- [Matt] What are your metric of success, right?
How are you gonna measure yourself
to know that you got to where you got?
What I love about that whole concept,
is it's so similar to research science,
where, you know, really all you're doing
when you develop your experiments,
is going, "Okay, when I get to the end of this,
"am I gonna have the answer to my question or not?"
And, if not, then maybe it's not the best experiment
for you to do.
But setting up,
what people typically refer to as KPIs,
or OKRs,
like objective and key results,
is you define those upfront.
You do not get into the middle,
and then decide what you're OKRs are gonna be.
That's a super important part of strategy.
And from an implementation standpoint,
you make sure that you're collecting the data you need
to measure and get those metrics.
- [Thi] Welcome to Strategy4Scientists.
This is a podcast for scientists
interested in hearing about fundamentals
of business strategy through stories.
I'm Thi Nguyen,
at the University of California San Francisco.
In this podcast, I talk to Matt Cook,
a consultant with the Boston Consultant Group,
or BCG,
in a UCSF lab.
We talked about frameworks and tools
that are used to develop strategy.
Matt also shared the importance of defining your goals
and criteria upfront,
and how it serves as a compass
to keep you on the path to achieving your goals.
To start off, I ask Matt if he uses
the BCG growth-share matrix.
- [Matt] I have to say,
so, the growth-share matrix
was ideated back in the 1960s, I think,
or maybe it was a little bit later than that.
Today, there is a lot more nuance
to that particular Matrix.
So, the type of work we do at a strategy level,
while it may not apply directly to that growth-share matrix,
the way it was used back then,
we used the format and the structure
and the style every day.
So, we actually spend a lot of time
taking different criteria,
first trying to define criteria that are important
for whatever we're solving,
whether it's a successful market entry,
or whether it's a new product launch,
or what have you,
and taking those criteria
and laying them out;
what are the most important criteria?
And how can we create a framework,
whether it's a two by two or something else,
that allows us to place where we stand today,
and where we want to be?
And all of a sudden,
you get this clarity around,
"Oh my gosh.
"Well, we want to move this direction.
"So that means this has to move here."
And then all of a sudden,
it turns into an implementation question.
- [Thi] I asked Matt whether it's a useful practice
to put pen to paper,
and whether he would encourage scientists
to create two-factor matrices,
or if it's more of a principle and thought exercise.
- [Matt] Oh, yes, no, no,
they're incredibly useful,
and not just two-factor matrices,
but thinking beyond that, right?
So, I mean, I was working on a genomics project
for a large biopharmaceutical company last fall.
And part of what we were doing,
was defining the genomics landscape,
and trying to determine
what are the commercial opportunities
for traditional biopharma company
outside of R&Ds.
And it very much required,
you know, how am I gonna think about
the data that I get out?
And, so, by using,
essentially, setting up,
it was a two by three matrix,
and defining the different genotypic and phenotypic uses
in different areas of help,
allowed us to lay out,
okay, this is a complete picture,
these are the different areas you can play in or not,
and a portfolio that makes sense
is gonna be over here in this area.
So, it's not just a principle,
it's something we implement and use all the time.
- [Thi] So, matrices are a great tool,
because they lay out your goals,
and help you define your plan for implementation.
But I imagine you could easily get into a rabbit hole.
You can look at all the factors;
cost versus impact,
cost versus time,
time versus impact.
I wanted to know how to choose the criteria,
so, I asked Matt about his process
for determining useful metrics.
- [Matt] It's kind of a closed system iterative loop,
where you first have to identify a criteria.
I think the first step in all strategy,
is identifying what does success mean, right?
And then you lay out those criteria,
and then that is what enables you to create your matrix.
Your matrix is just a tool to get you
to where you want to be.
And you essentially come up with this list of like,
what are the possible criteria that you do?
And then you sort of just start thinking,
"Okay, what's the most powerful way to combine
"this information that can help guide us?"
And by setting up a use case,
which is, okay, genomic information can either help us
in the clinic by helping patients
prevent disease,
or it can help clinicians decide which treatment to make,
and then whether or not you're gonna increase,
like, earlier detections,
so increased prevention,
or maybe you're going to reduce interventions
and preventions,
for example, with breast cancer and prostate cancer,
where there's too much screening.
Maybe we'll learn, from a genomics future,
that we're over utilizing.
Understanding that information in that context
was the most relevant.
- [Thi] But often in a brainstorm,
you have team members with different interests and goals.
