Interlude: What is Joy in the Life of a Teacher-Scholar?

According to Snieder and Schneider, Joy "corresponds to a feeling of doing the right thing while thoroughly enjoying it;  it is the feeling of being in the right place, having meaningful relationships and making an impact, and being able to declare some positive control over how our lives shape us and shape others' (9).

They articulate that "rather than seeking joy in whatever the next success is, we find that joy has  to come first, and is actually the main ingredient in building a successful life" (9).

Nathan Johnson recommended this book, the Joy of Science, and I am enjoying it, especially because the differences between approaching these questions as a scientist and a humanist are valuable to me.

I'll be thinking about this passage over the weekend, but wanted to post to get thoughts from others before I leap in.

"Assign Yourself a Role for Each Event"

A key to networking is knowing who you are, who you are supposed to be, in an event. Robison raises this as a question in Chapter 12, "Engage Others," in a way which inspires autobiographical thinking on my part.

1996ish:  Eater of Food I remember the first time I attended a national communication conference.  Friday and Saturday nights at this conference, major programs host receptions that help recruit new graduate students, recruit faculty, and keep alumni invested in the success of the program.  There is often free food and drink.  My first year at this conference, in 1996 (I am guessing), my role was "to consume enough food and drink not to have to buy dinner." (I wasn't on the market for a new program, or a job, and I wasn't alum yet.)
At the reception of my own program, I had a slightly better sense of my role:  to meet alumni and prospective students and say good things about my program.  But even then, I waited for that to happen to me, instead of seeking that role out. 

1999ish Presenter of Papers For the next three years or so, at national and regional conferences, I thought that my role was to present:  to stand up in front of a room of anywhere from three to thirty strangers and present research.  That role is essential to getting institutional support (travel funding) to attend the conference, but in many ways, presenting is the least significant role, the least significant labor, you can do at the conference.  

2000ish Asker of Questions By about five years into conference attendance, I realized that asking questions at other people's presentations was at least as powerful as presenting, and would often get me an invitation to the lobby bar to talk about research, to share my project and to connect with colleagues. 

2002ish  Active Participant in the Community of Scholars By six years in, I was attending pre-conferences and valuing those as the most significant portion of the conference -- these were my people, sharing my interests, and interested in advancing our common project.  I became more and more aware of my role as someone looking for a community and advancing a community project.  I started attending smaller and smaller conferences, looking for points of intersection between my work and the work of my colleagues.  Smaller and smaller conferences were more likely to result in proceedings, which advance my career even more than presenting a paper, too.

I'm not suggesting that I should have been where-I-was in 2002 when I started in 1996.  But I probably should have reflected more on my role as time passed.  Hopefully, if you are just starting your career, you can see where you fit on this spectrum of roles, and maybe you can add another one to my list.

Successful Networking: Elevator Speeches

So, Exercise 12.1 asks me to think about three situations and my introduction, the "elevator speech" that I might give.

(The whole chapter is about networking, which will be fun to think about.  Networking is something I think I am good at.  And it is something that so many of my colleagues think is "dirty," like one should succeed as if the university was a meritocracy, based on the quality of research and the quality of teaching.  It is essential.  This will be fun to think about.)

Situation 1:  Meeting a faculty colleague at a conference
Introduction:  "I'm David.  I'm an associate professor of rhetoric at the University of Minnesota Duluth.  I research the intersections of writing, speaking, reading, listening, in traditional academic disciplines and in popular culture."
Reflection:  Three moves worth noting:

• I am intentionally ambiguous about my departmental home.  When I am at a communication conference, I am willing to let my actual departmental affiliation be ambiguous.  Similarly, when I am at an English conference, I want the same ambiguity.  Rhetoric is my identity, neither composition nor communication is enough to span my identity.  I don't want my elevator speech to limit me because people are predisposed to a limited vision of what it means to be either a composition or communication specialist.  And in the end, I don't care what department I am in -- I would do the same research either way.  
• It matters to me that I am an associate professor.  I have plenty of colleagues who are associates who introduce themselves as professors.  I won't be one of those until I achieve full.
• The longer I do this, the more I oscillate between seeing popular discourses as the object of study and academic discourses as the object of study.  (Ten years ago, 

Situation 2:  (Until a few years ago, when I was less secure, I guess) I introduced myself this way):  Meeting a graduate student colleague at a conference
Introduction:  "I'm David.  I'm an associate professor of rhetoric.  I research the intersections of writing, speaking, reading, listening, in traditional academic disciplines and in popular culture."
Reflection:  I have been startled in the past, especially early in my career, with the way that graduate students dismiss faculty at "branch campuses," as if only faculty at doctoral granting institutions do interesting work or can help their career.  (Then again, I am sure that graduate students are taught nothing about networking.)
The longer I am around, and the more tools like Academia.edu exist, the less often I face this underestimation, thankfully -- people in my subfields of rhetorical studies know who I am more and more often, without any awareness of being "only" at a branch campus.

