Changing Academic Life

Moshe Vardi is a Professor of Computer Science at Rice University in the US and holds numerous honours and awards. This is the second part of our conversation where we focus more on the changes and challenges in academic life. Moshe reflects on: the increasing pressures to publish, the seduction of big data on how we evaluate research, and the increasing pressure and stress on students for these and other reasons; how we need academics to get more involved in social issues but that we are instead training people to be self-centred focusing on their own careers just at a time when we need then to get more involved in social issues; whether we should be focusing mentoring more on post-tenure people because of how hard it is to sustain an innovative research agenda over time; and why we need to have more conversations about our obligations as academics to take more social responsibility.The first part of the conversation (separate podcast) discusses the social implications of technology & our responsibility not just computer scientists but all academics.“Now people feel that if they don’t graduate with 10 papers they are not competitive in the job market.” “Assessing research is like assessing art. History will decide what is important, what is not important. We have to make some judgement now but we have to be incredibly modest about the quality of our judgement. … data gives the illusion it is measurable.” “We are basically telling people, just be self-centred, then we’re discovering very often after they have received tenure of full professor, oh my goodness they are really self-centred! … We’ve selected them for being self-centred. This is the paradox of academia.” “We expect people to be innovative now for 45 years. That’s incredibly difficult.”He talks about (times approximate) … [You can also download a full transcript here]01:35 Reflecting on changes in academia over time – an inflationary process going on, publication expectations. And the expectation of having many papers now is corrupting the system. There is increasing pressure on PhD students now.06:35 Technology making it easier now for more transparency re number of publications, citations. Not convinced it is helpful. Talks about being asked to talk at an EU conference about how to use big data to help in evaluation of research and innovation and he gave a cautionary account – can we be sure we know what to measure. How do you assess research? Data giving the illusion it is measurable. But significance doesn’t always translate into h-Indexes. 11:07 He has been told that 40% of students at his university are going to counselling services to ask for help. Discusses reasons why this might be the case. Economic anxiety. Crisis in the humanities because of rising cost of tuition and wanting to get a well-paying job. So increasing engineering students. Needing humanities to be involved in the discussions about technology and human life and dignity, answering questions about what is the good life, understanding lessons from history. Learnt a new phrase recently, lawnmower parenting – holding and pushing. So partly how we raise our children. Talks about ‘snowflakes’ and this generation of students being much more fragile. Needs to be more sensitive to this, teaching his students where they are. Tries to be more gentle and encouraging.17:40 How he wasn’t always like this. Growing up in Israel in a very direct culture.19:30 My question about late career stage and more freedom to become involved in social issues and ethics? Discusses how he was never on a tenure track. But wouldn’t advise someone on a tenure track to do what he is doing now. First have to show you can do research and scholarship, telling people they have to be self-centred but then finding we have self-selected for self-centredness – the paradox of academia. Discuss22:06 Discusses that we are mentoring the wrong people, shouldn’t be focused on assistant professors (though of course should be mentoring young people). The biggest risk to the institution is that people will get tenure and have another 30-35 years to go … and not stay productive. People don’t realise how hard it is to keep coming up with new ideas. Most people want to feel they are useful, to contribute. But the challenges of trying to mentor senior people and so it doesn’t happen much. And personally feeling awkward having this sort of conversation with a fellow full professor.28:30 Shifting the language from mentoring to coaching? Talks about a surgeon in New York who wrote an article about having coaching. We don’t have coaches but maybe we should. The culture of success makes this a bit more difficult to have such conversations though. Discusses his experiences as a chair doing evaluations of full professors in his department. Could only do them easily for the people who don’t need them. Going away from annual evaluations in the business world, instead feedback on a continual basis. Needing training. More about asking questions than giving answers. The difficulty when people don’t want to recognize what’s not going well, and even not admit it to themselves.35:50 Needing more of a conversation about our social responsibility as academics. But focus instead is on career, show us you are smarter than the other one. We need to talk more about privileges and obligations. Do faculty have an obligation for public service? We usually stop the thinking about service at faculty, school, university, profession. But need to have a conversation about what are our societal obligations. Gives as an issue, how technology is impacting society. We are public servants, what does it mean. We need to open this conversation.41:00 Practical measures? Launching an initiative at Rice to discuss exactly this. Rice found itself on front page news with CRISPR. The students are now saying we need more ethics training. Maybe the biggest impact on the future is education. Discusses how he talked about this topic recently with first year students. Thinks we have a chance with the next generation. And being careful about not leaving people behind (mentions Dream Hoarders book).48:25 Goes back to his religious background. Lots of ‘do this, don’t do that’. ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. The rest is commentary’. Beyond getting on with people as social skill, it is social justice as part of the value system. Somehow it’s not part of the conversation. 51:49 EndRelated Linkshttps://www.acm.org/articles/people-of-acm/2017/moshe-vardiCarol Greider: Carol Greider - Same day, a Nobel prize and a grant rejection ...Donna Strickland: Female Nobel prize winner deemed not important enough for a Wikipeadia entry.Atul Gawande The Coach in the Operating Room | The New YorkerRice Uni & CRISPR in the news Rice University Professor Helped Generate CRISPR'd Babies | The ...David Hendry – Uni of Washington https://faculty.washington.edu/dhendry/Richard Reeves, Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About ItA PhD is not Enough

Moshe Vardi is a Professor of Computer Science at Rice University in the US and holds numerous honours and awards. In this conversation he talks about the impact of technologies on society and how this challenges what computer science should be concerned about and our responsibilities to engage in these issues. What he has to say speaks not only to computer scientists but to all academics.Side note: This is the first part of a much longer conversation. Part 2 (separate podcast) discusses the changes and challenges in academia more generally.“Suddenly we [computer scientists] are running society and we are poorly equipped.”“We focus too much on ethics and not enough on policy.”“How do we make sure this technology is for the most effective use of mankind?” (Referencing Ada Lovelace)“As a discipline we need to start asking, what is our (social) responsibility.” “And a general question for academic, … what is our responsibility as academics?”He talks about (times approximate) …  [You can also download a full transcript here]01:35 Talking about his Jewish background and what it gave him in terms of social ethics, being a hard-core computer scientist, and a key event in 2011 when IBM Watson won in Jeopardy that made him think about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and implications for society, and that we as computer scientists are so poorly equipped. Now starting a new course on ethics on computer science for their third years.11:00 Discussing different waves of computer science changes. And now increasing news media on technology impacts eg Facebook, Apple devices. Physics had the focus in the 1940s with the first atomic bomb and got a social conscience. Biologists have a second moment now with CRISPR and genetic editing.  Calls for more ethical training of students, and by students.16:50 The agreement that ethics needs to be taught, and then the debate on who should teach ethics and whether courses should be co-taught by philosophers and computer scientists. He argues we focus too much on ethics and not enough on policy. But the challenges of predicting impact.21:30 First angle on thinking about AI was thinking about the future of work. How a panel invitation to talk for 10 mins on a ‘big question’ led to focusing on future of work and thinking/reading more about it and becoming more skeptical about economists’ views.26:15 Computer science |(CS) as a discipline is facing a unique moment. We want to look in the mirror and think we are doing good things building technology to help people.  But now technology has a will of its own, has become a monster and not clear who is on control. Talks about Ada Lovelace and call to do good for mankind, Dramatic change though in image of CS even in the last year and a half, as an example, an item on Fox News comparing tech executives to tobacco executives. Also seeing the technical awakening of tech workers.34:35 What is the definition of computer science now? Has Human Computer Interaction been concerned with societal impacts? A concern for ethics, future of work etc is a big part of what he is doing. Also became editor of the magazine for computing professionals. From 2004-2006 studied off-sharing, about jobs, received a lot of press attention, way more exposure than for anything technical. So he knew jobs were important for people. What is our responsibility as CS? And all disciplines can ask the same question. And is it AI or IA (intelligence augmentation)? Also discusses implications for diversity and more importantly inclusion and the 80% left behind.44:00 Technology always changing society but it is moving very fast now. Too fast? The speed that is making it so difficult to adapt and deal with it. And how history will judge this time. Discusses Brexit and Trump election. And the bubbles we live in. We rarely see things outside of our bubbles. Discusses the role of social media in this, in particular Facebook. 54:03 EndRelated Linkshttps://www.acm.org/articles/people-of-acm/2017/moshe-vardiBook: J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy Dennis Ritchie’s second death stories e.g., https://www.cnet.com/news/tech-luminaries-laud-dennis-ritchie-5-years-after-death-second-death-syndrome/ Ender’s Game https://www.amazon.com/Enders-Ender-Quintet-Orson-Scott/dp/0812550706/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=anders+game&qid=1552839614&s=books&sr=1-1-spellCommunications of the ACM

