Why do some scientific degrees rather counteract than promote the development of emotional intelligence (EQ), social skills and creativity?

THIS ARTICLE WILL FOCUS ON CHEMISTRY DEGREES but can be extrapolated to other degrees.

I have just been finished my studies; six long years of hard work. A great life achievement, isn’t it? Let me point out what all lifelong learners will agree to say: the more we know, the more we don’t know. As a consequence, I am talking in the article about my next concern id my non?understanding of the behaviour of plenty of chemists: their non-interest regarding soft skills. Allow me to say that we used to call someone an “intelligent people” if he/she was good in mathematics and science in former times. But in 2018, this is no longer the case. Today it’s IQ + EQ.

“The people skills are those that relate to emotional intelligence. Data shows that intelligence (IQ) often gets you in the door for a job, but emotional intelligence (EQ) is what helps leaders to move up more quickly. When an employee moves into management and leadership, their responsibility becomes less about doing the work and more about managing the people.” - Monica Thakrar , President of MTI (a leadership training, coaching and consulting firm based in Washington)  [1] 

In this article, I will introduce the article with chemists.We all have this image of a chemist that is disconnected from the world, right? We can a bit associate this “picture” with what was reported about Leonardo DaVinci: “Leonardo filled the opening pages of one of his notebooks with 169 attempts to square a circle. In eight pages of his Codex Leicester, he recorded 730 findings about the flow of water; in another notebook, he listed 67 words that describes different types of moving water. […] He drilled down the pure joy of geeking out.” [2]

Figure 1. An example of a typical image we can imagine from a chemist in laboratory researching overnight. This picture was shot in the dark to caricatures such behaviour. 

Similar to Leonardo, most of the chemist can be passionate about their research and are willing to work plenty of extra hours in a lab without expecting any money compensation. The problem arises when collaborations need to be established or a team needs to be build.

My personal experience

What I personally felt during my 6 six years of studying is that plenty of chemists (students, PhD students or even group leaders in some research groups) face difficulties in doing that. For instance, a research group I know is struggling to find new students for starting a PhD Program because of its reputation of bad communication they have with students. Not all but plenty of chemistry students completely neglected social and artistically activities. Many of them stopped to play soccer in a team, stopped to play music in an orchestra as well as stopped to get involved in social organisations their once enjoyed to be involved with. A colleague that I know told me in German “Spielzeit ist fertig” which means “Playing time is over”. They actually started to consider these social activities a “waste of time”. Yes, these were the own words of one of my friends after having a communication course during our binational Bachelor Degree Regio Chimica.

Is it the educational system ?

What made them believe this? Because studying chemistry in Germany was very hard as it showed in the figure below (Figure 1). According to a survey from 1983 to 2013, Chemistry student in Germany studied in average of 36,9 hours per week where none of this hours is given for creativity, social activities or time for developing emotional intelligence. The system had the consequence of naturally giving students the idea to stop any non?scientific activities. This is in fact not only happening for chemistry students as even a student in philosophy and history, with less working hours, is reporting lack of interest to practice hobbies he once enjoyed. [3] Of course, the societal pressure which include the concept of being the best etc. made them believe this as well. However, the influence of the society and globalisation will not be discussed longer in this article.

Figure 2. Weekly time spent for studying at Germans universities in different subjects. Chemistry is as high a 36,9 hours / week (according to reference). [4]

Everyone would agree that everyone need EQ, right ? 

All the people I asked regarding this article said “ not only chemist need it, everyone! “. In fact, emotional intelligence can be learned; like a fine wine, emotional intelligence can come with age and maturity [1] but

Why should we wait if EQ can be learned before starting the professional life ? 

Some methods to improve it will be discussed later on.

According to Rothbauer-Wanish, owner of Feather Communication, said that “Future professional – no matter the field they are entering – need to focus on soft skills that are easily transferable to any position” [5] and I totally agree that this is even true for chemists.