Matt tells us that the success is defined by the client.
You could be creating different strategies
for the same project,
depending on the stakeholder.
It's important to be agile.
- [Matt] Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And you could even come up with a matrix
to define different types of stakeholders, right?
I mean, the beauty of the tool,
is it has myriad applications,
and it's just amazing,
when you actually start taking criteria
instead of thinking about another one-dimensional piece,
but how they work together,
and this is gonna sound silly.
I mean, my sole purpose for staying in my job right now,
is I have a simple two by two.
And on one axis, is, "Do I like the job?"
And on the other axis, is,
"Am I good at the job?"
And the only way I'm gonna stay in this role,
is if I'm in the upper right quadrant of,
I both like it and I'm good at it.
If either of those drop,
I get into questioning territory,
and if they both fall into no,
I'm gonna leave my job, right?
But I first have to establish that those two criteria
are the most important for me,
and then I'm able to set something up
that allows me to easily say,
"Okay, now I can rank where I am
"at any different time."
and then make a decision accordingly.
- [Chi] I thought that was a really practical use
of the two-factor matrix.
It really draws on what we teach
with the individual development plan.
That career satisfaction is dependent on your skills,
values, and interests.
Well, there's another matrix right there:
skills as the X-axis,
interests, the Y-axis,
and values is the size of the bubble.
Okay, so, to get back a little bit on topic,
when Matt talked about brainstorming
on some of those criteria,
I imagined consultants working late at night.
I asked Matt about what brainstorming
with other consultants looks like,
not in terms of is it with a box of pizza or takeout,
but do they write everything down,
and then rank or vote?
How does brainstorming at BCG
looking different than in a lab setting?
- [Matt] One way I've heard it described before,
and I think this is true,
in general, our brainstorming sessions work, first,
as more of a,
you're more of a chef.
And then the second half of the brainstorming session,
you turn more into a food critic, right?
So, there's this element of left brain, right brain,
where the first part
is somebody's leading the group in the ideas.
There's no bad idea.
Let's talk about what's possible theoretically,
and then we'll come back later
and establish, okay,
what are our limitations?
And how do we rank these ideas?
I would say, in general,
that's roughly how it goes.
But there's always someone in the room
that's put in a certain amount of thought in the beginning,
so that we're not all just kind of like
bouncing off the walls,
going in mindless directions.
- [Thi] I really like Matt's analogy
of being a chef first,
and then being a critic.
But it's easy to get caught up in the details,
and lose the forest for the trees.
So, I wanted to know,
before the brainstorming even begins,
how do you know you're solving for the right problem?
I learned from Matt
that you have to ask the right questions
and do a lot of listening,
before you understand what questions are key.
- [Matt] When you talk to people,
and you ask them,
"So, what are the challenges in your job?
"What the things that prevent you
"from being more efficient?"
They know their space better than you do.
They're going to tell you,
in no uncertain terms,
about what their challenges are.
Now, you may have to read between lines,
or look at a broader ecosystem.
But, typically, it's that diagnostic process,
and I just think of it as the scientific method,
because you're observing and collecting data.
And, really, in the consulting world,
you do a lot of the heavy lifting.
You say, "Okay, I'm gonna analyze your process.
"I'm gonna come up with as many ideas as possible.
"I'm gonna rank these ideas into their level of impact."
And, then, together,
we're going to sit down and go,
"Okay, these are all the levers you could pull,
"which are the ones you that make the most sense for you?"
And then you move forward.
- [Thi] Matt then gave an example
of how his team designed a workflow for a client
that is focused on managing resources
and research and development.
Sound familiar?
It's a lot like how PI's manage resources
and research projects.
- [Matt] So this particular example,
it was a great biotech, medtech company,
that had a really robust R&D program,
and they were just super enthusiastic,
had lots of ideas.
And one of the things that really stood out right away,
is that virtually everything makes it through
their commercial gating evaluation,
meaning, that when someone comes up with an idea,
you have to pitch it to the R&D heads,
and they have to give a thumbs up or thumbs down
of whether or not they want to see move forward.
And it turned out that virtually everything is greenlighted.
What ends up happening,
is you've got limited number of resources
in your R&D department,
and now you've got like an individual person
working on five different projects,
and there was a lot of wastes in efficiency,
and how they were not just letting too many project through,
but how they were staffing the projects,
and allowing people to be spread too thin across them.