Jofish Kaye is a Principle Research Scientist at Mozilla, and before this he worked at Yahoo and Nokia. Jofish made a deliberate decision not to pursue an academic career after he finished his PhD and it’s interesting to hear how his decision-making criteria evolved from being primarily about the people he could work with to being more values-driven and being able to make an impact. A strong sense of values and having impact are threads in a lot of what he talks about. He also discusses his experiences more generally working in an industry context and also moving into more management/leadership roles. “I think I’m the only person on the planet who likes job searches because you get to re-invent yourself.”“I am concerned the way we treat publications as the way to make success in the world.”“It’s so important and so incumbent upon research as a field to make clear and visible how valuable what it is we do.”“We need to be taking seriously this call for public outreach.”You can download full transcript here Overview: Jofish discusses (approximate times):01:38 Getting a PhD at Cornell and moving into an industry job at Nokia and being able to teach at Stanford09:24 Why he didn’t want to apply for an academic position – the difficulty getting funding vs the freedom to do what he wants in industry, the current Mozilla grant process and research they have supported19:16 Triggers for moving to different companies, looking at what he really enjoyed doing (CHI4Good), and seeking out a way to do that – the job search as a way to reinvent yourself25:11 Moving from more of an industry research role to now also being concerned for shipping product to customers and having impact in the world in a different way30:55 How his thinking about job searching has changed over time, from thinking about the people he would work with, to more values-driven decision making with some additional criteria36:00 Broader accessibility for young people to universities, and the role of public universities, 38:40 His usual pattern of working now with kids/family; and experiences being in a management role, recruiting people, and the ‘Noah’s Ark’ theory about having people who share the same assumptions42:00 Being a leader and manager – managing as administration, checking boxes, etc; leading as trying to build a strategic narrative and the difficulty of coordinating with people who have different epistemological assumptions and how you measure impact50:45 Practical team strategies when people are distributed, combining in-person and online techniques, daily video ‘stand up’ meetings57:18 Challenges around issues of diversity and inclusion across the industry and in particular how to improve diversity in an open source volunteer community 1:01.40 Challenges for academics moving into industry, getting to actionable insights quickly and how to communicate those in the slide deck (the coin of the realm)1:07:38 EndRelated LinksPhoebe Sengers - http://www.cs.cornell.edu/people/sengers/Elizabeth Churchill - http://elizabethchurchill.com Wendy Ju - http://www.wendyju.comPam Hinds - https://profiles.stanford.edu/pamela-hinds Terry Winograd - https://hci.stanford.edu/winograd/ John Tang - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/johntang/ Jed Brubaker - https://www.jedbrubaker.com Allison Druin - https://www.pratt.edu/faculty_and_staff/bio/?id=adruin Casey Fiesler - https://caseyfiesler.com Anna Cox podcast - http://www.changingacademiclife.com/blog/2017/3/5/anna-cox CSCW Medium posts - https://medium.com/acm-cscw DeleteMe - https://abine.com/deleteme/ TallPoppy - https://tallpoppy.io/

Katie Siek is an associate professor in Informatics at Indiana University in the US Katie shares her experiences being part of a dual career couple and has some excellent advice for faculties on how to handle this better. She talks about the challenges having children and learning to take proper time off with her second child. She talks about her passion for mentoring, recognized by a special mentor award and learning how to lobby upwards to effect policy change; also about building her group and their wall sit challenge. We finish with her very personal story of managing an invisible illness at work, and she calls us to have more open and honest discussions about these issues and to advocate for and support one another.“I like to call it a dual career opportunity [because] it's really great to have your partner who is committed and passionate about the areas and understands your struggles.”“I would encourage all my colleagues not propagate the Amazon Warrior woman myths.”[To create change] “Get involved with your faculty council, see if you can create policy at the university level.”[Dealing with an invisible illness] “How do you show you're a good colleague and you're there, and [also give yourself] that time to recover.”[Supporting colleagues with illness] “Advocate to administrators that if you allow someone to recover now they're going to be a stronger colleague…next year in two years or whatever they need.”Full Transcript- click hereShe talks about (times approximate) … 01:59 Her computer science background and the experience of her mother having cancer being the motivation for shifting her PhD topic to health informatics.04:50 Coming back to Indiana as faculty, being part of a dual career couple, and both getting an offer –a two body opportunity. This was in contrast to previous positions in Colorado where only Katie was tenure track and her partner had a research position.07:40 Getting pregnant during tenure process, and also going out on the job market to find a tenure position for both of them while pregnant.11:40 Advice for how to handle dual career couples, for faculties to go after both people.15:20 What she has learnt in having a child, getting out of algorithmic thinking and getting balance and the difficulties juggling baby and work (but worth it).20:04 What she would recommend now – if you have leave do it correctly and don’t propagate the amazon woman lore.23:37 The different experience with her second child. And the importance of a male colleague encouraging them to ‘do it right’ this time.26:02 The pros and cons of remote participation at a PC meeting.29:44 Strategies for making transitions between work and home and doing shifted working windows between them.33:27 Her special mentor award for her women in computing group on campus and her passion about diversity work.37:44 Strategies for how she practically manages her passion research and her mentoring passions, e.g., being selective about events, finding collaborators40:38 Lobbying upwards and learning how to get involved in the Faculty at a policy level. Having people to ask for feedback.47:28 The wall sits.50:25 Reflections on setting up a group coming back to Indiana and establishing the family in the community.55:41 Looking after her own health and wellbeing through goal-setting around running.59:33 Dealing with illness, invisible illnesses, being an advocate for one another.1:10:07 End Related LinksYvonne Rogers - https://uclic.ucl.ac.uk/people/yvonne-rogers Kay Connelly - https://wphomes.soic.indiana.edu/connelly/ Judy Olson - http://www.changingacademiclife.com/blog/2016/6/6/judy-olson Book: David Sedaris (2001) Me talk pretty one day

Leysia Palen is Professor and Founding Chair of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. She has also led the establishment of the Crisis Informatics research area. Leysia shares her career journey in getting to this place, an amazing story of being a first generation PhD, dealing with imposter syndrome, and moving to a new university to support her spouse. It is also a story of focus and perseverance, defining a new research area, being supported by her own soft money, then finally getting a half-time faculty position, while at the same time having a family and growing the internationally recognised Project EPIC. It was only relatively recently that she got tenure and then quickly became a full professor. Leysia also talks the challenges and lessons learnt in setting up and leading a whole new department and what higher education can be in this era. “I was a trailing spouse…and the closest fit for me was Computer Science…but it wasn't an easy fit. […] It's important that both people [academic couple] be valuable in terms of how other people measure value.” “The truth was I still was uncertain if I belonged in the academy. […] I was smarter than I knew and I was more naive than I knew.”“To do research and to do teaching, you have to just be present all the time. You have to stay with a problem. You have to stay with other people and where they are. And that's a particular kind of energy .”“It's naive to think science is only about pursuing ideas that just come to one's head. They have to be good ideas, they have to be tractable ideas.”For a full transcript, click here. Overview:02:45 Being a first generation college student, undergrad at UCSD and PhD at Irvine08:51 Moving to Colorado CS department as a trailing spouse, focusing on keeping the research thread going11:34 Working in soft money, needing to reduce work to what she could do well while she was having children15:08 Moving to a half-time tenure track position, trying to deal with not being a close disciplinary fit, moving to formalize research to make a difference18:23 Setting up a crisis informatics research agenda, and getting it funded23:16 The challenges doing crisis informatics work and self care27:07 Eventually getting tenure, the challenges getting there, and juggling family, physical movement, and home/work, getting a full-time position in 2007 but still not tenured, eventually went for associate without tenure, then later with tenure. And then in a short time to full professor.35:06 Being noticed by the campus for the impact she was having, the multi-disciplinary group, graduating 7 PhD students all women. Setting up a new department of information science. The opportunity to think about the nature of disciplines, what an ischool in 2015 could be like, and re-thinking education.42:34 Learning to be a leader, no training pathways for leadership or role models for setting up a new department, and defining discipline vs department.52:21 Final reflections and working with a 50 year view. 56:51 EndRelated LinksDepartment of Information Science - https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/infoscience Palen & Anderson, 2016, Crisis Informatics – New data for extraordinary times, Science. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6296/224 Ed Hutchins - http://pages.ucsd.edu/~ehutchins/ Aaron Cicourel - https://sociology.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/emeritus/aaron-cicourel.html Don Norman - https://jnd.org Amy Voida - https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/information-science/amy-voida Ricarose Roque - https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/information-science/ricarose-roque Brian Keegan - https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/information-science/brian-c-keegan

Mike Twidale is a professor in the School of Information Sciences at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, recipient of numerous teaching awards including Outstanding IS teacher in 2017, and more recently becoming program director for a new Masers degree. We talk about how he handled the tenure process, his teaching approaches, and his notion of agile research and what this means. We also discuss stepping up into leadership roles. Having thought he would never be any good at leadership, he has developed his own leadership style by playing to his own strengths and the complementary strengths of those around him, among other effective strategies. We also talk about the value of story-telling to make more explicit the multiple different ways and realities of how we do academia. And he talks about metrics as just being an indicator of something and looking for other complementary ways to also explore that something. “Our job as we get more senior is to speak up for a diversity of different ways of doing scholarship.”“If it’s really research we don’t actually know what the answer is.” “How do you design something so that it is easy to change rather than how do you design something so it is right so you don’t need to change it?”“When a faculty works well it is nurturing and it’s like a family.”Overview: [You can also download a full transcript here]04:26 How thinking about getting tenure matters10:15 Teaching15:05 Agile research25:00 Stepping into a leadership role43:05 Storytelling, self-care and metricsAnd in more detail, he talks about (times approximate) … 01:40 Moving from Computer Science in the UK to a School of Information Sciences at UIUC in the US in 1997 as an adventure to “try it out”. Seeing how he could go with the teaching. The challenges of multi-disciplinarity. Learning the US academic tradition including tenure. How thinking about getting tenure matters04:26 Going into a tenure track position, via an exception as a Q appointment. He talks about how he approached the tenure process. Was successful but always in the back of his mind was that he could always go back to the UK. Didn’t put pressure on himself – viewing it as an adventure, had a backup of being able to find another job if needed, and realizing it is “just a set of rules rather than something that is about my identity”. Vs treating it as about identity creates pressure and leads to conformist about what will be acceptable to the tenure committee. The paradoxes. And the value of the uni documents about tenure rules creating many different opportunities for excellence.09:05 “Our job as we get more senior is to speak up for a diversity of different ways of doing scholarship.”Teaching10:15 Winning an excellent teaching award. How excellent mentoring helped him. A strong culture of excellent teaching in the school. Talks about the contrast of being a soft person in a computer science and then being the hard techie person in the iSchool. All relative. 