There is no denying that I never really worked in a chemical company but I worked in several time in the industry for summer jobs (see my LinkedIn Profile) and I was able to be involved in a project where we needed to collaborate with the industry and share a message to the broad audience: the contest “Chemical World Tour”. We interacted with pupils, students, academics and employees which made me realize that every social category will have a different point of view regarding EQ and social skills and if it is important or not. On top, all along my study I also asked more experienced chemists to tell me more about their professional lifestyle and I could therefore detect some generalities. In the following section, I will discuss the two areas (academia and industry) where I could feel a huge difference towards its appreciation.

EQ: ACADEMIA vs INDUSTRY ?

People in academia are ready very often to stay longer and work alone searching for hours in books and reading papers simply by the fact that they are passionate. As far as I know, success in academia is defined in the quality of papers you published which is directly related to your work in the lab. Collaboration and team work help to improve practical skills in the lab and networking is important to publish in a high impact journal but EQ is not the priority number one to be successful in academia. Publishing an article can be done without collaboration or team work. 

“I often mediate between worlds: science and management, chemistry and biology, industrial and academic studies, research and the public.” – Dr. Jean-Pierre Vors, principal chemist of BAYER [6]

People in industry, however, are asked to collaborate and communicate as much as possible. The focus of their work is redirected from science to pluridisciplinary as much as possible where, as a consequence, EQ is much more important. The quote above represent quite well the mentality in the industry. 

What is EQ ?

I hope you will also understand that EQ has a lot to do with the ability to lead people and projects. EQ is actually booming right now in the medias [7] [8] but it is actually studied for decades. The two words started to be used in 1900 but discussion about it were already reported in academic research around 1980.

Golleman (1995) described EQ as viewing the experience and expression of emotions. [9] 

Five mains points is are describing emotional intelligence: [1]

1. Self-Perception: understanding and awareness of your own emotions
2. Self-Expression: expressing your emotions
3. Interpersonal: developing and maintaining relationships
4. Decision Making: using emotions to make better decisions
5. Stress Management: coping with stress and other challenges

How to improve it ?

If some students are reading this article, here are some advice that I could obtain from internet that will boost your leadership skills that are required for any position:

• Carry out your own project
• Do volunteer work 
• Join a sports team 
• Get involved in student politics 
• Join the student council [10]

It is well known that Startup activity represents one of the highest correlations with strong economic performance [11] and I have seen several companies and non?profit organisation that are calling students for new innovations and ideas that will “change the world”: Imagine Chemistry – The AkzoNobel Chemicals Startup Challenge [12] - , Accelerator Program - Merck [13], G4A Generator – Bayer [14] or The Champions Of The Earth – UN Environment ; sponsored by Covestro [15] to name a few. But I also realized that student need more than knowledge to make such ideas a reality. For making it happen, we need vision, creativity, and having a high EQ is definitely not a bad thing. 

What if chemist had on top of their scientific knowledge, a strong EQ and a lot of creativity. Would it add more value to society? Would it not create more innovators, entrepreneurs and scientific leaders?

In the text below I am discussing why, according to my own observation, EQ is more than necessary to be learned at an early stage of life.

Why do we need EQ ?

1. The rise of Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and connected devices

In this video we show together with scientist, one of "the laboratory of the future": 

The lab showed clearly that an automated chemistry is ahead of us and I am convinced it will go further even more faster. Not only this company will integrate it in their labs, everyone who can afford will do it. Namely, Alibaba already have showed the potential of such technology for product delivery where robots do 70% of the work.

The next video shows how important the 3D printing industry are going the influence the #polymer industry.

Not to forget and the construction industry

And health?care application such as connected drug. Examples are showed below (Figure 3)

Figure 3. Some sensor technology applications made of: a) possible sensors for different part of the body b) A film that can be incorporated into the clothes to measure the body movements; c) and d) marketing displays of the company LEAP using the polymer from the company Wacker to show how their textile?based sensors convert mechanical energy into electricity, enabling them to capture body movements. (according to reference) [16] [17] [18]

Marker researchers at IDTechEx estimated in 2015 that the wearable technology’s and smart textiles’ market will be worth over $30 billion in 2016, and should reach over $150 billion by 2026. [19] The data shows a the connected world is going to increased exponentially over the next decade which bring us to the next very important skill, critical thinking the need for good leadership for good teamwork.

