I read a lot of personal development and leadership books. Now it’s to enhance my skills. But that wasn’t always the case. When I was younger, I struggled knowing how to talk to people about my work, how to have hard conversations, and how to advocate for myself. I’ve found these books, and the stories about other people’s lives, instructive.

So, what is my problem with this book, and frankly many others like this one? These authors have already won (made the change, built their dream life, got the money etc…). The books miss the “messy middle”.

A slight diversion for the weather.

If I’ve learned anything from my professional life so far, it’s that change is constant and you can always try again. And really that is all any of us is trying to do, testing out a change and trying again. But using the guidance provided in this series should help you not only shorten the learning curve for reinvention but also build a happier team doing it.

In the academic world any call for speeding up research or research processes is likely to be met with at best mild annoyance and at worse outright hostility. While I have grown to appreciate the care and consideration academics can give to a topic, I have also seen this care and consideration become a significant impediment to institutional change.

Rewiring in the business context is about disassembling and reassembling how work is done so that old structures don’t get in the way of reinvention. The question, “What organizational rewiring can help us shift?” is really asking about the resources you have that can be leveraged to drive reinvention. These resources can be financial (ex. overhead money, one-time money from your chair or dean, or grant funding opportunities), people power (ex. collaborators, graduate and undergraduate students, and other trainees), or time based.

As promised you will find some forward looking posts below as we consider with the official start to the New Year in just a few days. While I always feel hopeful during this time of year about new beginnings, there is also an undeniable pressure to “get this one right”. I want to encourage you not to let that pressure overwhelm your efforts this time.

Happy Holidays! Here’s some light reading for your holiday break.

Today we are back into the McKinsey and Co article and working our way through the second question of the reinvention change level: How can I play a central role in the emerging ecosystem? According to the article this question is really challenging you to consider your work within a larger, more interconnected, and consolidated context.

This week we are going dive into the fourth change level, reinvention. In the academic space I think of reinvention as changing content areas, which means reading new literature, adding new research methods, and seeking feedback and engagement from other disciplines. Reinvention means EVERYTHING must change.

Like everyone else I’m starting to think about both the end of this year and the beginning of the next. I am not one to make resolutions per se, but I do like reflecting on what’s working in my day-to-day (and what’s not) and setting some intentions for my year.

Since my last post about hedging research findings, I’ve been thinking about how to improve the little CBC (clarity, brevity, context) Model example I shared. So of course, I dumped it into ChatGPT for a revision session.

One of the first lessons I learned as a baby researcher was to not overstate my research findings. So, I learned early to hedge my research findings, “We seemed to see a pattern”, “But more research is needed”. While all these hedges and limitations are justifiable from a research methods perspective, when translated to the public or policy makers it is easy to see why they might ask the question, “So what’s the point of your work?”

It’s the time of year again. The semester has past the halfway point, and we’ve officially entered the season of, “How much can I cram in before Thanksgiving (in the US)?”

I read this piece, “Downplaying your value isn’t humble – it’s lazy” by Colleen Bordeaux, a couple of weeks ago and I can’t get it off my mind. In particular, the following line has been circling my brain on repeat, “It puts the work on others to infer your value, then blames them for not getting it.”

Writing is hard. That’s it, there’s nothing more to say about it. Even as I sit here trying to write an article about how you can write more, I find myself staring at the blank space on the computer screen worrying about choosing the PERFECT words to make you think that what I’m writing here is worthy of your time. Since starting to write the article I have checked my email at least twice, been on Facebook once, read one my favorite blogs, and gone to the restroom, and have only just written 158 words (most of which will be deleted by the time I hit publish on this article).

Last week the Academy Health newsletter posted a link to “Reforming Medicare Quality Measurement”, in Health Affairs. In this piece the authors argue that the “quality industrial complex” has hijacked the original intention of the quality movement to create a self-reinforcing loop that developed questionable incentives for providers and health systems, increased compliance burden and scope creep, and has not substantially improved patient outcomes.

Earlier this year I wrote about how I’m planning on integrating GenAI in my teaching and research. Since we are well into the semester, I wanted to provide an update.

Burnout is a systems issue. But systems are built and reinforced by the people in that system. As such I think maybe burnout can start being solved by individuals within systems coming together to force conversations about these granted structures.

Not infrequently I’m asked, “how do you manage all of those jobs, projects, responsibilities, tasks, etc?” Honestly, I don’t think too hard about it most of the time. But I also understand where questions like this come from. So today I am going to share a couple of approaches that have helped me to organize myself.