Situation 3:  Meeting anyone else.
Introduction:  "I'm David.  I'm a writing teacher at UMD.  I occasionally also write for local media."
Reflection:  No one knows what rhetoric is.  No one cares what I research.  They are intimidated by professors.  They may recognize my picture from the newspaper or from the Perfect Duluth Day website.

What would your three situations be?  And what would you say?

"Reduce decisions... by scheduling them on automatic pilot..."

At the end of Chapter 11, Robeson tells me to "Reduce decisions... by scheduling them on automatic pilot...  Habits reduce the need for willpower because they act like computer subroutines that run automatically in the background while the main program is doing taxing new work" (Bauermeister and Tierney, 2011).

This section is dependent on a book about Willpower, which is dependent, itself, upon the critiqued model of "ego depletion."

Still, you can see the value in the advice.  There are ways that I structure my life that does reduce stress.  There are other ways that could improve in that way.

What do you structure into your life?

Increase your Perception of Abundance (with my own nod toward Maslow)

The last section of Chapter 11 asks me to "decide how much is enough in various aspects of my life" then it asks me to "set goals for how to match those guidelines."  For example:

• How much money do [I] need in [my] savings account to feel secure?
• How many scholarly publications so [I] want to produce this year?
• How much time with [my] friends and family feels good?
• How much recreation time do [I] want, when and how?

These are some of the most complicated questions in the book.  I can't answer them all, here, but I want to take a stab at some of them.

1.  How much money do [I] need in [my] savings account to feel secure?
I have what most would consider to be a very secure job.  Tenure is not a job for life, but it is a guarantee of a maximum amount of process before eliminating my position, firing me.  But I also grew up poor, I have internalized a great set of fears -- that I am one layoff or plant closing away from family-disintegrating stress, depression, and more.

How does this affect my sense of economic security?  It inflects my choices in the spending of money.  According to "current research,"

"spending choices, as oppose to absolute income, affect individual’s well-being.  Van Boven and Gilovich (2003) first demonstrated that spending one’s discretionary income on life experiences, as opposed to buying material objects, leads to increased well-being"

I know I make this choice, over and over again:  to spend my money on experiences because memories cannot be foreclosed upon, nor can memories be taken by creditors in the case of a catastrophic health care event.

Back to the original question:  I have always believed that half your annual salary in the bank is "safe."  So Robeson is inviting me to consider whether I have met that standard.  Or to rethink that standard, perhaps.

2.  How many scholarly publications do [I] want to produce this year?
This question seems fictional to me, or maybe it feels like something I just don't understand in the same way as the author.  I can't predict the number of scholarly publications I will produce in a year, anymore than I can predict the number of bullseyes I will hit when I play darts.  (There are others, I understand, who are that skilled at either -- at darts or at writing scholarly publications.)

I approach this question more organically -- what kinds of projects do I want to start, with what communities and with what partners do I want to do this work, and how long (roughly) will it take me to shepherd them to completion.  So my mapping is closer to a three-year map.  If I want to edit this project or that project, that's a two to three year timeline.  If I want to write a chapter for that book or that journal, that's a two year timeline, from the moment I start.  If I want to submit a piece in a single-blind or editorial-review only forum (e.g. a response, etc.).

And I try to balance the communities I publish within.  Speech-Communication is one community, Composition is another.  I find that the pieces I have written for library science publications are well-cited, so perhaps I should return to publishing in that community this year -- because I have something to say, and because what I have to say seems to make a contribution.

I can't answer on these terms, but I think I should develop a better answer than I have so far.

3.  How much time with [my] friends and family feels good?
That's easy:  three nights a week plus whatever accidental plans emerge on weekends.  I try to spend one day alone a week.  I fail sometimes, with mixed consequences.

4.  How much recreation time do [I] want, when and how?
This also challenges me, because so much of what I do as "work" is also play.  This blog is both. Reading can be both.  And it can be a significant source of tension to think that work is joy, for me, when (for example) past romantic partners or even close friends have held jobs which were purely jobs, clocking it in, and not understanding that doing my job can be more fun that seeing a movie.

How would you answer Robison's four questions?

And why only these four?  Robison discourages too many questions, too many goal-guideline questions like these, because too many such questions will decrease your sense of abundance.  If I had a target for "number of conferences attended" and "weeks of vacation" and so on, I would decrease my sense of abundance in life.

It may not have been intended (or intended but intentionally not articulated, but the questions Robison asks fall neatly onto Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Physiological and safety needs are clearly mapped onto money in the bank, family and friend time maps onto love/belonging, for an academic, publications fit into both belonging (membership in the community of scholars) and esteem.  And recreation and publishing both may fit into self-actualization.

Using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to develop your own questions for increasing your perception of abundance may help you.