2. The importance of good leadership 

Of many times students and employees are angry and bored by their boss? I met an incredible amount of people that were extremely frustrated by the way their boss was managing people. Friends in research group at the university mentored by PhD Students, friends in research institutions and friends in the industry in different countries. This problem is universal. The other way around it’s the same id I also saw senior scientist / PhD Students that didn't trust their students

Trust others and build trustful relationships is a fundamental principle

I believe it’s not the student’s fault but the lack of leadership of the scientist that couldn’t establish a proper communication with their students. In the worst case, I even experienced to see PhD thesis of a colleague being stopped after one year of research because the supervisor wasn’t confident about his research and work in the lab. 

It is worth mentioning that people need to be leaders to make other peoples want what we suggest. Rules for “effective leadership” can be found in the one of the best-selling books of all time “How to win friends & influence people” written by D. Carnegie in 1936 which was coppied over 15 millions times: [20]

a) Be sincere, do not promise anything you cannot deliver. Forget about the benefits to yourself and concentrate on the benefits to the other person

b) Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do

c) Be empathetic, ask yourself what it is what the other person really wants

d) Consider the benefits the other person will receive from doing what you suggest

e) Match those benefits to the other person wants

f) When you make your request, put it in a form that will convey the other person that he will personally benefit from.

g) Make the person happy about doing the thing you suggest

Finally, what is advised to all manager is to BE A LEADER

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation

2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly 

3. Talk about your own mistake before criticising the other person

4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders

5. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every progress – be honest

6. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

7. Make encouragement

Logically, the increasing globalisation and the mix of cultures doesn’t make it simpler. A real life example is explained below. 

3. The rise of multinational collaborations

I have the chance to live in a region called “the Upper Rhine Valley” where numerous collaborations between universities, research laboratories and companies are exponentially taking place. The reason is that everyone is profiting from each other (Figure 2) Such collaborations include of course the next challenge: the mix of culture! 

Figure 4. Left, the geolocalisation of the multination region “The upper Rhine Valley” which include Alsace (France), the Basel region (Switzerland) and the black forest region (Germany) [21] Right, different collaborations that are taking place: the blue spot represents the universities, the light blue spots represents research institutes and the grey sports represents all the building having an education purpose that are taking part to “ The European Campus” (according to references). [22] [23]

NovaTris, a French Cross-Border Competence Center, is supporting the development of initial and continuing cross-border training. To overcome the problem of multinational collaborations, they have decided to launch a numerous amount of intercultural training to face intercultural conflicts as well as giving opportunities to students and employees to have an intercultural experience. [24]

NovaTris in Mulhouse and of "the European campus - Eucor” both take a numerous amount of initiatives to make it profitable including science. For instance, the binational bachelor degree Regio Chimica or the art of combining social skills with scientific skills.

NovaTris organises every year “The day of Novatris”. In 2017, for instance, invited NovaTris was pleased to welcome Fred Dervin, Professor of Intercultural Education at the University of Helsinki who gave talks and participated to numerous of discussions (Figure 3).

Figure 5. Top left, the flyer of the event. Top right, the illustration of the event made by ?Bearboz. Bottom the roundtable discussion about intercultural competences: Are we talking about the same thing at the university and in the socio-economic world? (teacher-researchers, students, companies)”. [25] [26]

Hence, NovaTris wanted to show that the region is more than just scientific collaborations and professional collaborations; NovaTris affirms the idea of living and evolving together in a common territory. 

"Cross-cultural competence means facing a new situation and daring to adapt" Serge Neunlist, UHA Cross-Border Relations Vice President and Vice President Eucor - The European Campus [27]

Figure 6. The reverse bike: we turn the handlebars to the left, the wheel turns right! Which is an illustration of what intercultural competences really means. [27]

Last but not least The European Campus is also launching a doctoral school which will promote exchange during the PhD between the 3 countries.

