The 54th Grammy Awards held several important lessons for me. Adele credited Rick Rubin (New York Times profile) for raising her awareness of “quality” and helping her to make several decisions. Dave Grohl credited musicianship, a garage studio and producer Butch Vig for the execution success of the Foo Fighters album Wasting Light. Nicki Manaj‘s ‘Roman Holiday’ performance was a Catholic-influenced train wreck. These lessons on execution, mentoring and team-building are critical to the advice that I give to academics on their career development and research programs.