Chapter 08: An Ability to Work With and Within Structure

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Chapter 08: An Ability to Work With and Within Structure

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In this segment, Dr. Tomasovic reflects on his leadership style and how this has facilitated his effectiveness. He notes how he came to the attention of James Bowen, then Vice President for Academic Affairs, who worked with him in creating the Faculty Senate (Dr. Tomasovic was the first Chair, ’91-93), and who appointed him Assistant to the Vice President for Academic Affairs (1994). The session closes with a sketch of the institutional flux in play during 1998 when Dr. Mendelsohn [Oral History Interview] assumed leadership of MD Anderson.

Identifier

TomasovicSP_01_20110801_C08

Publication Date

8-1-2011

Publisher

The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

City

Houston, Texas

Topics Covered

The Interview Subject's Story - The Administrator; The Leader; The Administrator; On Leadership; Professional Path; The Administrator; Mentoring; Collaborations; MD Anderson Culture; Growth and/or Change; Evolution of Career; Professional Practice; The Professional at Work

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Disciplines

History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History

Transcript

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

You may have already given me some of the themes of an answer for this next question. But just to put it into focus I wanted to ask you about what your philosophy of administration is in this particular role if you want to call it that. Or maybe your own marching orders if it were --

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

So I think one of the interesting things about leaders is that they have their perception of their philosophy, and how they work and how people see them, and then when you talk to people who work for them or interact with them you may get a different perspective. But I think I have gotten to where I am because of several traits. And I think those influence how I lead and how I’m perceived by others. So as I said early, I am comfortable in organizational structures. I grew up in a structured military environment. I did reasonably well in my short time in the military. I am not someone who rails against administration and organizational structures. I understand them. I’m comfortable with them. So I’m comfortable working with others in that kind of an environment. Another characteristic is I’m an amiable person and I’m not given to outbursts. I’m not easy to anger. I have a high level of tolerance for different people’s personalities and styles. And I have an ease with situational leadership and can work -- I’ve always been viewed here as someone who can work with almost anybody. And you get lots of different personalities in academia. Some of them ranging to the extreme of eccentricity. But I’ve always been able to get along with a lot of people. And so I haven’t as they say burned a lot of bridges. I haven’t created a lot of conflicts. If there’s a fire I’m the kind of person who can smooth it out. I’m the oil on the water. And so I tend to be a problem solver more than a problem creator. And so that’s the way I approach things. People will come in with their hair on fire. By my style of leadership I calm things down. I listen to what the issue is. I try to solve the problem. With not too much ownership. In other words I’m not a leader that tends to drive my agenda all the time. I’m willing to accommodate other people’s agendas and find compromises to a level where we’re both comfortable. So I believe most people that work with me see me as that kind of a person. A person who can solve problems. The other trait that I have. The liking to know the big picture. And to think in that way. I have always paid attention to what’s going on around me. And I’m not someone who ignores e-mails, doesn’t read the communications from executives. And so I’ve always collected a lot of information. And so I’ve become very knowledgeable about a lot of people, their personalities and styles. A lot of information about the organization. Which as I acquired more and more jobs made it easier for me to be able to know what needed to be done and how to get there and who to call. And because I don’t have a lot of ownership over my own ideas, it’s been easy for me to let other people take lead. And when I’m working I’ll focus attention on a problem until I think it is moving in the right direction. Then I’ll back away and let the people that I have confidence in continue to take care of it. So I don’t do -- when I’m first working on something I’m a micromanager. Very detail-oriented, very focused on it. When I’m satisfied that it’s under control, I step away and rely on -- so most of my directors see me probably as not being a micromanager, and letting them have a lot of autonomy. And I keep in touch with them. I communicate with them. I get data. But I don’t try to tell them what to do all the time. So I think that was rambling. I don’t have a succinct three-sentence philosophy, elevator speech philosophy about how I do what I do. I’ve taken some training in leadership. But I think it’s those style traits of being a friendly person who gets along with a lot of people, can modulate what I’m doing and how I’m leading depending on the situation and the person that I’m working with. And I don’t make a lot of enemies. When I have to make decisions I can make them, but I let others make decisions once I have given them some direction and I’m confident that they’re staying on the path. So stop there. Because I have a feeling that I’m rambling. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD No, no, not at all. I just wanted to say I think oral history interviews would be pretty terrible if they were composed of elevator speeches. No.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Probably so. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD So maybe you could tell a little bit more about the process whereby you came from that first role that you were handed by Garth Nicholson into the more elaborate administrative positions.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