“ The aim of Eucor - The European Campus is to develop a distinct area of knowledge and research – one without walls or borders, and with great international appeal. ” Janosch Nieden, director of EUCOR. [28]

Even the Campus Spotlight of the summer issue 2018 of Europe Now, a monthly publication of the Council for European Studies (Columbia University), is about the European Campus [23] It is worth to mention that organisation such as the Germans organisations as VIA. eV [29] and DAAD [30] also support international experiences to promote social skills. 

And what about creativity ?

Now concerning, as important as EQ, creativity is also directly related scientific innovation. Gerard Puccio, chairman of the Internation Center for Studies in Creativity at Suny-Buffalo, says “Here you have the worlds demanding creativity skills, but education, in some ways, has moved in the opposite direction, with a focus on standardization and making every kid the same, versus allowing their creative mind to flourish”. [31]

Lastly, Mitchel Resnick, who leads the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab to develop new technologies for creative learning, says that all stage of stage of education should allow more time for students to work collaboratively on interdisciplinary projects that pique their interests. “Learning a fixed set of facts during your schooling is not going to provide very well for your whole life, since the world keeps changing”, he says. [31]

Conclusion

“Social skills and self-awareness are matters of emotional intelligence (EQ), and TalentSmart’s research with over a million people has shown that emotional intelligence is responsible for 58% of job performance. Those who lack emotional intelligence are at a significant disadvantage.” - Travis Bradberry, president of TalentSmart [32]

To put it in a nutshell, EQ, social skills and creativity may not lead directly to scientific discoveries as this is mainly based due to scientific knowledge and good experiments in the lab. However, even in the academical world they can lead to better collaborations, team work, leadership and efficiency as well as performance which would then, strongly and amazingly improve the probability of making a discovery or giving the rise of innovative ideas which would change the world. 

Why don’t we take such skills into account in the grade of our degree or in the recruitment process of doctoral schools and jobs? What do you think, should all the chemistry degrees integrate somehow a social course? 

I would be honoured if you comment, share, message me and/or like this post if you appreciated the reading. 

QUESTIONS 

• To Recruiters #RH: 

Would you rather higher a chemist with good social background or rather a scientist with exceptional scientific skills but less good in interpersonal skills? 

• To people working in academia: 

Do you agree that sometime scientist are lacking in soft skills and therefore are leading their team in a wrong way (Prof, Senior scientist… etc ?)

• To people in the industry: 

What type of chemist are you looking for ? What are the most important skills a chemist should have? 

• To research institutes and doctoral schools:

What is for you, the perfect Ph.D. candidate? Do you take into account EQ ? If not, can you explain us why you don’t ? 

Finally, is a fully science focused education killing leadership, the potential of having the next entrepreneurs of tomorrow and, last but not least, is it killing creativity?

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About the author

Mikel is a French German Master chemistry student who studied in France, Germany and finish with his Masterthesis in Switzerland. The binational has worked in three different academic and semi-academic research groups and analysed the behaviour of scientist over the years. He acknowledges that he wasn’t the most performant chemistry student but is passionate about innovation (and how the way it is evolving in different countries), people and entrepreneurship. His binational degree Regio Chimica made him more aware of interculturality and its challenges which he decided to continue to be interested in. Today, he has already travelled to 27 countries and is now more than ready to take up the next challenges and having a positive impact on the world in health care technologies, wellbeing, energy, food & nutrition, the water purification industry and/or recycling projects.

His talk to hundreds of students in Paris (2017)

His trilingual talk at his bachelor graduation ceremony (2016)

His presentation video why he loves chemistry (2016)

His reflexion why he was volunteering in south Africa (2015)

Picture showing his integration with Mexican students (Summer 2018)

Pictures showing his integration with an African community in Durban - South Africa (Summer 2015)

Picture showing his integration with a Chinese community in Wales during an english summer school (Summer 2012)

Sources

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[2] W. Isaacson, 2017.

[3] J. Riemann. WIE ICH HOBBYLOS WURDE, <https://www.zeit.de/campus/2016-04/freizeit-studium-hobbies-zeitmanagement-studieren> (10.2018).

[4] A. Himmelrath. Tiermediziner büffeln am meisten, Soziologen am wenigsten, <https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/uni/so-viel-arbeiten-studenten-pro-woche-fuer-ihr-studium-a-999109.html> (10.2018).

