Learning notes - 28 months into the job

Time flies. It's already 28 months into the job and the clock towards my promotion evaluation EXAM is ticking. It's stressful to think about it. But it's hard not to think about it too. I try to psycho myself that as long as I try my best and love what I am doing, that's enough. However, I know that's just something I say to console myself.

Anyway, following my earlier entry, I thought I should update more on what I have learnt after 28 months into the job.

1) Everyone is unique and there's no one-model-fits-all management style
- Student M: His strength is in the engineering stuff. His logic thinking is strong. In fact, I think much stronger than Postdoc I. He likes to work on a deadline mode. If you check in on his progress daily, he flips out and says "Why do you bother??". At that point, leave him alone because you can never out-talk him.
- Student N: She is actually not bad but lacks energy/enthusiasm at times. She would rather spend a lot of her time with friends and chill over coffee, and doesn't check her email often (everyone know I am particular about this). She has a big inertia to overcome before she starts to work in the lab, and therefore takes a long time to complete her tasks. I told her about all these and I think she is trying her best to work on her shortcomings.
- Student D: Very smart guy in microbiology. He initially wanted to work on engineering stuff which I gave him a year to work on but in the end, he gave up. After much pyscho-ing from me, he agreed with me that he should work on his strength and thus fine-tuned his research to microbiology-related stuff. After he fine-tuned his research, he told me he HATES engineering stuff now. From this, one can see he is a person who has extreme emotions towards stuff. He wanted to give up his PhD after 2 years because his close friends are leaving KAUST. He told me he hates Saudi and he is an emotional wreck now. Going to be a hot potato on hand - but what to do? I hope I can send him to work on his PhD overseas - it's the only solution I can propose now.
- Student H: Sigh......Very behind schedule, only comes to school when she wants to do lab work. She is a student I co-advise with another professor. I think that's the problem. She doesn't know who is the boss.
- Postdoc I: Still not making much improvement but hopefully will have at least 2 papers to account for the work he had done in my lab. I have to say I did all of the writing and revision for him. And I did some of the experiments for him too when he consistently couldn't do it right. But he is a team contributor.
- Postdoc Y: Very hardworking but doesn't mean she is productive. She lacks the vision and will need assistance in writing. Her critical thinking needs more training and she lacks the ability to think in-depth too. I think it is related to her engineering background. But again, she is a team contributor.
- Postdoc Z: Smart guy but maybe too smart for his own good. He thinks I am an idiot until I told him I am not. Doesn't work much in the lab and spends most of his time in front of his computer. When he produced his manuscript draft to me, it's a sloppy work that doesn't explain why he spends so much time in front of his computer. Weirdly, he was very prompt in looking for new jobs when I told him I will no longer be renewing his contract.

Talented people who can work cohesively in a team are always hard to find.

2) Package yourself well and know how to network
I truly need to work hard on this. It just goes against my core values and my personality. But unfortunately, at the end of the day, the outcome of the promotion evaluation is pegged to the external reviewers' letters. These reviewers should have no conflict of interests with you, which means they are writing these letters based on your research, your international profile/visibility, your H-index, your number of papers published AFTER you arrived at KAUST, your number of citations etc etc (some academic KPI thingy), or whether they have heard of you from this and that at this and that conference etc etc. So it wouldn't help if you lock yourself in the lab and do all the research you want. That happens only in the perfect world. This world is imperfect. You need the human network. You need to go out and "sell" yourself, your research and others. In fact those people who are the top scientists in the world thrive at establishing human connection - READ Malcolm Gladwell's book Outlier. Having talents (I don't) and passion (I do have, well, sometimes) alone are not enough. You need opportunities given to you from others.

3) Don't say too much
I am bad at this too. I tend to be very honest about what I want to say. And it can come back to bite my ass. I always tell myself not to say too much, but time and again, I failed.
Maybe I should just sew my mouth up.

4) Proposal writing is so hard
We get a lot of training to write papers during our PhD days but we never seem to get enough practice on writing proposals. I am ashamed to say that up to now, I only got 2 proposals that was submitted to a Center Competitive Proposal Call funded. Granted, they were funded. But how much of it was due to my own capabilities? All the other remaining 5 (actually, I lost count of the number of rejections) that I submitted to US and to the KAUST Office of Competitive Research Fund were rejected. This is dejecting, and it casts a huge doubt on myself. I have been told that my writing is too emotionless, too technical, too precise, too-to-the-point. Good for paper writing but lacking the touch for proposal writing. Think about proposal writing as selling your idea, and that you need to convince the reader to part with their money after reading only one page of text.
ASK YOURSELF: What's the big problem? Why/how does your proposed research solve this big problem? How can you be sure it will work?
It's like asking them to have FAITH in you. HUH?

5) At times, things get you down but don't let it bother you too much.
It's like a marathon. You fall down or someone decides to trip you over. Instead of wallowing in self-misery, the only thing you can do is to pick yourself up and move forward again. Nobody is going to halt and wait for you. The Earth goes round the Sun regardless of whether you decide to stop or not.