When I think back on it I’m struck by it. Because I think it feels mostly like random chance. But it wasn’t really, probably. But it feels a little bit that way. So for example my initial contact with Garth Nicholson in this pathobiology of cancer workshop, I was floating around, trying to figure out what I could do. It wasn’t going well at the University of Utah. I engaged with Garth at this pathobiology conference, suggested some ideas. He took an interest in them. But there wasn’t any way that we could really -- it just wasn’t working out for us to have this. Research collaboration wasn’t going well. I didn’t have support at the University of Utah. And then from my perspective it was a chance that Garth had this opportunity at MD Anderson. And I’m not sure exactly what it was, as we discussed, but he decided to bring me here. So that’s how I arrived here, which felt -- it was just -- some phrase. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD Serendipity?

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Yeah, something favors the prepared. Or something. I can’t remember what those are. But obviously I had initiated a relationship with him, and he saw something. And so when he had an opportunity, it presented an opportunity for me. And it was the only one I had, so I took it. Then here as I said, he wasn’t a particularly great administrator. Not someone who wanted to do some of the jobs. He asked me to do them. I said yes. I had that tendency to say yes, even though it wouldn’t necessarily be serving my career directly. It would serve the department or someone else. Helped me somewhat, but it wasn’t me sitting in my lab doing research. It was me doing something for somebody else. So I said yes to that. And got those roles that we talked about as section chief and training coordinator, director of that program in the graduate school. And ultimately became the deputy chair of the Tumor Biology Department in 1995. And I’m going to have to hunt around for some dates at the moment. So several things happened in that mid 1990s time. I was more active in the graduate school. And I’m trying to find in here where I became president of the graduate school. Have to search around in this CV, thanks to my relatively poor retention of some of these dates. Trying to find. Let’s see. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD So member. The University of Texas Graduate School. That’s different.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Here. So in 1995 I was the deputy department chair. And then pretty active in the graduate school. Various committees. Visible because of this large cancer biology course, which was I think one of the biggest courses in the school at the time. And I got elected to -- became the vice president elect of the graduate school in 1997. And then I was president of the graduate school in 1998 to 1999. And also in that period of time the then vice president for academic affairs Jim Bowen had become aware of me, because I had been saying yes to various things. And he saw me I think as someone he wanted to mentor for a leadership role. He saw me as someone who could potentially do his job someday. And so I had worked with him on a couple of projects. And one of them establishing an ethics committee. I also began to work with Emil on establishing a faculty senate. But he made me an assistant to the vice president for academic affairs in 1994 right before I became the deputy chairman. And a year before I became the vice president elect of the graduate faculty. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD Can I ask you about your working relationship with Jim Bowen?