11:55 The formal and informal mentoring he received – an Australian historian, Boyd Raywood, who could help translate the US academic system for him; Betsy Hearn and the power of storytelling. The teaching techniques he has developed – more hands-on activitiesAgile Research15:05 Drawing inspiration from agile software development to ask what might agile research look like and how can we speed up the iterations. Compares this to the ‘straw man’ logical waterfall method for computers but it doesn’t work as the world is a lot messier than we would like and we are fallible human beings who can’t follow rational methods. Compares this to grant and thesis proposals which look like the waterfall method but we all know that this doesn’t work like this.19:40 Influencing funding bodies about this? So far no but he has a plan. He has just written a paper to justify agile as a reasonable research method. And talks about how it can fit into deliverables reporting requirements for funded research. Needing more honesty and transparency about the process of doing research. Not doing anyone a favour particularly our students who look at the post-hoc constructed representations of senior researchers’ work and compare it their messiness of their own. Honesty especially important given the increasing interest in reproducible research. “So long as you admit that thing you are doing is a legal fiction to save other people the time and bother and not pretend that is the thing we did.”22:55 “If it’s really research we don’t actually know what the answer is… have some guesses… but time and again we discover something far more interesting than what we intended to look for.”Stepping into a leadership role25:00 Reflecting on his program director role. 5-6 years would have said he had no desire to do any academic leadership thing as didn’t think he would be good at it. No ambition. Thought he would be a bad fit as good at divergent thinking but not good at details, keeping track of things, person management. However the need and opportunity arose to be director of new masters program. Thought he would have a go. Brand new degree to be created out of nothing with help of fellow faculty. So an opportunity to build something new and interesting. That piqued his interest. He had written an article about what an agile university might look like. So given they didn’t know what should be in this program, how could he design the process to learn as they go? So coming up with structures and getting input from people and nudge it so they are not getting locked into early commitments. “How do you design something so that it is easy to change rather than how do you design something so that it is right so you don’t need to change it?”29:08 Setting it up to enable learning from the start. Helped by colleagues working with him and delegating things to people who were really good at doing things that he was bad at doing. A struggle at times as can egocentrically think that if I hate doing it others do too. [30:34] Learning what it is that plays to other people’s strengths – so getting to know people, reading from their body language that this is something they like. Meg Edwards is very good at systematizing things. Having someone who has complementary skills but also not embarrassed about raising things that really need to be done. An important culture thing (mid-western nice, being polite, not wanting to offend – so have to move it along to see if people actually agree or disagree and what do we disagree about)32:41 The important role of the leader in setting the culture. The importance of having lots of very small meetings including one-on-ones. Lots of little conversations more productive. And if it goes wrong it’s my fault, my job.33:51 The people he learnt his leadership skills from – actual and implicit mentors. Discusses Doug Shepherd, Ian Sommerville disagreeing; Doug Shepherd – managing by walking around; Alan Dix - playfulness; Tom Rodden – sharing and including people; 38:35 The value of managing by walking around, understanding needs. Staying curious. Bringing research interests to management/leadership, figuring out strengths and what other things are needed, who can do those. “If you play to your strengths you are going more with the grain as opposed to against the grain.”41:50 Role of systematization, structuring, as program matures and as you get bigger. Breaking into small teams work because of way humans work. Storytelling, self-care and metrics43:05 Role of story-telling. For example telling graduate students how to get a job – collections of stories that reveals getting jobs in different ways.45:20 Story-telling in the faculty as well? Some happens already. Easier when smaller faculty and now needs more effort.  Stories – for new professors and doctoral students who want an academic career – stories of struggling around and how people overcame adversity, or even admitting not knowing and then things clicking into place. Those stories revealing the processes. Also stories of people who are successful and how much appears to be luck, seizing opportunity – “the factor of luck, happenstance, we often don’t want to tell because it doesn’t fit the heroic story but it is still an issue of seizing that, but helping people to realise, don’t be dispirited if one doesn’t work out, these things happen.” 48:25 We’d like to believe the world is rational. Same in the hiring process. But it’s not. Discussion of trying to be fair in hiring, to see the whole person, being open to different research approaches. Still times when you are not sure. Incredibly difficult issue.51:05 Story of Leigh Estabrook who recruited him – one of her famous phrases was no grant proposal is ever wasted. You will be benefitting from that in the future in a way you don’t know about. “When a faculty works well it is nurturing and it’s like a family, that recognises that each individual in the family is different and unique.”. Other practices building a nurturing culture – always there, sustaining it via eg faculty retreats, sharing ideas, sharing stories. Key is inviting more than one story. Hallway conversations. Collaborations around teaching. Also need to recognize it can be intimidating for new people and need to be welcoming. The problems of comparing yourself to many others and thinking you need to be the union set of all those people.55:55 Self-care – needing to do more on this. Commute time of 12 mins on average. Always temptation to do more and more work. Tries to make time for himself at the weekends. Travels a lot and tacks on an extra day of sightseeing. Sets a puzzle in his head and leaves his subconscious to chew over it but this needs time and relaxation and can’t force it.  58:15 Talks about listening to podcast with Tom Rodden – do good work and other things will flow. Problems with metrics. Interested in looking at metrics as part of a socio-technical system, the doing of science. Have to remember is it the proxy and not the think itself. The challenge is to allow the telling of other stories. What you lose by turning it into a number. Getting qualitative and quantitative data working together. Numbers can help us when we want to be fair. But numbers are not unbiased. And what’s that something else we are actually looking for and how can we look for that. Eg looking for potential. What are some indicators of potential? Different people show potential in different ways. “Reminding ourselves it [metric number] is just a proxy and what are wanting it to be a proxy for may help.”01:03:20 The challenge of academics being encouraged to be individualist. But you don’t have to do it all on your own.01:05:13 EndRelated LinksBoyd Rayward - https://ischool.illinois.edu/people/w-boyd-rayward Betsy Hearne - https://ischool.illinois.edu/people/betsy-hearne Meg Edwards - https://ischool.illinois.edu/people/meg-edwards Leigh Estabrook - http://cirss.ischool.illinois.edu/person.php?id=69Twidale & Nichols, ‘Agile Methods for Agile Universities’ - https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/129936578.pdf Kjeld Schmidt – ‘The trouble with “tacit knowledge”’, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): The Journal of Collaborative Computing and Work Practices, vol. 21, no. 2-3, June 2012, pp. 163-225.Tom Rodden podcast - http://www.changingacademiclife.com/blog/2016/11/2/tom-rodden

Lindsay Oades is a Professor at the University of Melbourne, where he is also the Director of the Centre for Positive Psychology at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education.  He has co-edited the Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Positivity and Strengths-Based Approaches at Work. I caught up with Lindsay in Budapest at the 2018 European Positive Psychology Conference and was keen to talk to him because of his expertise in positive organisations and taking a systems perspective to promoting wellbeing at work. In this conversation we talk about his own experiences of changes in the academic sector, and his key learnings getting to full professor. We also talk about what positive psychology can contribute to academic work environments and wellbeing, covering issues around values, purpose and meaning, strengths, promotion processes, performance reviews, job crafting, and academic leadership. Listen out for his great terms like ‘academic feudalism’ and ‘justificationism’.We got so caught up in the conversation that neither of us noticed that his microphone had dropped so there is about 5 mins towards the end when he is talking about job crafting. If his distant voice is too difficult to hear, stay on to the end of the podcast where I repeat what he said word for word. The verbatim text is also below for that section.“Don’t take it too seriously, don’t get sucked into the rumination and the competitiveness that people go through, and the valuing of each other based on the academic gaze.”“A lot of academics mistake seriousness with excellence.”“I…coped through…humour, patience, relationships, being in good teams, being quite purposeful…about why I was doing it, so I didn’t have an instrumental view of academia of publications for publication sake, grants for grants sake.”