I have a soft spot for Doctor Who — Tom Baker in particular. He is the Doctor I remember as a child, hiding behind the sofa on a Saturday evening. Whichever Doctor you favour, we can agree on one thing: the Doctor is a Time Lord. Master of time.
But the Doctor is rarely alone. There are companions. People who share the danger, the workload, and the thinking. People who amplify what is possible. The TARDIS is bigger on the inside — and so, in theory, is the Doctor’s time.
That is the seduction of building a research team. What if your creativity were not limited by 24 hours in a day? What if it were limited only by imagination? If there are more hands, more minds, more energy — then more work gets done. More data gathered and more ideas tested. More papers written. You multiply time by multiplying people.
University management loves this model. It scales income, scales outputs and it scales reputation. And intellectually, the logic is flawless. Win the grant. Recruit the doctoral student. Appoint the post-doc. Build the pyramid. When I was a young academic, I interviewed at a department where the head described his vision as a series of pyramids. A permanent academic sitting at the top of each, supported by a team beneath generating momentum. It is a compelling image. Though I remember thinking that sitting on top of a pyramid looked rather uncomfortable and insecure.
The Promise: From Time Slave to Time Shaper
In Time Shaper language, this is the ultimate move. You are no longer limited by your own hours. You are limited only by collective creativity. A strong team can: multiply outputs; increase ambition; accelerate data collection and expand intellectual reach
I have experienced this several times, but will draw on my most recent example. Three years ago we secured a substantial Arts and Humanities Research Council grant — just shy of a million pounds. Two post-docs were planned: one field-based geophysics, one lab-based palaeoclimate reconstruction. Elegant, clear and each role focused on an areas where I was not an expert. In theory, my research capacity had doubled overnight.
But theory rarely survives contact with reality. Both initial appointees withdrew after delays finishing their PhDs. We restructured the team. Appointed four instead. Visa delays slowed start dates. Some appointments were not as strong as hoped. Personality dynamics disrupted cohesion. Leadership time expanded and the administrative load increased. The grant ends next month. One team member is just finding his stride — producing excellent work — and may soon have to leave the country. Did the team increase output? Yes. Has it accelerated ideas? Yes. Has it reduced my workload? Not in the way I once imagined. Because building a team does not remove work. It changes its nature.
The Shift: From Doing to Directing
When you build a team, you stop doing some of the research and start directing it. For some, this is energising. For others — particularly those who entered academia for the craft of discovery like me — it can feel like stepping away from the thing that defines you. And here vocation enters the picture. If research is merely career — a performance metric, a promotion pathway — then building a team is a rational scaling strategy. If research is vocation — an expression of curiosity, creativity and identity — then the equation is more complex. Because you are not merely scaling output. You are altering your relationship to the work itself.
There is also something more personal. I find delegation difficult. It is often faster for me to do something myself than to explain it. I have high standards. I have a strong sense of ownership. Letting go requires trust — and humility. No one does it quite the way you would. If you cannot let go, you become the bottleneck. And then the team amplifies stress rather than reducing it. That has been my recent experience at least.
The Time Shaper becomes a manager of other people’s time. The Doctor may travel with companions — but someone still has to steer the TARDIS and that is often hard going.
Alternative Models: Ecosystems vs Pyramids
My wife has taken a different approach. She identifies talented undergraduates, nurtures them, and builds an intellectual ecosystem around her interests. Many of these projects sit adjacent to her core agenda rather than directly dependent upon it.
It is lower cost financially — but high investment in energy and mentorship. Some students flourish. Some drift away. That too has emotional cost. But this ecosystem model feels different from the pyramid model. Pyramids demand alignment, while the ecosystems allow diversity. Both multiply creativity. Both require leadership and neither is free.
Before You Build a Team, Ask…
If you are considering scaling your research capacity, here are some uncomfortable but necessary questions:
Do I want to lead, or do I want to do? These are different roles.
Can I genuinely delegate without micromanaging? If not, I will multiply stress.
Does this team amplify my vocation — or distance me from it?
Am I prepared for the administrative and emotional load? Funding, visas, personalities, mentoring — these are real.
Is my research vision clear enough to align others around it?
What kind of structure suits me? Pyramid? Network? Ecosystem? Solo excellence?
Teams magnify capacity — but they also magnify weakness.
The Real Lesson
Building a team is absolutely a Time Shaper move. But it is not magic. You move from being limited by your own hours to being limited by funding cycles, immigration rules, personalities, institutional bureaucracy and your own leadership maturity. The Doctor has companions. But companions require care. And if you love the craft of research itself — the excavation, the writing, the intellectual wrestling — then stepping into a leadership role changes the texture of your days. That change can be exhilarating. Or unsettling. Or both. More time is rarely the answer. Better alignment is.
The question is not: “Should I build a team?”
It is:
“What kind of Time Shaper do I want to be?”
Because becoming a Time Lord does not simply expand time. It changes who you are in relation to it.
