Reflecting to gain perspective
With Dr Rebecca Dumbell
Not everyone can say that their PhD recruitment interview took place from an exotic place; well Rebecca started her research career following a phone interview whilst she was travelling in Borneo. To me, this is an interesting career trait of not seeing limitations in a less than perfect situation, but a positive attitude in believing in positive outcomes.
It took Rebecca 2 postdoctoral periods prior to jumping into the PI role as a lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. Her transition to gaining an academic position, from the time she started to apply for positions seems to have been fairly quick. This likely stems from the many opportunities she took throughout her PhD and Postdoc time.
She describes the building of her network as being of particular importance in her career transition. Her strategy in choosing opportunities on the basis of what she enjoys has clearly paid off in her speedy transition. She is all too aware that academics need to make wise choices in the opportunities they take. Her mantra of “what can I say no to, to say yes to” written on a Post-it note on her desk is a reminder that staying focused and strategic is needed to not fall into overwhelm.
More about Rebecca
https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/science-technology/rebecca-dumbell
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking:
How each small leadership experiences build on each other for a transition into an academic role
How a simple practice of pausing and reflecting is a powerful habit
Why building research group practices such as co-creating an approach to communication can help everyone in the team
Some reflections based on my discussion with Rebecca
Timeliness in career steps
It is hard to predict which one of our actions will be the most impactful in our careers. Rebecca describes that at the end of her PhD, some of the advice that were flying around were of possibly applying for a fellowship or being a co-Investigator. It was not yet the time for her to jump into that stage.
She had already taken some critical steps in building her network and leadership through applying for some funding as a PhD student to undertake a research visit in Germany with a collaborator. She had been supported in applying for the funding by her supervisor but it was already an important leadership step in having accessed funding in addition to her scholarship. The research visit in Germany, also gave her the experience of working abroad. This is likely to have been significant in her decision to do a Postdoc overseas.
The opportunity for her 1st Postdoc abroad came through an email received from a research network, whilst the advert for her 2nd Postdoc came from a tweet shared by someone in her network. There is no standard way of hearing about open research position, but being on research network mailing lists or following certain individuals, projects or network on social media is a valuable source of information.
Having had the privilege of a long-funded period during her 2nd Postdoc, she started a year before the end of her Postdoc contract to pay attention to the academic job landscape. Her expectation might have been that it would take a long time to be successfully recruited. She was fortunate enough that it took few applications to gain her first academic position.
She had laid the foundations for her transition in different ways:
· Whilst teaching opportunities had been limited due to her positions being in research institutes, she had taken concrete steps to match recruitment criteria. During her PhD, she had already done extensive practical demonstrations, which was the first step in showcasing her engagement in undergraduate teaching. Whilst she had not done formal lecturing, she contacted her network to engineer opportunities for guest lectures to start constructing her teaching portfolio. Her limited teaching experience was compensated by her research supervision experience; she had been able to be formally acknowledged as a named supervisor.
· At the end of her 2nd Postdoc, she had also acquired a small pot of independent research funding which was fundamental in demonstrating that she was taking steps to build her research independence and research niche.
o Are you aware of the recruitment criteria for the positions you want to apply for?
o Have you recently taken stock of your experiences alongside the job requirements for positions you would want to apply for?
o If there are experiences/ skills that are missing from your current CV, what are the alternatives to gaining some of these experiences. It may not be straightforward as some experiences may not be available in the direct context of your job or institution?
o What alternatives may you create for yourself to acquire these additional experiences?
o Can you reach out to some of your friends/ contacts/ network to explore gaining experiences that are missing in the portfolio of your experiences. Gaining these experiences may not require for you to spend months doing something new; it could just be spending a few hours here and there, volunteering on a new activity. It could be through undertaking a short research visit in another group.
o Could you ask someone recently recruited whether they could share with you their CV, so that you can have a reality check of what is required?
Impactful practices
I love asking PIs about the practices they have to supporting a positive research culture. The practice of pausing and reflecting is as simple as it gets and still so many academics are squeezed into the academic machine without this healthy practice.
Reflecting on how things are going, looking back on what has gone well and not so well should not feel taxing but on the contrary, a life-saving practice of gratitude towards the self, acknowledging that we have done a lot instead of focusing on what did not get done. In an age of distraction via email, what’s app and social media, focus and compartmentalisation are becoming our power tools.
o What is your approach to taking stock? Do you do this daily, weekly, monthly?
o If you started to pause and reflect each week about not just what it is that needs to get done but what you are actually doing to get things done, what might you discover?
Becoming aware of our patterns of behaviours is immensely helpful to ease ourselves in some of the hard tasks we have to do.
o Do you know what you always procrastinate to do?
o Do you know the best time certain tasks have a better chance of getting done?
o Do you understand the work habits you have that are unhelpful?
o Do you know what you need to drop, delay, delegate or modify instead of keeping on your to-do list things that are repeatedly not getting done?
Building collective agreements
All of us are Masters of assumptions. Assumptions are at the root of communication challenges in our work and personal lives.
A valuable practice which Rebecca is building in her team is to co-create a collective agreement on the way the team communicate with her and across the team. Instead of feeling frustrated when others do not respond to us when we need to communicate with them, starting with a conversation to build understanding and clarify expectation is such a simple but powerful practice. This allows team members to stop assuming the worst or feel dissatisfied when others do not respond. It enables to create boundaries so that focused work is not impeded by the needs of others at our own expenses.
o Have you had conversation with your team members about what could work better in the way you communicate with each other?
o What do you feel you need to share with your team members about what needs to change for better ways of communicating with each other?
“what I’ve started doing in the last few years is I set aside time every two or three weeks where I spend an hour reflecting on different aspects of my progression, of my career. I look at how things have gone in that last period of time since I last did that. I keep a diary and it helps to put things into perspective and set goals, short term, long term goals. What do I need to achieve within this time? But it’s also really useful to give yourself that time to look back and say, Oh, actually, in this time, it feels like I’ve done nothing, but it’s going okay.”
