Pioneer Interview: Wheels of a brilliant machine--IRRI staff

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• published: 20 Nov 2015
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Also see "An introverted :mad" scientist speaks bluntly and makes no apologies: http://ricetoday.irri.org/an-introverted-mad-scientist-speaks-candidly-and-makes-no-apologies/ Dr. Robert S. "Bob" Zeigler, an internationally respected plant pathologist with more than 30 years of experience in agricultural research in the developing world, has been the director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; http//irri.org) for the last 10+ years—the second longest tenure for an IRRI DG after only the Institute’s founding DG, Robert F. Chandler, Jr. (1960-72). As DG, Bob set the Institute’s strategic direction and has also been a passionate spokesperson on a wide range of issues that affect rice growers and consumers worldwide. He retires in mid-December 2015. Proclaiming himself an introvert, he gave an IRRI pioneer interview, conducted on 28 August 2015, with predictable wit and candor. He covers his life before and throughout his professional life, which has spanned time spent in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the U.S. In this excerpt from the interview, he talks about the Institute's national and international staff as being the wheels of a brilliant machine. "I don’t think there is any question that the greatness of IRRI is due to its Philippine national staff (NRS). The contributions of the NRS are incomparable, just incomparable. IRRI discovered a model that I didn’t fully appreciate until last year (after 9 years of being DG and 7 years additional as scientist in the past). IRRI created and discovered this model completely by accident. I was reviewing with Christine Croombes [director of IRRI’s Human Resource Services] our staff profiles. We noticed that the turnover time of international staff (IRS), on the average, is about 7 years and turnover time of the NRS is closer to 20 years. It just clicked in my mind that we have a machine that is moving forward with different parts turning at different speeds in that we have IRS turning at a much faster rate, bringing in new thinking from outside via postdocs and entry-level scientists. They come for 7 years or so and move on—maybe they come back later, maybe they don’t. They come in, constantly injecting new ideas. We have another part of the machine that is turning over much more slowly. It’s taking up that knowledge and innovation that is coming in from the young international scientists, but containing and retaining the past experience and accumulated knowledge. That system—of interaction and timing involving the NRS having the institutional memory, the experience, the knowledge of the historical nature of an experiment, and the context within which we are working and constantly interjecting and interacting with new scientists coming onboard—is a brilliant model of renovation, rejuvenation, and conservation. You couldn’t have designed a better system. But it wasn’t designed; it was pure luck. But it is a brilliant, brilliant mechanism. I think among so many other things, this explains much of IRRI’s great success. It’s that contribution, the commitment, the devotion, and the longevity of the NRS with the excitement and innovation of new IRS coming and going. It’s quite a feat and I’ll have to think about it some more and get some numbers behind it and maybe write it up. As I said, this is an insight that hit me just a year ago. It’s like one of those blinding scientific discoveries—you go ohhh, of course, it is so obvious, but know nobody has said that before. That nature of IRRI and its success are utterly dependent on that model. But that model would never work without the Filipino culture, its tremendous work ethic, tremendous loyalty, tremendous sense of family, and tremendous sense of community and commitment."