You're facing conflicts between process engineers and research chemists. How can you find common ground?

1. Facilitate regular meetings to encourage open communication and understanding between both teams. 2. Align goals by identifying shared objectives and integrating them into project plans. 3. Establish clear roles and responsibilities to avoid overlaps and conflicts. 4. Foster collaboration through joint problem-solving sessions and cross-functional workshops. 5. Encourage mutual respect and recognition of each team’s expertise and contributions.

The first step is familiarization. Chemist is often equated with analytical chemist. In fact there are many different specializations in chemistry. Physical chemists understand thermodynamics, and there is considerable overlap with chemical engineers. Synthetic chemists make new molecules. This is important in catalysis research. Synthetic chemists rely heavily on NMR, single-crystal x-ray crystallography and mass spectrometry. Catalysis chemists delve deeply into reaction mechanisms. Inorganic chemists overlap with materials engineers, such as ceramicists, hydrometallurgists and nuclear engineering. Organic chemistry is now an enormous field with connections to pharmaceuticals. Biochemists overlap with medicine and biology. Etc.!

In my experience, engineers don't believe in molecules. Chemists see the universe in terms of atoms and molecules. How do I bridge such a fundamental communications gap?

For me the Manhattan project was a miracle because it was a paradox. Everyone working in silos. Chemists characterizing the new elements and developing chemical separation procedures, and engineers putting together the physical structures and devices that the physicists came up with their equations. All operating in a military command control corporate culture. Amazing! It would take a genius to make the system function. But it seems this process can be replicated, to judge by the technological and medical advances around the world since then. But I have no idea how this works.

Oppenheimer could understand everything his various specialists were telling him according to his biography. Maybe that is the key? People who manage complex systems need to understand the various languages their specialists are speaking: chemistry, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, fluid dynamics, computer coding, metallurgy, etc. This requires continuous learning. If you don't understand what you subordinates are trying to tell you, you are not in control. You are a spectator.