- [Thi] About this time in the process,
Matt says he and the team form a hypothesis
about possible solutions.
But they need to take into account
the company culture.
- [Matt] Then you have a hypothesis about,
okay, what can be done to improve?
And then the way you test that hypothesis,
'cause you can't really collect a lot of empirical data,
is you look at other industry examples
where something similar has happened,
and how a company turned their efficiency around
by implementing this type of change,
or you float that idea out to the client.
And, you say, "Okay, this is my hypothesis.
"We think this can improve,
"based on our calculations, this much."
Because even if it would work,
if the company culture is so different
that it can never be implemented,
then you gotta strike it from your list.
- [Thi] Going along with the parallels
to academic labs,
I was curiously about a situation
where a new PI is setting up a lab.
Maybe the PI wants to find a project that sticks,
or is trying diverse projects and collaborations
to get data,
how can a new junior faculty member streamline projects?
What's a good strategy for resource allocation?
- [Matt] You know, it'd be like,
if you were in the lab,
and not only did you want to have all these collaborations
to go on all these cool ideas,
but your current papers
weren't actually getting published,
and you were running into trouble.
You have to sort of back up
and really preserve.
So, for them it was two-fold;
it was identifying that they needed to reduce
the overall number of projects they were letting
through the commercial gateway,
but the second piece was defining,
they didn't have a good framework
of what is a good project to let through the gateway.
That was part of the problem too, right?
So, again, you come back to,
okay, we helped them develop kind of a matrix,
of how can you define a good project?
What would be a great project to let through?
And then even if you end up with 10 great projects,
you're gonna have to rank them,
and decide which ones are the most important
and critical.
- [Thi] At this part of the podcast,
I asked Matt to give career advice
to a young Matt Cook starting out.
Matt shares tips on the job search,
and how to gain experiences
to help you enter into industry or consulting.
- [Matt] As far as preparing for the kind of job
I'm in now,
there are three big components;
one, is,
you gotta hone your scientific
and critical-thinking skills outside of science.
Try your hand at case interviews.
Get involved.
Usually, campuses have some kind of consulting club.
Talk to people who are also interested
in the same career that you might be interested in
and work together.
Find an accountabilibuddy.
So, there's that networking piece
of gathering information
and exploring outside of your comfort zone,
or your space that you know about in science.
The second thing I would say,
is prioritize your values and what you want.
This is a bit more philosophical and broad
than just preparing for this job.
But I think a lot of people who come
from a scientific background
think that if you just do good science
and keep moving forward,
life's gonna take you to the right places.
As much as I'd like to think that's true,
you're gonna have to prioritize,
and set up, in your matrix,
your own personal values, right?
And they're gonna change.
I did two Post stocks,
and worked at a startup in between.
By the time I got to the second Post stocks,
the thing that I wanted were different
than when I started grad school.
Knowing what those are,
not being afraid to change them,
being honest with yourself about that,
is a really important step.
And then the third one is,
you know, try to get some outside lab experience
in what you think you're interested.
Previously, I was really interested in being in academia,
and, so, I tried to do as much teaching as I could.
Once I shifted towards thinking about consulting,
I needed to go learn more about business,
and that meant not just sitting in seminars
that are helpful,
and hearing about people
who had gone through the same process,
but it was trying to, maybe, get involved in,
whether it's a club,
or maybe even work in a startup experience.
And it's really, ultimately,
what led me to feel comfortable about stepping
outside of the realm of science.
Don't let the fear of,
"Oh my gosh, I'm not sure I can do it."
stop you,
just take a smaller baby step if that's what worries you.
- [Thi] That's solid advice from Matt.
I enjoyed talking to him
and hearing examples of his work at BCG,
and, of course, the science mixed in there.
I hope you enjoyed listening to Matt's stories
and his process of defining goals,
prioritizing them,
and then implementing,
all with a goal in mind.
During our conversation,
Matt talked about a book called The Lords of Strategy.
It's an intellectual history of modern consulting.
It delves into the Harvard Business School,
and the three major consulting firms.
If you're interested in the history of strategy,
he recommends it.
Thank you for listening to Strategy4Scientists.
Interested in learning more?
Check out the online lecture co-produced by iBiology
and the UCSF Office of Career and Professional Development.
We'd like to thank the Burroughs Wellcome Fund
and the NAH National Institute of General Medical Sciences,
or NIGMS,
for grant funding.
Tune in for more stories about scientists using strategy.