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EDITORIAL
Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by EIS Ipswich on 05/26/15 For personal use only.
The Gretzky approach is good for business and research I recently attended a meeting for a Board upon which I serve in an advisory fashion. The topic was novel for me: business, not research or life sciences. It was interesting to hear the key factors that they identified as critical to business success. At the top of the list was innovation. Successful companies identified a niche and created the innovative approach needed to dominate that sector. They took risks investing precious human resources, time, and financial commitments to make it successful. Their CEO's were unafraid to make the changes necessary to adapt to changing times. One colleague stated that it similar to Wayne Gretzky's key to success in ice hockey. He was a great hockey player because he did not follow the puck around the ice, but instead he went to the open ice and anticipated where the puck was going to be next. He was, as a result, always one step ahead and in an enviable competitive position. In the business world, I was told, if companies try to stay with the crowd, they will make only incremental advances upon the existing marketing paradigms and competition will be heated. They needed to find “the open ice” and anticipate the future needs of the public to advance their product. Collaboration was also identified as key. When one CEO was asked how he identified who his competition was, he replied “Anyone who does not collaborate with me!” Interacting with their business colleagues in a variety of settings, professional and social, to ensure relationships are fostered was thought to be essential for establishing the trust and knowledge needed for future collaborations. As I sat and listened, I was struck by how similar the keys to success were in the business and research worlds. Today, the mantra in research is indeed collaboration. Finding the right lab with which to collaborate can increase research capabilities and productivity. Many national funding bodies are actually encouraging
Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. 92: iii (2014) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjpp-2014-0080
collaborative interactions with funding opportunities for teams of researchers that never existed before. Finding the “open ice” instead of joining the crowd in certain areas struck a special chord for me. Too many of our researchers fail to look for something different, and instead end up packing together in specific areas. As a result, they make publishable but incremental advances in our research knowledge. Being unafraid of taking a new and possibly risky research path often leads to major findings. It reminded me of Japan's Setsuro Ebashi, who unravelled the process of muscle contraction through his discoveries of the regulatory contractile proteins of tropomyosin and the troponins in the 1960s and 1970s. He said many years ago that he rarely, if ever, read the literature in his field of research. To me as a young researcher at the time, this revelation was astounding. Everyone I knew religiously read the literature to find out what were the latest advances in their area. Instead, here was a leader in his field who made great discoveries by focusing on his own research and creating his own ideas about how a biological process worked. As a result, his ideas were unique and his findings were major breakthroughs in our knowledge of muscle physiology. In the end, I left the meeting with the conclusion that success in the business community is very similar to the research world. There is no “one way” to success. Hard work, vision, risk taking, and collaboration are but a few of the keys to success. Finding the open ice like a “research Gretzky” to make those major breakthroughs and leaving the puck chase to others is indeed a valuable lesson for all of us to learn. Grant N. Pierce
Published by NRC Research Press
Copyright of Canadian Journal of Physiology & Pharmacology is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
EDITORIAL
Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by EIS Ipswich on 05/26/15 For personal use only.
The Gretzky approach is good for business and research I recently attended a meeting for a Board upon which I serve in an advisory fashion. The topic was novel for me: business, not research or life sciences. It was interesting to hear the key factors that they identified as critical to business success. At the top of the list was innovation. Successful companies identified a niche and created the innovative approach needed to dominate that sector. They took risks investing precious human resources, time, and financial commitments to make it successful. Their CEO's were unafraid to make the changes necessary to adapt to changing times. One colleague stated that it similar to Wayne Gretzky's key to success in ice hockey. He was a great hockey player because he did not follow the puck around the ice, but instead he went to the open ice and anticipated where the puck was going to be next. He was, as a result, always one step ahead and in an enviable competitive position. In the business world, I was told, if companies try to stay with the crowd, they will make only incremental advances upon the existing marketing paradigms and competition will be heated. They needed to find “the open ice” and anticipate the future needs of the public to advance their product. Collaboration was also identified as key. When one CEO was asked how he identified who his competition was, he replied “Anyone who does not collaborate with me!” Interacting with their business colleagues in a variety of settings, professional and social, to ensure relationships are fostered was thought to be essential for establishing the trust and knowledge needed for future collaborations. As I sat and listened, I was struck by how similar the keys to success were in the business and research worlds. Today, the mantra in research is indeed collaboration. Finding the right lab with which to collaborate can increase research capabilities and productivity. Many national funding bodies are actually encouraging
Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. 92: iii (2014) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjpp-2014-0080
collaborative interactions with funding opportunities for teams of researchers that never existed before. Finding the “open ice” instead of joining the crowd in certain areas struck a special chord for me. Too many of our researchers fail to look for something different, and instead end up packing together in specific areas. As a result, they make publishable but incremental advances in our research knowledge. Being unafraid of taking a new and possibly risky research path often leads to major findings. It reminded me of Japan's Setsuro Ebashi, who unravelled the process of muscle contraction through his discoveries of the regulatory contractile proteins of tropomyosin and the troponins in the 1960s and 1970s. He said many years ago that he rarely, if ever, read the literature in his field of research. To me as a young researcher at the time, this revelation was astounding. Everyone I knew religiously read the literature to find out what were the latest advances in their area. Instead, here was a leader in his field who made great discoveries by focusing on his own research and creating his own ideas about how a biological process worked. As a result, his ideas were unique and his findings were major breakthroughs in our knowledge of muscle physiology. In the end, I left the meeting with the conclusion that success in the business community is very similar to the research world. There is no “one way” to success. Hard work, vision, risk taking, and collaboration are but a few of the keys to success. Finding the open ice like a “research Gretzky” to make those major breakthroughs and leaving the puck chase to others is indeed a valuable lesson for all of us to learn. Grant N. Pierce
Published by NRC Research Press
Copyright of Canadian Journal of Physiology & Pharmacology is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