“Academics love autonomy. The best way to manage academics is to get out of their way.”Overview: [You can also download a full transcript here]01:30 Background09:00 Changing challenges of academic life16:45 Key learnings getting to full professor25:30 Values, purpose, meaning and the promotion processes32:40 Well-being and academia, and how considered academics create to absurd systems41:00 What Positive Psychology is about, and how it impacts his management role50:05 Taking a strengths-based developmental approach to performance reviews and job crafting1:02:57 Final thoughts – towards the positive universityAnd in more detail, he talks about (times approximate) … 1:30 Lindsay talks about the different phases of his career, from clinical psychology, to doing an MBA and then moving to a business school, and now moving “from negative to positive, from individual to larger system”, an evolution in scale, and what systems thinking offers for him. From health to wellbeing to business to education.Changing challenges of academic life9:00 The changes he has seen in academic life over the course of his career – huge. Increased in student numbers, internationalization, reduced funding, more managerial/commercial style, contracting of competitive funding, freezing of PhD scholarship levels and students having to work much more. Quite a different place. What hasn’t changed is the undervalue that the Australian culture places on academics. Anti-intellectualism. Thinks intellectual life valued more in some parts of North America and Europe and popular media. Changes have led to fewer positions, skepticism about ability to develop careers, larger teaching loads, multiple people scrambling for small amounts of money (academic feudalism). “You see these so called good minds spending huge amounts of time to get access to $10K…relatively small amounts of money”. “A lot of academics are very detailed oriented people, what I’d call naive rationalists, they think they are going to get a solution through reasoning and then get frustrated when politics or economics knocks them around.”13:30 Own experience? His academic vantage point quite different as professor and director of a centre. Reflects on when he was a lecturer, dealing with teaching load and applying for funding, but was doing more applied research so used consultancies as a way of generating funding to side-step the feudalism. A deliberate decision. Institution allowed him to have a slush fund. But not all academics or disciplines are able to do this. Still went for competitive grants but now with a base level source.Key learnings getting to full professor16:45 Key learnings getting to full professor? Patience. Not taking the system too seriously because academic life can be very disheartening. A lot of academics would say this, that they feel very undervalued by their own institution and most of the recognition they get is from people they don’t see, from overseas who recognize the quality of your work, yet in your own institution you are told you are not producing enough or teaching enough classes or whatever. So this weird local invalidation and validation from someone a long way away. So don’t seek validation in the wrong place. And remembering what a university is, this incredibly resilient organization. They’re 8 or 900 year old institutions. They do this partly through the slowness of themselves. A lot of academics mistake seriousness with excellence. The constant workload and multiple roles that academics have to cross between teaching, research, community engagement and administration, without a lot of understanding – most think of academics as a teacher. So no real understanding of what academics do. What he learnt was probably a light touch, non-grasping view of what it is, don’t take it too seriously, don’t get sucked into the rumination and the competitiveness that people go through, and the valuing of each other based on the academic gaze. Finds it comical at times. Valuing the absurdity.21:45 Need to find good mentors, get into good teams. A lot his good research output is from being in good teams. And a healthy skepticism and sardonic humour. When he was younger, he felt academia was ageist. Couldn’t achieve criteria for professor unless you had time. “I’ll keep doing what I’m doing because I’ll get to professor anyway because age will take of it.” So somewhat of an ageism in the way it is structured, the system values declarative knowledge that comes with age. So he probably coped through a bit of humour, patience, relationships, being in good teams, being quite purposeful, “I’ve always had my own purpose about why I was doing it, so I didn’t have an instrumental view of academia of publications for publication sake, grants for grants sake.” So a non-instrumental approach. Care about it. Always been attracted to ideas and learning. Love of learning is one his number one strengths. Conceptually strong. Good with ideas. That comes naturally, easier for him than some other people. That combined with a value and purpose for why I’m doing it, that has buoyed him along.Values, purpose, meaning and the promotion processes25:30 In a team at Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne, 17 people. A very values and purpose driven group of people. He has some very clear things he is working towards, helping other people, changing systems in service of well-being. So quite purpose, meanings-based initiatives. Keeps those close. And reminds himself. So no surprise he is attracted to ideas like impacts rather than h-indices and metrics of how we stack up against others. One of the frustrating things about that when going for promotion- it is very extrinsically focused. He didn’t like the psychological impact because it took him away from what he valued about what he was doing. But having to report on all the extrinsic things that don’t connect to love of learning or meaningful impact you are trying to have. [27:40]. Lower down the tree it was the external impacts. But now at professor it was about being able to get on committees, have an impact. He calls it rampant justifactionism.29:07 His ideal promotion process? Prefers whole of career approach, more portfolio-based, less constrained of how you have to fit yourself into a box. Stories would provide more mechanism for people to tell their stories. Using other media to make the case in more variegated and meaningful ways. From a managerial point of view, one of the ways to exploit the workforce where people love their work. It’s a strength of the workforce but also makes it easier to exploit them. It’s a danger for people who love what they are doing.Well-being and academia, and how considered academics create to absurd systems32:40 Well-being impacts? Has been involved in surveys of academic and managerial staff. Academic experiences different to other sectors. Has seen in the data academics have high levels of workload and stress but reasonably high levels of job satisfaction. That says there is another variable accounting for that – some value they are getting through their work. Meaning, impact, connection. And not the place to go if money is your key driver. The triggers for the stress? A lot of factors – individual, institution, department. Which institution, which faculty? Different pressures. At the individual level, obsessiveness, narcissism, perfectionism – we see these in academics, we select for these qualities too. Overthinkers, good but if overused it is problematic. All these things play out. “One-on-one I find academics generally very nice people, easy to relate to, usually quite kind and considered people. Yet the systems we create and inherit can be kind of absurd.” And it is at the individual level, the considered academic is good. But put them in committees to make decisions and they can’t make a decision and they develop systems that provide justifications. So the systems they create are not that effective. The effect is that it slows everything down. So one-on-one good people, well-intentioned people, smart people, but not always smart in the sense that they understand organizational life. Some serious problems with that that need re-dressing.What Positive Psychology is about, and how it impacts his management role.41:00 Positive Psychology – science of optimal human functioning, taking a strengths-based approach in the service of wellbeing. Historically a re-dressing of a deficits-based focus of psychology.42:55 Impact of PP on how he plays out his role? All understand the language, have the expertise. But rest of the uni don’t have that language. And still a knowledge-behaviour gap in how they manage their own wellbeing, purpose etc. Everyone in the team has a wellbeing coach, wellbeing in the context of the strategy of the centre. Some take more a physical health approach. Others trying to manage their own perfectionism, change their mental attitude about how much they have to work. Ever since he had kids, he doesn’t work weekends. When he told team members they were shocked because they had themselves in the habit of working weekends. Not a sustainable practice. The critical point for him was having kids.48:05 Another example: they have 8 people here at the conference, an expense to the centre, his view is that there is a wellbeing component to it. “My problem with my staff is not do they work hard, but do they work too much.” So this is an opportunity for them to have time to get sustained, rejuvenated. Not about reductionist managerialism/ROI.Taking a strengths-based developmental approach to performance reviews and job crafting50:05 At performance reviews, ask people what are they really trying to do, where are they trying to go. Have authentic candid conversations about what do people really want to do. What’s in this for them. People are varied. How do we enable different career trajectories? About knowing the people you are working with, and appointing them to match the role you want them to play. A problem though in the way universities appoint. He hasn’t formally done strengths-based recruitment but they have done teams-based strengths assessments with VIA and Realise2. Get individual profiles. And also get a team-based profile. “Academics love autonomy. The best way to manage academics is to get out of their way. If you want to manage a wild beast, give it a large paddock. …Academics love autonomy but they also love a rationale.” What Self Determination Theory tells us about this.  Autonomy doesn’t mean anything goes. Have some external research income targets to hit. Not negotiable. How do we do it. Then let the smart people do it. Don’t tell them they have to have micro-managed parts. They’ll usually find a way.55:50 [Lindsay’s microphone dropped down here so the audio is not so clear. Here is a word for word transcript as best I could hear]56:23 You have to do this both individually and as a group and I’ve been trying to push this strategy document so people can see where they fit into where we want to go. And that takes time.[Turning the lens back to academia?]It sounds really trite but the evidence bears it out. Fundamentally people at work often feel undervalued, in general or by their immediate boss. So simple things about what do you actually value about your staff and have you told them and in what medium have you told them. So that is number one.  And number two would be the stuff we talked before about strengths. Have you actually had conversations with staff about their role and the job description and how it can be crafted so that they can use their strengths more than they currently are. And that might take time as well because there are organizational constraints, that you have to deliver this or get this class taught or we’ve got to generate that income or we’ve got to get that contract done. So while at this moment we can’t get you exactly fully there at least have that conversation so there is a plan of how it is going to migrate there and those conversations are really important. Because again with academics, if there is a rationale and there has been a conversation, they will probably accept it for a while if there is good intent. So there’s a couple of things there, enabling them to feel valued and enabling them to use their strengths and mould their work, job craft their work from a strengths base.[Doing that for each other too?]59:03 I think too if you look at the history of the universities as well, they’ve been gendered so you have rationalist males that might not see the value of some of the stuff I was just talking about.  And […] they might not have had the skills for how to do it. And I don’t mean that in a nasty way. People have different skills. If academic life was originally a very cognitive, individual endeavor, you go into your room and do your work. That was old academia for a lot of people. This new academia, looking after people, many many more women in the academic workforce, also culturally much more externally focused than it used to be, much more community engaged, more demands from students, I wouldn’t say more demands, students have been enabled to give more feedback and they do expect a higher level of teaching quality. So a whole range of things that are different to how they have been.[Loved job crafting, same job, but control, choices] And by job crafting I don’t just mean offloading your teaching. [Specific example of job crafting?]1:00:53 Yeah there are a few. In academic life there is obviously research and teaching but the …it may be changing the type of teaching you are doing at a subject level or also gradually doing more research led teaching or face-to-face teaching or particular type of teaching like workshop style, lecture style. Or gradually trying to move to more admin and leadership roles but doing in a way that uses my particular skills or strengths. [end of lost mic – shorter notes continue]1:02 So there are different types job crafting might look like – tasks, relationships, So different forms of what job crafting can look like. So different ways. Enabling people to take charge of their work life, their career. Academics are sophisticated people. They think a lot and they are willing to work hard. So it’s about capturing that.Final Thoughts1:02:57 Currently trying to champion the idea of positive universities. People usually just think of student wellbeing. But it is broader than that – student wellbeing, staff wellbeing, positive organizational practices. How do we take science of wellbeing approaches and apply them to universities? A group of universities around the world currently thinking about it. A bigger picture way of looking at it. He has a paper called “towards positive universities” about how to do it at a tangible level. When people talk about wellbeing, they think it’s the positive experience, feeling happy, but don’t take the functioning bit. Wellbeing from a eudemonic perspective involves positive functioning, growth, virtue. Wellbeing includes good functioning, not just feeling good but functioning well and doing well. That’s where the meaning and purpose part plays a big role. Big changes coming. Universities resilient, they adapt. Not as simple as the commercial arrangement would suggest.Student wellbeing programs still deficit focused. Working on wellbeing literacy. We don’t have a way to communicate about wellbeing. Positive attributes. More than the absence of anxiety and depression. Wellbeing in the broader sense –where students can communicate about what is self-regulation, what is using strengths, what is wellbeing, what is meaning, what is purpose, and communicate in a way that is meaningful for them. Having senior leaders able to see this relationship between wellbeing and performance and communicate this to staff and students explicitly and implicitly.01:10:46 Repeat of the content where Lindsay’s microphone dropped01:14:43 EndRelated LinksLindsay Oades:

Jan Gulliksen is a Professor in Human Computer Interaction and Vice President for Digitalization at KTH in Stockholm Sweden, among various other national and international leadership roles. He was also Dean of school for 7 years and we talk here mostly about his experiences and thoughts on middle management and academic leadership. He shares his personal development as a leader as well as some practical strategies, many using techniques from his background in theatre and drama, for example, in how to read and interact with people, or in using improv theatre to create insight and shift values around PhD supervision.  We also touch on a range of other issues including the nature of academic freedom, building organisational values, the importance of 2-way trust, what makes good role models, the problems with meetings, the ‘too’ in working too much, and much more."You are building an organisation and you are actually building values. This is probably the single most important thing…around the values that you are bringing…and trust is then intimately connected to these values.""Everybody should be able to play in the organisation on equal terms.""I never say I work too much. It’s when people add that word ‘too’ that it becomes a problem…claiming [it’s] more than they want to [and] not in control of setting that. But...it is always our own choices how many tasks we take on.""We have too many [meetings] that don’t contribute and don’t make efficient use of people’s time."Overview: He talks about (times approximate) … [You can also download a full transcript]1:30 Jan introduces his background and current role.3:27 He notes the values embedded in my question about his choice to do more strategic impact and management work. Discusses being in management roles for the last 10 years and motivation for doing this. Got a management role of 45 people as part of his package when he moved to KTH. Must have done well as he was then promoted to Dean two years after, which is not the obvious way to do this as usually appoint older people. A former colleague said “Jan are you going to be a dean? But you’re actually a good researcher!”. Fascinating because it showed the values that says doing leadership or management is not considered as prestigious or as good as other things. He finds this strange.6:35 Strategic choice for management an option? But we don’t always do strategic choices. Discusses how we didn’t use to have metrics or Google Scholar and no-one was talking about citations etc then. So you can look at different people in the past who happened to make choices that benefit them now eg in high h-indexes but they were lucky to have made that choice. He believes that leadership roles should be valued much more. He didn’t do leadership as a prestigious thing but because he thinks he has something he can contribute and wants to be part of shaping how we do these things.8:45 Formal training for leadership roles? Yes. He really likes these internal training programs. Started with pedagogical training courses because they were rewarding and he learnt new things. Inspiring and wanted more. What came next were different types of leadership courses. Every time you join a leadership course, half of it is about leadership, the other half is about personal development. So that was a way to use these courses to mature and reflect on how you. Joined every leadership course he did at Uppsala. And when he came to KTH, joined their leadership courses. Final step was that he went to INSEAD and did their advanced management program for a full month which is something that shapes you up a bit. He also joined as a mentor for others which is also a way of developing.11:05 What were the personal qualities that made the role a good fit? Jan finds an enjoyment in seeing other people’s development. That’s why PhD supervision is the most fun and rewarding thing academics do. Similarly the thing he likes with management roles is not what people would think. Now that he has gone from dean to Vice President, he used to have staff responsibility for more than 400 people but as vice president has no staff responsibility. People say ‘lucky you’ but he thinks that is the most rewarding part, the between 4-eyes meeting with staff, mutually solving problems to help their development. Much more fun than working on strategic plans or management group meetings that you also need to do. Typically HR issues is the biggest part of leadership roles.14:00 Practical skills he brought? One of his backgrounds that he uses a lot in his leadership role or any role is that he started out with theater and drama. Wanted to be an actor, director. Read a lot, did a lot. Learnt a lot. Uses that knowledge every day without being aware of it, reading people’s eyes, trying to watch what is happening from the outside as a director, shape what is happening there, simply by how you phrase things and speak you can control the stage there. Thinks drama should be one of the core subjects for schools. Can use that knowledge to control your voice, your body, how you pause, create awareness by being silent and being ready to be silent for a longer time than you do. Both reading, seeing, observing and then also turning it into something you do yourself. Classes on improvisation, and how they make the story line continue etc but clear rules on how you make an improvisation that you need to follow to develop the story. These happen in real life.19:15 Subtle herding of cats, or leading clever people? Management book, writing about management from a conductor’s point of view (Esa-Pekka Salonen). Leading artists. Which is bit like herding cats. He felt that when he became Dean. Wants to do a follow up, leading autists, simply based on the experience of leadership in academia. Can seem like an insulting title but clearly have brilliant people, many of whom probably have some cognitive special skills, that makes you need to be more aware of your leadership skills. Another aspect of academia that should be debated much more, compared to leadership in business or public sector, and that is the concept of academic freedom. Academic freedom means nobody should influence you on what types of methods or research questions you use but many academics, particularly the higher you get up in the academic career, would want the concept of academic freedom to be read as “I don’t have a boss, nobody should tell me what to do” rather than it is about your research and the freedoms in relation to that. So management in that sense becomes very complicated because you are supposed to be a manger of people who are of course highly skilled, more skilled than you are in their particular topics but still there are things you can contribute to their development. This is something that probably will change in the future because he doesn’t think it is a sustainable solution to have universities run in the leaves of the organization and where the management roles don’t have any opportunity to steer or control how things are happening. He has heard something said about a president at a university that when they make a decision it is heard as a statement in an ongoing debate. This is bad as it means a president can’t make any decision and how can you develop and change a business if that is the perspective.23:50 Business of academia? Discussion of different way that the term ‘business’ is used. In Swedish have the word ‘verksamhet’ which is best translated into English as business but it is a concept about ‘work activity’ but more than that. Wants English to inherit that word. So talking about teaching, management tasks.27:20 Navigating boundary, encouraging people to participate in the business of academia? Usually go to a leadership course on individual management between two people to have difficult conversations, then courses on strategic management, but really not a course for middle management and middle management probably the most tricky side of management. He has had a manager above him and is managing people so has seen this tension in the middle management role. Also works fairly well in industry but there are things that need to be developed in academia for middle management. How do you contribute to delivering on the development plans of the manager above so decisions are channeled through. But he sees this autonomy makes a management meeting on the top a tricky issue, and need to come up with a decision. Middle manager may have been fighting for the opinions of their groups but may not have got their will through and how do you deal with that. He has seen many middle managers go back to their group and instead of saying “we had discussions, made tradeoffs and agreed on this that we have to deliver”. Instead they say “I really fought for you and these stupid managers above didn’t listen to what we said so now they are forcing us to do this.” But this is not in the management spirit. He would love to see a management course to help with the struggle of that role that has contradiction in terms, fighting for subordinates upwards and then have to communicate decisions down.32:10 A better way of doing it? Role play or drama might help you think about these different roles. When you are middle manager, you should talk much more “we”, “we made a decision, we did this” and talk about the collective of management that made the decision. But he hears instead that “he made the decision” and distancing from the decision and keep on fighting that instead of being part of the collective making that decision. As a manager of a group, need to be the advocate for the joint decisions being made and even if you didn’t like the decision, your role is to make it happen than fight against it. Need to reflect on how to tell the story about why the decision was made. We are in the trust business. So need to build that trust so people can see that different views were considered. Then eventually decisions had to be made and different tradeoffs.37:00 Trust also works both ways. Talking about needing to trust our managers, but managers also need to be able to trust staff to work in this fashion. You are building an organization and you are actually building values. This is probably the single most important thing to do, is around the values that you are bringing – so that people like we are moving in this direction because we share a set of values in this organization and trust is then intimately connected to these values. How to do this practically? Openness and transparency is a value but you can’t be open and transparent about everything as a manager, sometimes not even allowed to be. But if generally have the notion, openness needs to work in collaboration with trust, that if we appoint someone as a leader, we need to trust the leader to take the wisest choices. Delegating the management role.  