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Jim was a like person to me. Well, it begins to sound like I’m bragging if I talk about his characteristics after saying he was a like person to me. But he was an individual who had done research, but administration was really his strength. He was a very strong proponent of education. He was a collegial kind of a man. He had a lot of integrity. And he was one of the three executives in the senior leadership team at the time Dr. LeMaistre was president. LeMaistre had a vice president for research, Frederick Becker, and a vice president for academic affairs, Jim Bowen. And I think they may have had a vice president for finance or something like that. So that was the executive structure. So in catching Jim Bowen’s attention and being asked to work with him, he was a relatively high level connection in the institution. And him taking an interest in me and seeing characteristics, that he thought I could do these kinds of administrative jobs. And so he was I think very deliberately putting me forward and putting me in roles where I could be visible. And he could mentor me. And so that was one of the key points I think when he took that on, combined with the next year deputy department chair. The year after that vice president for the -- so I was becoming fairly visible in the institution. And I think the next key event was the faculty senate. And again I’m going to have to dig around in here to remind myself of -- Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD That was a date I really had trouble finding too. But it would have been in the ’90s.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

I’m just going to have to hunt around here. Let’s see. Those were MD Anderson. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD Because you were the first chair of the faculty senate too.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Yeah, I’m just trying to find where that is in my CV here. Flip around a bit here. Within institutional committee activities such -- Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD Yeah I’m looking. That’s on page seven. That’s where they start.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Some of the tasks that I was working on with Jim Bowen pop up in here. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD Here it is. 1991 to 1993. Faculty senate chair.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Right. So this was an idea that Dr. LeMaistre wanted to establish a faculty governance committee. And Jim Bowen either convinced him of that, or he brought it up with Jim Bowen. But Jim Bowen was pushing for that. And then so Jim Bowen got me involved in that. So assistant to the vice president for academic affairs was ’94, ’95. But Jim Bowen had me working on the various things for him. And for example in ’89 and ’91 I was working on this faculty governance committee, which was working to try to establish the faculty senate. And I was working on this education awards program, which created the faculty achievement awards. And I was working on this ethics committee. ’89 to ’91. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD So he was really trying to tag you as a person who was part of building educational culture.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Yeah, he was trying to groom me for, mentor me for a leadership role. I think he saw me as someone who could do his job someday. And then so yeah the faculty senate election committee then happened in 1990. And I was elected chairman in 1991. And that in itself is a bit of an interesting story. Because there were at least two of us near the end that were being considered, J Freireich and myself. And J certainly had his supporters. But there were some faculty. J Freireich was a somewhat controversial individual in the organization. Very passionate, forceful guy. Of course with his incredible accomplishments in clinical oncology. But not easy to get along with. And fighting with Dr. LeMaistre. Fighting with other people at the time on various issues. And some of the people that were working behind the scenes to create the faculty senate and working on this election process were nervous about him being the first president of the faculty senate because he was likely to be a polarizing figure as viewed by them. And possibly someone who would get off to a rough start with the administration. I on the other hand was seen as someone who wouldn’t be like that, who would be able to bring people together, and would work well with the administration. So I think that’s what -- and Howard Thames, who was a professor in the Department of Biostatistics, was a guy who was arguing that -- he told me later he was pushing for me. And there were a couple of others that were pushing for me, because they were worried about J as the first leader. J eventually did become chairman of the faculty senate, but many years later. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD But it’s always interesting how there’s a particular person who’s right at a particular historical moment at an institution.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Yeah. And again these were -- wasn’t something I was seeking. But it came to me because of I think this past history of things going on. So I was elected. And at that time the faculty senate chairman was two years. And ever since then it’s only been one year. So I was the first one and the only one to serve two consecutive years. Others have been reelected and ultimately served two or more years. During the time I was faculty senate chairman we created the convocation, the honors convocation. And we created the faculty achievement awards. Even helped design the medallion. I won one of those eventually for education. And the other key thing about that was the president of the faculty senate was put on the president’s advisory board. So now at that time LeMaistre had an advisory board that was the top people in the institution. It’s now -- they changed it around when Dr. Mendelsohn came in. It’s now the management committee. And I still sit on the management committee. Another reason why the senior vice president role is important. But now I was sitting at the table. This was the body most close to the president that he asked for advice. And so now I was really visible. First chairman of the faculty senate, etc. So that was ’91, ’93. My department chairman was getting increasingly erratic. I became the deputy department chair ’95. And that same year, for a couple years my department chair had been getting increasingly erratic. He had married a woman who was -- psychologically something was wrong with her. There’s some psychological stuff that I don’t really understand where people can be influenced by their partner, and they both can exhibit paranoia, schizophrenia. And they had that kind of a relationship and they started making up incredibly wild scientific claims and stories of all sorts. She was particularly bad and toxic. And they claimed the Gulf War syndrome was caused by some sort of a mycoplasma thing that was created from some -- we had given Hussein some -- the CIA had done something. And it was a crazy crazy story. We had Gulf War veterans visiting us with their blood for them to test. And Garth stirring them up. And just craziness. Threats and accusations against his own friends. Josh Fidler in particular. But a bizarre episode of a prominent scientist and department chair becoming increasingly strange. And it’s an amazing episode. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD Sounds very painful too.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

