Strategies from Successful Women Scientists

Author and former scientist Ellen Daniell discussed how participating in a small problem-solving group can lead to success in academic and other careers.

Published May 25, 2006

By Leslie Knowlton
Academy Contributor

Sponsored by: The New York Academy of Sciences and Yale University Press.

Almost 30 years ago, Ellen Daniell, then an assistant professor of molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley and the first woman in her department, joined a small bimonthly group of faculty, staff, and postdocs formed to reduce isolation and foster solutions to professional and other problems, including gender equity issues.

Today she credits the seven-member “Group” of high-achieving women, several of whom are well-known scientists, for seeing her through several difficult transitions, including being denied tenure at Berkeley, establishing herself in another career in business, and retiring from that to be a writer and enjoy her own interests.

In her book, Every Other Thursday: Stories and Strategies from Successful Women Scientists, Daniell tells the story of her experience with Group in an effort to help others form similar alliances. In her March 14, 2006, talk at The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy), she explained the effect of Group on her life, saying, “I strongly believe I have made more satisfactory decisions and choices because I’ve talked out the possibilities, as well as the frequently apparent impossibilities, with Group.”

She also recommends this kind of organization to others not only in academia but also in a variety of professions, activities, and stages of life.

Common Concerns

Reading from her book’s preface, Daniell gave representative perceptions expressed by Group members, ingrained ideas and feelings that inhibit many women in many professions from achieving their full potential. They include

• Maybe having a fulfilling personal life is incompatible with a successful career.
• I feel like I’m an emotional cafeteria responding to what others want.
• I feel responsible for everything but have no power to change anything.

Women also have trouble with recognizing personal achievements and taking credit for them. “It starts with forgiving mistakes … and moves from self-acceptance to self-appreciation and then to celebrating accomplishments.” This process requires developing a sense of entitlement. Group jokes that sometimes you have to say, “Maybe I AM the Queen of Sheba.”

After they learn to give themselves credit, it is important for women to take credit publicly when credit is due to them. This is important because in most pursuits, advancement and job satisfaction are affected by the image one presents to others. “We’ve worked long and hard on this while in the phase of careers when struggling to succeed and be recognized, and then found another puzzle—that of how to act as successful as we really are, without being dismissive of others.”

Another problem seen frequently in Group has been being able to make choices with a belief in the right to make them. “Change is stressful, no matter how desirable it is, and many support groups function primarily to help members through times of change and turmoil,” Daniell said. Some efforts are of the “egging-on” variety, giving encouragement to get on with a choice that’s already made. But most of the focus is on helping each other recognize when there are choices that can be made and figuring out how to make them.

How Group Works

Meetings are held evenings at homes of Group members, with the host of each session acting as facilitator. Group keeps a fixed bimonthly schedule, regardless of who can attend a particular session, and follows a set framework to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to speak, work, and listen.

First, the facilitator asks who wants to work on particular issues and how much time each person needs. The facilitator keeps track of the time requested and when that time is up, she asks if the person working wants more time. “Thinking about what you want to discuss and how long you think it might take both to describe the issue and to get feedback that you want is pretty good practice for assessing and asking for what you want outside of Group,” said Daniell.

While members, after becoming very good friends, now discuss personal issues, such as retirement, health, grandchildren, and aging parents, professional concerns still predominate. Members listen very closely, saying nothing until the speaker requests feedback, at which time other members give an honest appraisal of both the issue presented and solutions to it. “We try very hard not to make nice and not to say what it is that we think the person working wants to hear,” Daniell explained.

Eliminating Negative Self Perceptions

To help identify problems, Group raises “pig alerts” in response to certain kinds of statements. A pig is a “negative self-perception, an external judgment that you lay upon yourself and then use to defeat practically anything that you’re trying to accomplish.” They are frequently identified by the words always or never or by personal characteristics, such as being lazy or disorganized. Members attempt to replace pigs with a positive view.

For example, instead of saying, “I have so many papers lined up to be written because I’m lazy or disorganized,” one might change one’s perception by saying, “There are papers lined up because I’ve gotten so many interesting research results from my hard work.” This allows the person with the pig to overcome the negative characterization and address the problem.

After identifying a problem, Group creates a strategy to solve it. Members often make a contract, which includes a concise formulation of objectives, either immediate or long-range, to solve a problem or reach a goal. The contract should be “doable,” recognizing that it is often necessary to break large problems into the many small ones of which they are composed. A benefit of contracts is that often an apparently new issue may relate back to a previous contract. “By using this mode of thinking about something in terms of a contract,” Daniell advised, “you may find connections among various issues that at first didn’t seem connected.”

After work is done, members have refreshments and give each other strokes, positive statements about someone else. Stroke etiquette requires that in receiving a stroke one try to absorb and believe it, or just say you believe it. “It’s easier to give strokes than to get them at first, but once you get into it, they are really quite delicious.”

The Membership

Daniell noted that her book was written with the review and approval of all members, including Christine Guthrie, Carol Gross, Judith Klinman, Mimi Koehl, Suzanne McKee, and Helen Wittmer, each of whom let her struggles and fears be presented to motivate and help others. Women frequently cite isolation and marginalization as reasons that they avoid or get out of science and engineering at major research institutions, she said. They are also underrepresented relative to men in top faculty positions. Daniell sees her book as a way to help those women realize their potential.

Concluding her talk, Daniell said Group helps “alleviate the sense that you’re swimming with sharks and does so in an atmosphere of complete confidentiality—a place where everybody is truly on your side.” Along with practical support comes compassion and humor. In her experience with Group, pig images have become humorous symbols of struggles. All members have collections of ceramic, wood, and glass pigs displayed in their homes, along with pig bookends, plush stuffed pigs, pig earrings, and pig socks. “In contrast to the mental pigs that threaten our well-being, these little tangible pigs are a benign species that remind us to treat ourselves with compassion.”

About the Speaker

Ellen Daniell is a writer and consultant. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 1969 with high honors in chemistry and received her PhD, also in chemistry, from the University of California, San Diego. She was assistant professor of molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and has held management positions in human resources and patent licensing in the biotechnology industry.

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