Equity also important. Everyone’s point is important and valid. The more heterogenous the group is, the better choices you actually make. It is involving every staff, students, administrative staff in management team.42:00 Next issue is a lack of respect between faculty and administrative staff. In Swedish, the word ‘administration’ is seen as not prestigious, for the lowest in the income scale etc. But still everybody should be able to play in the organization on equal terms. How to have these conversations? In groups, coming up with concepts you can stand by. In other situations, they come in organically. Busy academics can feel these types of discussions are beyond the limit of what they can do. So may need to trick that in to get discussion. Talks about some issues related to harassment based on what people are earning. How to work with these issues? 47:12 Did a long project over a year and a half called a Sustainable Work Environment. Could see it was working in the annual work environment survey that harassment went down and trust in management went up. PhD students felt most pressure, to work long hours, not getting enough support from professors. These were also things to discuss. Got a theater company to come, interview PhD students and supervisors. Then gathered with all supervisors with theatre company re-enacted student views, then stopped and asked for what could be done differently that was then discussed. Then re-played with the new approach. Afterwards people could really see this was for real and how difficult it was to recover. So trying to come with these things that are fun, efficient, social, these are activities to help with development.52:20 Did a lot of activities with PhD students. A lot of their problems is with time management. Didn’t do any relaxation. Tools to get more relaxed and work with own attitudes to work and lower self-expectations. And working with the supervisors about what is reasonable and to think about how expectations are communicated. Need to talk about it in a different way. Role models? Role models usually ‘stars’. Female role models to show what you can do/become. Didn’t work out as good as getting role models that were more ordinary that people could identify with and see this path as a great outcome. Role models shouldn’t be the top people in excellence.55:25 Working hours role models? Talks about this freedom that we have … to choose where and when to do work is something that we really should treasure and treat with dignity. And trusting people to deal with their own time properly. Better to work with people’s way of managing their own time/work. It’s your own choice. That’s the important thing. Email is what people think is their biggest work environment problem. Interested in seeing what work will be like for the next generation that don’t do email. Talks about our digital environment, being able to take work with us everywhere we go.1:02:45 How does Jan manage that flexibility? A lot is about how happy and satisfied you are with what you are doing. So not a big problem if working too much in periods. Other periods where you don’t work as much. Would never say he works too much. It’s when people add the word ‘too’ it becomes a problem, working more than they want to work, and perhaps not in control in setting that. As academics, our own choices how many tasks we take on. We need to set reasonable levels for what we are doing. Discusses his strategies for saying yes/no. Most of tasks are ones he has chosen because he can contribute something and add value. But we also go to too many meetings. Need to think through how we do meetings. Could have done better over the years having fewer meetings. The most rewarding meetings are between 2-3 people. Big meetings cost and we have too many that don’t contribute and don’t make efficient use of people’s time.1:07:45 Discusses his own strategies as Dean for handling meetings, collecting them on one day, some you have to have. Could have prepared meetings better to have a more efficient meeting. But schedule became too crowded to do that. And maybe didn’t delegate enough. People also didn’t open agenda before they came to the meeting. Experimented with ways of making them more efficient eg Google doc that all could contribute to, removing need for a secretary. Good for losing time to translate notes to document but created less dynamics at the meeting with people distracted by their laptop in the meeting.1:10:34 Final thoughts – for another discussion, about engaging with politics and think there is a lot we can do there. National and international politicians and their interests in wanting to contribute to society and their openness and curiosity to get knowledge from academia. An issue of them getting access and we’re not very good at communicating with them. Also brings in selection of research topics – do they contribute to our career development or to changing the world.1:14:15 EndRelated LinksJan’s personal web page & blog: http://jangulliksen.comJan’s KTH web page: https://www.kth.se/profile/jangul/INSEAD Advanced Management Programme:The conductor Jan referred to is Esa-Pekka Salonen and he has given several talks and seminars on leadership in relations to the orchestra - how you see the individual and look at the whole picture at the same time. We’re unable to find the book but there are several articles in the newspaper media about it but not the exact quote, such as: https://www.metro.se/artikel/stjärndirigent-leder-chefer-xr. Or he talks about his leadership here: https://www.aktuellhallbarhet.se/esa-pekka-salonen-han-vagrar-att-lamna-havet-bakom-sig/The word “verksamhet” is untranslatable as the following statement from the dictionary in Swedish explains: https://sv.wiktionary.org/wiki/verksamhet. A Google translate of the concept brings the following: https://translate.google.com/#sv/en/verksamhet. But Jan feels that the concept of  “Operation” clearly does not capture it.

Rowena Murray is a Professor of Education, Director of Research, in the School of Education at the University of the West of Scotland. She is an internationally recognised expert and author on academic writing and on running writing retreats. In this conversation she talks about the writing retreats for both the importance of learning behaviours around how to write, and for the value of the academic friendships that arise from such writing groups. She also talks about the challenges of being a woman professor dealing with unremitting criticism and undermining, and in having to fight for academic writing as a legitimate research topic in its own right. And she gives very practical advice for creating the support you need to deal with this and how to care for yourself in the process.“When you give smart people dedicated writing time, it is astonishing how much they do. Immediately.”“They know that a rough draft is called rough draft for a reason. But they still hesitate to write … they have the perfectionism and then they have the procrastination.”“It’s a different set of relationships [developed at writing retreats] that are collegial and positive and sympathetic and intellectual as well.”“As a woman professor, the undermining, the bullying, the pressure, the unremitting criticism has intensified throughout my career.”Overview:01:30 Rowena’s background, learning about writing and starting writing retreats and workshops08:00 Teaching writing as being about behavior change, how writing retreats help, creating the retreat environment, and the importance of the social aspects18:15 Practical strategies and SMART goal setting for writing34:05 The personal/career challenges finding a place in the academic infrastructure, the long path to becoming a professor of academic writing, and the importance of her writing group as support46:00 Why there are more women at writing retreats49:00 Discriminations faced by female professors, and advice to younger women58:25 Rowena’s various self-care1:02:00 Final thoughts on the importance of special intellectual friendshipsAnd in more detail, she talks about (times approximate) …01:30 Rowena introduces herself as working at Uni of the West of Scotland, a wider access college, and talks about her first degree at Uni of Glasgow in Scottish language and literature, and then going to Pennsylvania to do volleyball coaching where she also did a PhD in English at Penn State.05:02 Rowena discusses how she came to be fascinated by writing, through learning to teach about writing, and reflecting on her own experiences. When she came back to Scotland she decided to start teaching thesis writing courses in the mid 80s. From doing these courses for around 10 years she wrote the content for the ‘How to write a thesis’ book. And it kept growing as people recognised there was a need for it. Hesitates to use the word ‘need’, everyone loves them, but has been told by someone they hope there comes a day when people won’t ‘need’ a writing course. But they miss the broader context in which writing retreats are essential, for those who choose to go. It is a haven, a behaviour change model, it’s a network. Mostly women who choose to go. Not a sense about ‘needing’ but about the environment that doesn’t allow us to write in the ways we really want to.8:00 What’s driving this need? It’s about individuals not being sure how to fit writing in their personal lives. Also a need because we don’t learn how to write, how to construct arguments, or the behaviours for managing writing and other complex tasks. There are specific output targets in people’s plans, but the quality writing time is not in the plan, and knowing that it will be protected.09:12 When you give smart people dedicated writing time, it is astonishing how much they do, immediately. Partly because someone is there to say start now, stop now, take a break. Insisting on the break. How quickly write in that context is fascinating. Which tells you how important the environment is. And how much less stressful it is. People talk about it as ‘positive pressure’.10:15 She had said it wasn’t possible to transfer writing retreat environment to campus environments but now thinks it is possible if they replicate the dedicated writing time, away from the phone, internet etc, having coffee on tap, then they can do this on campuses, in their homes, in cottages. Need the level of concentration for the writing. Both space and other people are crucial. People often say “why can I do this so well when I’m in the writing retreat and I can’t do this at home?” May be that they are learning to change behaviours. Or may need to write with other people in a different space to hold them to the change. What the literature says about behaviour change. And it does work. Having said that, Lucy Hinnie has developed remote retreats with twitter threads, using Rowena’s material, and sending out tweets to structure the time. So that is early days and shows it can work that way without physically being in the same room, using a virtual group, and holding each other to the time, which does seem to be a key part of it.13:50 When in a retreat and everyone else is typing, can smell coffee, would say they would normally stop then. But they keep writing and work through what might have been a stop or a block and surprise themselves by getting it done. So specific changes and benefits from sticking to the timing. Rowena is also listening out for distracting noises and will tell someone if they are stamping their feet while listening to music on their headphones, or will ask the person mowing the grass to move somewhere else.15:47 But the social thing is key, it is the haven and it’s a different set of relationships that are collegial and positive and sympathetic and intellectual as well. Lots of exchanges about research methods and ways that people are supporting each other eg in the breaks or out on the walks. Time for activity important in the writing process. And in the evenings. Have evenings off. Which is surprising for people who think they should be writing for 10 hours a day. And she says no, should be resting. Obvious. But again giving people permission.18:15 So lots of behaviour change about the process of writing. Is there also input about structure of writing? Yes. And sometimes will read people’s