Nathaniel Schenker

This month’s column presents the third in a series of interviews with leaders of my presidential initiatives. Janet Buckingham of Southwest Research Institute and I will discuss an initiative to develop training in statistical leadership for working statisticians (although conceivably the training could be used for statistics students as well) and to develop a plan for making the training widely available.

I appointed Janet to chair this initiative in mid-2013, and we put together an excellent team for it. The initiative is basically an extension of 2012 President Bob Rodriguez’s initiative titled “Career Success Factors.” The workgroup for Bob’s initiative identified leadership as an important factor that needed follow-up in terms of developing training. Also, Bob’s President’s Corner columns on statistical leadership in February, March, and April seemed to have resonated well with ASA members. Thus, Janet and I hope the current initiative will provide an important benefit to the members and the profession.

Buckingham

NS: Janet, thank you for taking the lead on this initiative. Tell me: Why were you interested in chairing it?

JB: I was fortunate enough to be a member of the workgroup, chaired by Bob Starbuck, for Bob Rodriguez’s 2012 initiative mentioned above. It became apparent during our initial discussions back in 2012 that our association had not had a cohesive vision to train statisticians in what was termed “soft skills.” When your initiative was formed to extend the work we had already started, I was eager to still be part of it. Our focus this year is to identify and develop training to prepare statisticians to be leaders—in academia, industry and government. This is an area where the ASA can make a difference in our profession by offering training that will help develop leaders, no matter where their current or future role as statisticians may take them.

NS: What excites you most about the project?

JB: After accepting your kind invitation to chair this workgroup, I had an “Oh no, what have I done?” feeling come over me. This was quickly dispelled after we identified leaders in our profession who also wanted to be part of this journey. So, one excitement was being able to work and learn from others in the workgroup. Readers will probably recognize many of their names. From the academic sector, we have Amanda Golbeck and Bill Sollecito; from the industry sector, we have Jim Hess, Bonnie LaFleur, Colleen Mangeot, Bob Rodriguez, and Gary Sullivan; and representing the government sector are John Eltinge and Marilyn Seastrom. Lynn Palmer is working with us as the ASA liaison. In addition, some of the members have backgrounds in multiple sectors, so they bring leadership experiences from different perspectives.

As you recall, Nat, you and I also identified several ‘advisory’ members of our workgroup whom we could use as ‘expert resources’ by tapping into their large knowledge base and experience in all areas of statistical leadership. This was another exciting aspect of the project because these advisors were very helpful at the beginning of the process, when we were forming our ideas about how we would develop training pertinent to statisticians. You couldn’t ask for a better mix of statisticians—workgroup members and advisors—to come together to help fill a void in our professional society.

Several members of our workgroup have stressed that we should provide statisticians a path to becoming proficient at statistical leadership, as leadership is not a footnote for statisticians, but rather a lifelong process and integral to being successful as a statistician. This, in a nutshell, is what our workgroup is striving to kick-start in the ASA.

NS: What have been your workgroup’s major activities thus far?

JB: With such a lofty task assigned to us, we knew we had to get started quickly. A few of us met for the first time at JSM 2013 in Montréal. Since then, we have been in “full swing mode,” meeting on monthly conference calls since last September. We first had to answer “What is statistical leadership?” and “What concepts/principles should we include in training through the ASA?” We then interviewed our advisory members and other interested parties (probably eight total) to gather their ideas about leadership. So many great ideas came out of this data-gathering exercise that I wondered how we were ever going to choose the training course we should develop first. Remember when I told you that we have been meeting monthly? Well, we have also been working on brainstorming exercises and surveys between our meetings with the purpose of consolidating everyone’s philosophies about where we should start our development work. Here are the top four ideas for training we identified:

• Business/organizational acumen – understanding how the business/organization works and seeing the big picture
• Influence skills – how to influence people to drive improvement and produce better results
• Integration – how to integrate yourself (and your profession) into the conversation
• General communication – effective listening, speaking, and writing

Next, we needed to identify the type of training formats we thought would work well for ASA members. Ideas ranged from a hybrid approach that would include an integration of face-to-face training with interactive, online sessions, to a multi-day, in-person event covering several topics, to a one-day, in-person training covering several topics. Having prominent statistical leaders to assist in the training would be ideal. Participants would then be able to hear from the ‘experts’ and tap into their wealth of experience.

Suffice it to say, our workgroup was never at a time when we did not have an idea to consider. So, I will now announce the most exciting news: At this year’s JSM in Boston, we will offer the first course resulting from this initiative, titled “Preparing Statisticians for Statistical Leadership: How to See the Big Picture and Have More Influence.” I invite readers to find out more about this course here.

NS: That’s terrific! What else might your workgroup plan to do?

JB: Our plan is to critique the JSM course and tweak it as necessary. We will meet at JSM to discuss the course, since it will still be fresh on our minds. We are also in the planning stages for other course topics and possibly identifying instructors. And we need to develop a plan for making the training available to members in the future.

NS: How might this initiative help the ASA, its members, and/or the profession?

JB: As stated earlier, we believe all statisticians will benefit from improving their leadership skills, since this will elevate our profession. And it will take more than just one course—remember, it is a lifelong journey. I certainly have learned some valuable leadership skills in leading this workgroup, although the workgroup members have made my job very easy!

NS: Do you see areas for follow-up on the initiative?

JB: Yes, we cannot accomplish developing a course for every leadership topic we have identified. We need a plan going forward for the ASA to invest in this type of course development. We also have plans to archive all the valuable information we have been gathering for future training course development. Our workgroup has temporarily warehoused so many great articles, interviews, discussions, and course ideas that need to be shared with future course developers!

NS: Janet, I’m very happy and excited about your group’s accomplishments to date, as well as your plans for the future. I appreciate your having taken the time to discuss them with me this month.

JB: Thanks, Nat!