128 – Collaboration and diversity is how you make progress

Collaboration and diversity bring progress. Listen to hear how one woman defied gender norms to receive recognition for a scientific breakthrough.

Scientists in lab

Last week, Mark shared a short but impactful scientific story, and this week Shawn does the same! Shawn first read the story in The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson. It follows the actions Jennifer Doudna, an American biochemist, took to have her team’s paper published and illustrates the impact of gender constructs. 

Shawn and Mark mention our upcoming public programs. You can find more information via our events page.

For your storybank

Tags: action, behaviours, bias, confidence, gender, scientific

This story starts at 04:14

Jennifer Doudna, an American biochemist, collaborated with three other people to write a paper about DNA editing. She wanted it published in the Journal of Science, one of the top peer-reviewed science journals, so she contacted the editors.

Doudna told the editors what the paper contained and that she needed it published quickly. There were other people—competitors—working in the field. 

It usually takes several months to have a scientific paper published, sometimes years. But Jennifer said we wanted hers published within a week.

She put a lot of pressure on the editors, and as a result, they published the paper in an extremely short amount of time.

One of her team’s main competitors was headed by Eric Landa and based in Boston. Landa Suggested Doudna had a dodgy arrangement with the Journal. So, Doudna suggested Landa be asked if he had ever pushed to have a paper published quickly.

“Of course I have. I do it all the time,” was Landa’s response.

About  Anecdote International

Anecdote International is a global training and consulting company, specialising in utilising storytelling to bring humanity back to the workforce. Anecdote is now unique in having a global network of over 60 partners in 28 countries, with their learning programs translated into 11 languages, and customers who incorporate these programs into their leadership and sales enablement activities.

Comments Off on 128 – Collaboration and diversity is how you make progress

Blog

Anecdote