as we integrate two new Centers, and prepare for a significant increase in our space, the question of how large is too large once again becomes salient.
My own sense of when a research institute becomes too large stems from my own background, particularly at Woods Hole. One of the very enjoyable things about that place, in the early 1990’s, was the “flatness” of the bureacracy. By that I mean, that in any particular support function, there was basically one person, not only in charge, but who also made the decisions and actually did whatever needed to be done. So for example, if you had a problem with ordering a radio-labeled chemical, instead of a department there was one person, the radiation saftey officer, who could say yes or no, and who would personally take care of following up on anything that had to be followed up on.
In contrast, at Michigan or NIH, that same decision involved a vast bureacratic structure, with layers upon layers of org-charted individuals and where decisions followed complex flow charts that I could never completely understand.
Here at Krasnow, we’re still largely flat, I’m pleased to say. But a Krasnow with perhaps 100 folks instead of 50? At that point, I would be worried about maintaining support functionality without falling into the org-chart trap.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 