The catalyzing moment came as I saw this picture on social media three days ago. Since then, I’ve been focused on creating a plan NOT to fall into that trap. I must complete each project that I begin. In order to do that, I need to begin to sift through the project-opportunities and learn to refuse some of those. I need some guidelines for those decisions!
Yes. That. As a lifelong learner who has served in primarily administrative, coaching, and consulting roles, building a research agenda has been a daunting task. I’ve worked on this though the first year of my current position as a tenure-track faculty member. My goal is clear-cut, I want to achieve tenure in my sixth year. After a professional career helping others achieve greatness, how do I use those principals for my own success? I’ve never considered a traditional ‘career vision’ because I decided many years ago to use my career to achieve a childhood goal of traveling around the world. I didn’t want to approach the end of my days on Earth wishing I’d visited all the places about which I had read. I’ve spent one night in every U.S. State and at least another night in each of 13 countries. I’ve lived and worked where I wanted to live and work. There are only two places left (on the bucket list) for me to visit, and I can easily visit those during a summer off, or after retirement is officially upon me. With that goal nearly accomplished, how do I manage my own career so that I achieve the individual milestone of tenure? Until now, I never intended to be anywhere (in terms of employment) for this length (six years!) of time.
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As I approach one year of investigating research-directions, wondering how I could ever focus on anything long enough to accomplish this goal, I suddenly had an idea. Why not develop a research strategic plan? I’ve facilitated the creation of more than a few of those in my career. Granted, those were for organizations, institutions, or divisions/departments within those settings, but why will those same principles not be useful for an individual? After all, one of my most significant project accomplishments used strategic planning concepts to transition and retain a population with at-risk characteristics into college and university. I know it works, so why haven’t I applied it to myself? So today, I did.
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First, I created a research vision. What is it that I want as the result? How does the future for “Vince the researcher” need to look for me to consider that a success? Allow me to present the outcome of a half day of review/edits here:
Vince Nix is recognized as an ethical researcher that provides clear evidence-based solutions for individuals, organizations, and institutions.
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Then, how do I get there? As I’ve trained so many over the years, “the mission statement is the road-map to your vision.” I’m sure that is a distillation of many people’s works and publications, but Fred David wrote the textbooks I used in nearly all the strategic planning courses I’ve taught since 2008. There is bound to be a bias, in terms of influence, so let’s get that clear. Thank you, Dr. David! After another two hours of categorizing and organizing the half-started research projects, I’ve written the mission statement for “Vince the researcher”:
Vince Nix conducts mixed methods research situated in an international organizational institutionalism framework that draws from diverse academic fields including anthropology, economics, education, management, leadership, political science, psychology, and sociology.
Then, I spent a half-day more conducting an internal factor evaluation (IFE) and an external factor evaluation (EFE) by listing four notebook pages (one each) of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Afterward, I ranked and weighted those using the free strategic planning tool that Dr. Fred David provides for students in strategic planning courses that utilize his textbooks.
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Finally, I paired those into SO, WO, ST, and WT strategies. I think I might be on to something here!
I came up with the following (12) research projects. Each one has different potential in terms of immediate versus long-term payoff.
- SO1: Long term, 3-5 years, immediate first author, one publication and/or one presentation per year minimum.
- SO2: Long term, three years, two publications and two presentations.
- SO3: Long term, 3-4 years, one publication per year potential.
- SO4: Long term, 4-5 years, immediate first author, 2-3 publications.
- WO1: Long term, 3-5 years, immediate first author, 2-3 publications.
- WO2: Short term, two years, immediate first author, maybe a presentation.
- WO3: Short term, 1-2 years, immediate first author, one publication and two presentations.
- WO4: Long term, 3-5 years, immediate first author, one publication or presentation per year.
- ST1: Short term, one year, immediate first author, one publication.
- ST2: Long term, five years or more, post tenure most likely b/c will involve sabbatical and living in China.
- ST3: Long term, depends on two publications, one each from SO1 and ST1.
- WT1: Long term, depends on student motivation, perhaps one or two publications per year, always second author.
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Looking over this, I see that there are already five of these that I’ve put significant work into, and the others are simply planned. As I see it, those five need to be my focus, and the others will be ranked and queued. If/when I have other opportunities, I now have some guidelines against which to measure those and will be able to make an informed decision. I absolutely know that I will see an occasional call for a book chapter proposal that will pique my interest. I will keep those possibilities open, if I have already put some work into an idea that fits into the call for proposal. I’ll keep this page/post up here, so I can view it often and remind myself of the time I took to do this, and then track each project.