It was very strange. And there was some serious concern that one of these Gulf War veterans or somebody else that Garth was stirring up would hurt somebody here. Because he was claiming we were blocking his research. And he knew how to save them and we were preventing it from happening. And so get unstable emotional people who are ill. And so there was a lot of concern about that. So I was sitting at my desk one day in 1995 and I got a phone call from Dr. LeMaistre. And he said basically I’ve had it with Garth, you’re now the department chairman ad interim. And so I had to walk across the hall, tell Garth he’s no longer the chairman, and I was. And so he stayed there in the department for at least a year. And I had him up. And so I was trying to be the deputy -- I mean the ad interim department chairman then. And I did that for three years. And that was difficult. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD What was difficult about it?

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Well, the man who had brought me here, supported me to become a tenured professor here, a colleague, a respected man, and a very proud man, egotistical guy. And suddenly he lost his job, and so that was difficult. It was difficult because there was some possibility of some physical threat. Either from him or from his wife or one of the folks that they were stirring up around the country. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD Were there particular steps that were taken to calm that situation down?

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Well, just by dint of my -- what I did. I didn’t move him out of his office. Some people probably thought that was wrong. But I didn’t take him out of his office. I took over leadership of the department but I didn’t throw him out of his office. I tried to treat him with respect. I tried to pull the department together and keep it going. The vice president for research Fred Becker seemed to be bent on having the department wither away from lack of attention. And so I tried to keep it going, tried to keep people from leaving. Only one faculty member left. And Garth left within a year or so. Think it was a little over a year. I don’t remember exactly. And we hung in there. But there are today one or two faculty of that department who are in that department that still have negative feelings about me because they thought -- they didn’t like the way I handled that situation. But by about 1998 Dr. LeMaistre was coming into the institution. Dr. Becker. So then we had this period of turnover between ’98 to 2000 where Dr. Mendelsohn coming in, Garth leaving the institution, Fred Becker leaving the institution, Jim Bowen leaving the institution, and the search is going on for a vice president for research. What were we going to do there? What about the vice president for academic affairs? Physician in chief was changing. A lot of changing going on. People, there was the process where two of our internal individuals, Andy von Eschenbach and Charles Balch, were competing for the president’s job along with John Mendelsohn. Ultimately Mendelsohn was chosen. Andy von Eschenbach went on to become head of the FDA, head of the NIH. Balch went on to become executive director of the surgical oncology professional group and various other things. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD Could I interrupt you now? Because I’m aware of the time. We’re almost at 10:00. And since we’re at this moment of transition maybe we should --

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Yeah, so I think we should stop there and pick it up there from the point where we’re transitioning the department, the institutional executive leadership, and Dr. Mendelsohn’s arrival. And then we can go on into the how I ended up with moving from the department into essentially institution level administration. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD That sounds like a good plan.

Stephen Tomasovic, PhD:

Besides that my voice is getting hoarse. Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD All right. Well, I am stopping the recorder unit now at about seven minutes of 10:00. "

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Chapter 08: An Ability to Work With and Within Structure

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