[5] M. Ruesink in 8 In-Demand Skills That Will Complement Any Resume Vol. 08.2018, p. 36.

[6] Bayer. MEET OUR SCIENTISTS Jean-Pierre Vors: Searching for the Gemstones of Chemistry, <https://innovate.bayer.com/innovation-stories/searching-for-the-gemstones-of-chemistry/> (09.2018).

[7] K. Dillon and A. Gallo, HBR Guides to Emotional Intelligence at Work Collection (5 Books)(HBR Guide Series), Harvard Business Press, 2017.

[8] D. Goleman, A. McKee, B. George and H. Ibarra, HBR Emotional Intelligence Boxed Set (6 Books)(HBR Emotional Intelligence Series), Harvard Business Press, 2018.

[9] N. S. Schutte, J. M. Malouff, L. E. Hall, D. J. Haggerty, J. T. Cooper, C. J. Golden and L. Dornheim, Personality and individual differences 1998, 25, 167-177.

[10] V. Vassilev. 5 Extracurricular Activities That Will Boost Your Leadership Skills <https://www.accessmasterstour.com/articles/view/5-extracurricular-activities-that-will-boost-your-leadership-skills > (09.2018).

[11] A. Amari. Why Young Entrepreneurs Are Crucial to Growing the Economy, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2016/10/25/young-entrepreneurs/ - 327285433953> (10.2018).

[12] AkzoNobel. Imagine Chemistry <https://www.imaginechemistry.com/> (10.2018 ).

[13] Merck. Accelerator, <https://innovationcenter.merckgroup.com/get-involved/accelerator/overview/> (10.2018).

[14] Bayer. G4A Generator, <https://innovate.bayer.com/what-we-offer/g4a-generator/> (10.2018 ).

[15] UN Environment. Champions Of The Earth, <https://web.unep.org/championsofearth/> (10.2018).

[16] Wacker?. ELASTOSIL? FILM - Electro-active Polymers (EAP) with Silicone Film, <https://www.wacker.com/cms/en/industries/energy/electro_active_polymers_silicone_film/electro_active_polymers_silicone_film.jsp> (05.2018).

[17] S. Crucius. The Next Generation of Wearables Will Be Soft, Stretchy, Completely Hidden and Very Use Case Specific.

[18] K. Taylor, H. Ronte and S. Hammett, Deloitte, London 2014.

[19] J. G. Drobny in 1 - Fundamentals, William Andrew Publishing, 2016, pp. 3-14.

[20] D. Carnegie, How to win friends & influence people, Musaicum Books, 2017, p.

[21] Upper Rhein Valley. <https://www.upperrhinevalley.com/en> (08.2019).

[22] The European Campus. <https://www.eucor-uni.org/nous-connaitre/universites-membres/> (09.2018).

[23] Europe Now. On the Path to a European University, <https://www.europenowjournal.org/2018/07/01/on-the-path-to-a-european-university/> (09.2018).

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[26] NovaTris. Photos et illustrations des Journées NovaTris 4.17 / Bilder und Zeichnungen der NovaTris-Tage 4.17, <https://www.novatris.uha.fr/?page_id=2550> (09.2018).

[27] NovaTris. Essai du vélo inversé, <https://www.facebook.com/novatrisuha/videos/1513524345324236/> (09.2018).

[28] J. Nieden. Cross-border doctoral education at The European Campus <https://eua-cde.org/the-doctoral-debate/10:cross-border-doctoral-education-at-the-european-campus.html> (09.2018).

[29] VIA. <https://www.via-ev.org/fachpraktika/fachpraktikum-in-den-bereichen-technik-wissenschaft-medizin-in-mexiko > (09.2018).

[30] DAAD. <https://www.daad.de/ausland/studieren/de/> (09.2018).

[31] K. Reilly in When Schools Get Creative, TIME, 2018, p. 82-87.

[31] T. Bradberry. The importance of social skills and self-awareness to your career, <https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/the-importance-of-social-skills-and-self-awareness-to-your-career/> (09.2018).