stuff as well. Encourages people in the last 7-8 months of thesis writing to do a 750 word thesis summary, set at the end of the introduction, paragraph for every chapter (in 4th edition of her book). So will suggest these things in the break, and look at it, then give feedback and they can work on it in the next session. Once they get this summary it is sorted (after looking at it 20 times). Doesn’t take a lot of time as a supervisor but such an important task. Tries not to read a 5-10K chapter at retreat. So there are retreat-specific things she can suggest for a next session. A lot of them are in the books.20:50 Another behaviour that is useful is goal setting. Smart people are good at setting SMART goals eg for marking scripts. But not so much with writing. So 80K words, how many words for literature review, so decide on specific goal, think about how many words, and how you will produce in the first 90 minutes. Have a verb for the text. “the purpose of X is to…”. Intellectual work in deciding on the structure and microstructure, goals, subgoals and subsubgoals, and designing the writing for the time you have, and then monitoring how you achieve this. So learning to set realistic subgoals. Motivation there as well. Goal setting, monitoring how well you are achieving the goals, and developing self-efficacy, the belief that you can achieve your writing goals. In contrast Rowena talks about the dark side, just carrying on, not getting done 45 things to do, guilt fuelling anxiety. But did it to yourself. Use goal setting principles with writing as you do with other stuff.23:40 Different writing styles? All can benefit from specific writing goals, structure of writing arguments. Everyone is different but the retreats/workshops provide a framework and within that, what everyone does can be quite individual. Benefits from planning and setting goals and academic writers can do this more than we do. Intellectual decisions. About targeting, style.26:35 Getting better at estimating, learning process. Been doing a writing retreat just about every month. Has to watch herself. Blasting out a chapter. Recognising after reviewer feedback that it wasn’t good. Need to also watch the fluency. Learned behaviour. And gives an intellectual life around writing in universities, something we are craving, exposed by writing that is done at the retreats. Reflects on this regularly, why is she not more of an activist and she realizes she is, but more like a resistance movement, providing immediate change and help, getting people through rather than standing at the front line and blasting away. Finds committee work and standing up giving big talks, writing up big reports, meaningless work for her. But she can do this more immediate work, achieving stuff with her own writing and helping people get through. And that’s part of intellectual work as well, as a PhD supervisor, that is what you are doing.30:39 A myth we know this all already. But when start talking about writing, which happens rarely on campus, it can also be seen as a weakness as well. And when talk about publications, can get your wings clipped as well. The exchange of knowledge of what your paper was about would be useful. The exchange of knowledge of the process of writing, never going to talk about that in these academic settings. There are structures, processes, activities to learn around writing. At a workshop last week, talking about perfectionism. Know that a rough draft is called rough draft for a reason. But they still hesitate to write that first sentence, or to write the second sentence because the first one is not perfect. PhD students and academic and researchers. So they hesitate to write, they have the perfectionism and then they have the procrastination. So there is an existing paradigm that is quite dysfunctional and stressful for people, that we need an alternative to.34:05 How to hang onto this as something she is committed to in the current climate? In the beginning committed to bringing some of that knowledge to the UK. Clearly no department in the UK wants to teach these courses. So must have helped hundreds of people get their PhDs that other people took credit for. Happy to do that. Started writing books but was told books didn’t count so did that in her own time – so very clear conscience about keeping the royalties. So certain frustrations about it not finding a place in the infrastructure and Rowena not getting credit for all the outputs she was helping people do. But as began to get research funding and journal articles, became established in field of academic writing and now has a peer group. But just last year had someone quite senior sit back quizzically and ask “so you do academic writing about academic writing”. Just said “yes”. What can you do? That person’s mind is closed to this being a field in itself. But have to be fluid in finding a job. Jumping areas. Complex, tricky. Have to be flexible. Fortunate to have got to where she is in this field, as a professor of academic writing. Was asked in her interview what her international reputation was in and she just said “academic writing” without elaboration, sounding defensive. They either look at the CV and see that or they don’t. For her that was quite a turning point. Not sure where that came from. Doesn’t have as much fear of that perspective anymore. Such an important intellectual task. If they don’t get it, what can you do.39:20 What kept her going up to the point of getting that comfort? Was very challenging, felt held back in terms of promotion. Applied and knocked back for a number of promotions. What kept her going was playing competitive volleyball, had to concentrate on the match and it took her mind off what was going on at work. Currently writing about this in a book on women professors and facing these barriers. What she is writing about is how she set up the first writing group, the first in an academic setting, and that kept her going because she was doing the job of helping people write, writing her own publications, and was working with like-minded people cutting across agendas of departments. Writing groups have been a haven for her as well. Doesn’t know what she would have done without that sort of social support throughout her career. More about having alternative space whether it was sport or writing groups or whatever. Looking back, she started the group because if was supporting her, but also doing her job and that fended off some of the criticism.43:40 Getting grants and papers doing what she wanted to do? Intellectual curiosity of interrogating that this works and getting evidence. So that was the bridge but still an ambivalence about it, conscious of providing counters in somebody else’s game but also about improving her game in a sense in understanding more about what is happening at writing retreats. Gives example of containment theory paper, and then writing about her role in creating the container. A learning process for her about retreats and her role in retreats, and the sensitive stuff she is doing. Actively protecting the space, in a number of senses, because threatened by other people’s understanding of how writing gets done.46:00 Why mostly women?  Always observed and discussed. Almost always women not just at her retreats but also others’ retreats, unless built into a course or a departmental group where the head came along and other men came as well. The theory about why only women is that it is called writing retreat which can sound touchy feely and you might be exposed in that environment, and should call it bootcamp to attract more men. But she isn’t going to do this. Knows there are others like Inger Mewburn, one of her heroes, she calls some of her things bootcamp. But Rowena won’t be doing that. Thinking of advertising a men’s only one. Other theories are that it is a more discursive collaborative model even though most people sit and write on their own. Also run by women. Just did some research on this by talking to women and sent a paper into a journal a few months ago. What she found is that the writing retreats are a space away from all the other demands of so many different kinds of women in their work lives and personal lives. Getting away from both are really important. And getting away from discriminatory settings is really important.  49:00 Ways she is still discriminated against? As a woman professor, the undermining, the bullying, the pressure, the unremitting criticism has intensified throughout her career and that is in different universities and settings. Not about her as a person and has talked with enough senior women and men and knows that this happens in other places as well. Tries to warn younger colleagues that this might not go away when are promoted. An intensified undermining and bullying. Knows men who became professors had a much more positive experience with celebrations etc but knows women who have experienced none of that – experience instead of others leaving you out of things, deciding things without consulting you, and gradually diminishing the role over a number of years. Almost like there is playbook. Discrimination at all levels, borne out by statistics of men and women at all levels. Strategies eg working on women’s confidence and networking all well and good, but if we’re not working on the infrastructure, the people making the decisions, not sure we are going to fix it. Men and women who don’t have the right behaviours to get that to top level … but she doesn’t want to be at this level or be the minority in the room. Has done all this. But doesn’t want to do that, doesn’t thrive on it. Doesn’t want to be the person in the room representing her gender, sexuality. But can help women and men who want to write and get on with each other.53:45 Advice to younger women? She talks about her own experiences and the intensification of the unremitting undermining. To make them aware, not to say it will happen. Advice is to get themselves into groups like this. That will get them through. “If you try to get through your academic career in this discriminated position, yourself, I think this can break you.” You can then internalise it and think it is just about you and so you need the group to help process all that stuff and this group might need to be outside of the department as everyone competing there. Rowena built this support through creating writing groups for herself. So the writing groups are about much more than just the writing. In the course of talking about writing, you’ll inevitably talk about other stuff. The key is not to let that talk interfere with the writing.56:55 How to get good people into senior leadership to make larger changes? There are young men and women who have the capacity to go into leadership positions. But would say get some way of protecting, having an intellectual peer network and doing the work together, not just a support network. So encouraging them to get some kind of insurance policy against the competitive stuff.58:25 Self care? Stays active fit. Wears her fitbit. Mixture of training and exercise, all thought out. Also does nothing sometimes. After a retreat, exhausted. So will read fiction or see a film or something completely different. A great believer in not working in the evenings and at weekends. Keeps clear boundaries. Doesn’t ever talk about work much at home. Spending a lot of time with friends. Village community, altruistic stuff, raising money for the hospice. Now 0.5 half time professor and half time business. Was suggested by line manager that she does the retreats for her university. Has to monitor the finances of all that. Gets a sense of self-sufficiency. Meets lots of new people at retreats. Eating well. Hydrating well. And banter so it doesn’t get too heavy.1:02:00 Final thoughts? Relationships have been super important. Special intellectual friendships you develop because you have been at writing retreats. Acknowledge the importance of academic friendships and conversations like this. See that there are some things we can do to make it better. Putting a protective barrier around these friendships. That’s what life should be about, it’s about these intellectual exchanges, the connections you make through initially maybe a brain thing and then you get to know each other as people and think that is a win win win. So just acknowledge academic friendships. Retreats give two days to build the friendships a bit more.1:04:46...

