Greatness Starts with People

Everything always starts with the people. The people you hire, the people you work with, the people you retain. It's essential, of course, to have a high bar to recruiting and retaining people. You want to work with the best of the best, and you have to work at that. But every individual has their strengths and weaknesses. And one of the things that I've learned in my job is it's really important to try to set people up for success, to really play to their strengths, while also giving them the opportunity to develop in areas where they're less skilled. So really, it's about supporting, recruiting, and enabling great people to create that space for growth. And, of course, in all of this, to be fair and respectful of the people you work with. I think that's really the single most important pillar in everything that we do. In all of the work, whether it was in my lab, where I had postdoctoral fellows and students, or later in my executive positions, it's first about the people, but then next it's about the team. And it's essential with any group of people to work on building the spirit of the team through communication and again, reinforcing the mutual respect and encourage creating an atmosphere where there's mutual respect among members of the team. So setting a positive tone, establishing that mutual respect is absolutely key.