Kirsten Ellis is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University in Melbourne. She discusses how she deals with changing goalposts around performance outputs, being passionate about her research, having success at getting grants but trouble getting published. She discusses the impact that repeated rounds of redundancy have on morale and culture, and on being open and authentic at work. Authenticity comes through as theme throughout. And she talks about how she manages being a mother of three teenage girls, including one with a disability, as well as having a mother who is sick. Her non-negotiable going flying time every week is a key part of how she cares for herself so she can care for others.Notes: For context, she also mentions a session with me around values. This was done as part of a Career Development Workshop that I ran at Monash at the beginning of the year, where I first met Kirsten. The audio quality is a little problematic in places but still understandable hopefully.“Tell me to do amazing research and I will. I’m passionate. Having a matrix that says you have to submit blah papers per year is not going to motivate me.”“If I look after myself first, I’m a much nicer person and can look after everyone else and bear a much greater burden the rest of the week.”“Authenticity, this is part of me… my work is not completely separate to everything at home. I am a whole person.”“Know your strengths, know your weaknesses…leave the ones that don’t matter to you, and work on the ones that are going to make a strategic difference.”.She talks about (times approximate) …1:30 Kirsten introduces her background in multimedia, starting PhD, and permanently employed 3 months into PhD as a lecturer, the advantages and disadvantages (missing mentoring, everyone very junior). Has been at Monash Uni since ’95 and at senior lecturer level (second level) and received her PhD 10 years ago in Oct.4:55 Reflects that her honours student maybe didn't get as much support due to her inexperience; and as faculty they used to publish where ever they wanted, now there is much more pressure. Persistence beyond stupidity is her motto – serves her well as an academic. A lot of grant success. Also a lot of grant failure. So persistence an important aspect.6:50 Goal posts changing. Originally encouraged to send out papers to count three times. So understands that the national research assessment exercise ERA is trying to stop this. Her research is in children and disability but her preferred publishing venues were not ERA ranked as high/A*. Told “not allowed to publish there anymore”. Driven by politicians who want to be accountable.9:05 “Management in universities an interesting thing. One of my big bugbears is: Tell me to do amazing research and I will. I’m passionate. Having a matrix that says you have to submit blah papers per year is not going to motivate me to do amazing research. Tell me to do amazing research and it’ll get published because it is amazing, it will break new ground, it will help people. That’s going to inspire me, that’s going to make me work hard. But telling me I have to produce an unreasonable number of things per year. I don’t know that many people are motivated by the big stick, especially people in academia. You’re a HD (high distinction) student before you arrive. So they’re managing people the wrong way around for the type of people they have.” Discusses how the message comes down from vice chancellor level to the message she then gets that she has to publish 5 high quality papers in X venues and guess those venues 3 years in advance.11:15 Strategies: went ERA chasing for a while and got a whole lot of rejections. De-motivating. And got confused about what she needed to do to get published. Grants above professor level but can’t get published but what she is doing has really good social impact. Discusses her work developing software for sign language teaching, 100% uptake in the market but can’t get published, very applied, can’t prove learning. Her strategy now: “I want to do amazing research that has huge impact. And if I do really good research it should get published.” So shifted from chasing ERA to focusing on research. And should be able to publish. Other strategy is using creativity as antidote to bean counting measures. Creative work eg braille keyboard. A lot of people like to have a clear separation between work and home. But for her sitting at home in front of the TV at night building new circuits is fun. “I’ve made it in the world. I get to have a job where I get to play with play doh and make a puppet without having to put up with children.” Using it in a grown-up way and doing good in the world. May also address gender gap as it appeals to different people. Easy to do creative things with technology now.16:55 Importance of re-framing. Did a session ‘with me’ around values (Note: ‘with me’, Geri Fitz, at a Career Development Workshop GF ran at Monash) – recognizes equity and making a difference in the world are things she values so if she can do research around this it is motivating but ticking boxing is not. How to hook into people’s own motivation.18:05 Is she benefiting from emphasis on impact? Impact becoming more important in other countries but not so much in Australia at the moment. Starting to have impact stories and that will make a difference to the acceptance of her work. Faculty is also changing. Great things happening and getting support through those mechanisms and clear definitions of where she needs to target, more acceptable to her work. Works in sign language teaching. But only 5 people in the world working on this. So won’t get high citations. How do you define quality? Is it popularity ie number of citations? “What is popular is not necessarily what is important.” And sometimes hard to get published when breaking new ground and proposing things that haven’t been done before and people aren’t there with you but doesn’t mean it’s not unique, important. A problem with the reviewing process, overwhelmed, reviewed by junior people, different reasons for rejecting the paper – is it rejection bias to get down to certain number of papers rather than a problem with the paper?21:40 Most frustrating thing is not the rejection on paper but that this information is not distributed into the community, losing out on papers that could add value but don’t fit in the box of what is acceptable. A loss to the community. Her response: Using mentors. Taking feedback and speaking to people about what she is not getting quite right, how to present it so people can understand it. Discusses an issue where reviewers raise a critique about not focusing on children but it’s the teachers/parents who need help. Shows they don’t understand the context. All people she has approached for help have been helpful. Feedback is often around re-framing.24:20 Being a senior lecturer level impacted by these publication issues? Explains the Australian context and what it takes to advance to the next step of associate professor. First time applied for senior lecturer, told she didn’t have ARC grants but a 10% success rate, hard to get, and hadn’t needed one 3 years prior. Shifting goalposts. Need to jump through hoops but the hoops are getting smaller and higher every year. Can miss a hoop because don’t know how they are going to change.26:30 “Love my work! Do stuff that interests me.” Talks about how she spends time exploring/learning things to “put in the toolbox”. “It’s not about the technology it’s how we use the technology”. But have to learn those technologies. Often tech is a solution looking for a problem. She has things in her toolbox and can apply to a problem.28:30 Biggest challenges now? Re-vamping a unit so the unknown and exciting. Department is growing and have now started an assistive technology group. Now feels she has more of a community happening, no longer on the outer, has a place. So change is not always bad. Some fantastic things happening. One course she’s not inspired about but have to take your load.29:30 Has a daughter with a disability so a challenge being a mum working, with a disabled child. Difficult but also modelling for her three daughters. Mother is sick. Balancing out time at home and time at work. Careful about looking after herself. Always had a horse riding lesson every week but has hurt her hip. So need a certain amount of adrenaline to function. So now flying! That time when all problems go away. Just there and have to concentrate to survive. That puts the week in perspective. “ It’s a non-negotiable that I have this time every week.” Can be flexible when that time is. “If I look after myself first, I’m a much nicer person and can look after everyone else and bear a much greater burden the rest of the week as ensured my footings are strong first.” “Very important to me. It’s almost like mindfulness.” Did mindfulness with students with one of her courses. “My activity is a form of mindfulness. It’s where nothing else matters for a couple of hours a week. And that’s enough for me. … Resets everything and makes the world function better.”32:40 Other strategies? Using creativity, children would say craziness. Reflect on stuff a lot. Having a growth mindset. Recognising you don’t have to be perfect, reflecting on what didn’t you get right, what would you change. In everything. In teaching. Continuously improving.34:25 Importance of protected time each week. And strategies in place to be able to function eg with handling mother being sick. But we don’t talk about these sorts of things enough together. Using time before meetings to say hi, build relationships, not sit on the phone. How she also tries to care the sessionals (casual lecturers) below her. How does she have those conversations? Overshare … “authenticity, this is part of me… my work is not completely separate to everything at home. I am a whole person.”37:38 Been through three rounds of retrenchments. Has effects on her. Thinks management don’t understand the impacts or manage the process well or recognize how much damage it does to culture. Impacts mentoring, collegiality, if concerned about yourself, hard to mentor others. Establishes competitive rather than collegial environment. No easy solution. Complex. Articulation of vision from the top can help to understand and process the changes, understanding where they are coming from, the reason. It’s not only about the bad news but the way it is delivered. Change often comes from government. But if we can have an articulation of why things are happening it can help make more sense.43:20 Being a female in IT has some advantages, and some disadvantages. She is currently participating in a women’s shadowing program, to see why some of those decisions were being made and to understand the process more. Shadowing a Dean of Education in another faculty. Key insights? Book about ‘managing clevers’, managing smart people who are already motivated, get more out of them if give them freedom. And understanding structure of uni. Leaders at every level, always power relationships.47:00 How does she play out her leadership role? Importance of being realistic and having a career plan, being strategic, whether in or out of academia, what skills are needed. “Know your strengths, know your weaknesses…leave the ones that don’t matter to you, and work on the ones that are going to make a strategic difference.”. So having a plan with staff she works with on. Tradeoffs of being in a teaching and research role rather the 3yr limited research only role. Permanent position enables taking a long-term view with research. If you are on a 3yr contract, difficulty of taking on a PhD student.50:27 Two ways of moving through academia: those with a commitment to being in the one city because of family/other commitments; others who can move around because that works for them, easier for those without family. Different journey. So importance of having realistic conversations with people you work with/lead. Changing landscape of academia. Fine as long as people know what they are participating in.52:15 Dealing with sick mother, and 3 daughters, one disabled? Actually working 0.8 not full time. Kids at an alternative school. Drops them off/picks them up. Works every evening. But that works for her, not a burden, a joy. Three teenage daughters. Always struggled going to conferences. Problem when submitting a paper of predicting what space her daughter will be in at the time of conference travel. Makes sure she writes those statements about “Relative to opportunity” on grant applications to explain impact of her circumstances on her academic track record. Not a whinge. But stating the facts and where the impact is.  Helping people interpret what they are reading.57:20 Daughter with aspergers and anxiety. Thinks there might be clusters around IT/engineering. Wonders if there are things we can do as organisations around this to support people with children where there are clusters. Having conversations together. “You will get to the other side of this.”. Does this face to face. Not on facebook. Authenticity of connections.1:01:46 EndRelated Links Kirsten Ellis: https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/kirsten-ellis ; https://sites.google.com/site/drkirstenellis/Book on leading clever people: Goffee R. & Jones G., 2009. Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People, Harvard Business Press.  https://www.amazon.com.au/Clever-Leading-Smartest-Creative-People/dp/1422122964Book on Growth Mindset: Dweck, C. 2009. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books.  https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322