The "Growth" Mindset

Chapter 9-10 of The Peak Performing Professor talks about aligning my work with my goals, which I am using effectively now...  I think... to select writing projects that advance my goals and to detach myself from service obligations.  It also talks about simple feng sui and efficiency-based redesign of my workspaces.  I'm still moving toward those.  (For example, my offices are catastrophe storage spaces, not workspaces.  So I need this.  On the other hand space spent on filing systems are useless because I file nothing.)

Chapter 11 opens with an exhortation to "do more of what you are good at and already works" and to "do less of what doesn't."  It seems simple, and if it's boring to do only what you are good at, "reach down further into things you are good at," using (for example) the strengths assessments we completed earlier.

The chapter makes a digression, here, to make sure that we aren't setting up a recipe for stagnation.

Robison introduces the idea of a "growth mindset," a concept cribbed from Carol Dweck.  Dweck defines the concept on her website:

In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. They’re wrong. 

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities.  (from http://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/)

The growth mindset primes one for success and satisfaction.  The fixed mindset results in paralysis in the face of overwhelming challenges.

This echoes something I read a long time ago, that we don't praise our children for "being smart" or for "winning the prize," but for working hard.  We should especially recognize our children's efforts to push themselves and work hard to achieve a goal," says Donahue, author of Parenting Without Fear: Letting Go of Worry and Focusing on What Really Matters. "One thing to remember is that it's the process not the end product that matters."  If we praise the effort, I think, we are creating the Growth Mindset, because the child will always put the effort in, rather than quitting when overwhelmed.

I'm pretty sure I have the "growth mindset," generally speaking.  (I am overweight, and I tend to imagine that some portion of that is genetically determined instead of a result of behaviors I could change.  Both are true.  So I am at least partially "fixed" in that.)  But I have immense faith in the plasticity of the brain, in our ability to learn new things.

That said, I need to recognize that it's not just about what the brain is capable of.  That would ignore culture, ideology, and material conditions.  I pause here to recognize that having immense faith in the plasticity of brains, in their ability to grow and develop across the lifespan, depends on a number of factors that are outside our control.  Whether we have access to the teachers and environments that make that growth possible.  Whether we have the support mechanisms allow us to focus on our own development.  Whether we exist in a cutural context that even believed we can grow that way.  And, in a more limited sense, whether our biology allows it (e.g. severely autistic individuals).  If I do not acknowledge these things, I am participating in some Horatio Alger psychology.

A professor withour the growth mindset would puzzle me, except that I think I have worked with several already.

Back to The Peak Performing Professor, with Supplemental Materials on MasterMind Groups

So the next few chapters of the Peak Performing Professor are about time management -- that tasks are more often completed if they are subdivided in to subtasks that you can visualize, for example, and that starting with the endpoint and reverse engineering can move you toward a realizable schedule.

All of this is stuff I take for granted when I teach grantwriting.  So I won't talk much about it here.

In Chapter 9, she talks about Mastermind Groups.  Most of the time, I think in terms of "writing groups" and "mentoring relationships."  I am sitting in a coffee shop right now with a colleague, where we are writing together.  I have had many mentors.  This is different, and it seems right for the Associate Professor stage of a relationship.

In "Creating your MasterMind: personal and professional development through mastermind groups" by Benjamin N. Arnold, Lucas Friedrichsen and Mo Nishiyama, we learn that the MasterMind group is defined as “Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.”

2.1 The Spirit of Harmony Collaborating in a harmonious manner is important. In an environment of competitors, one will rarely be truly open and share experiences, knowledge, and wisdom. One is always holding something back If you are in competition with any in your group you will not feel truly free to open up for fear of your weaknesses getting spread around the office or having them used against you...
2.2 Working Toward a Definite Purpose A MasterMind group is typically focused on one purpose or theme—physical fitness, career advancement, becoming more productive, becoming better mothers or fathers, or something similar... 

2.3 Mutual Benefit for All Group Members The difference between a MasterMind group and a mentor/mentee relationship is that all members of a MasterMind group stand to benefit from their participation equally. In the traditional mentor and mentee relationship the mentee tends to be the primary person to benefit from their relationship. “Mastermind groups create a win-win situation for all participants. New friendships develop and everyone grows because of the support and encouragement of the Mastermind group.”... 

2.4 Benefits of a MasterMind Group Members continually encourage each other through tough times and recognize accomplishments. The positive energy this generates can help sustain members between the meetings, through rough patches at work or even motivate them to seek new challenges by changing their work environment. The group can provide external accountability and motivation, through the mechanism of gentle peer pressure... Imagine a group outside of work, family and close friends that constantly pushes you to do your best, looks out for your best interest and is genuinely interested in the topics and input you provide—not to mention, a group that will listen to your ideas and respond in kind with honest feedback and different perspectives before you present to your colleagues...

I like this idea.  I'm not sure I would be any good at being part of organizing it -- I'm just not familiar enough with how they are structured, and I would fall into old models of relating to each other -- mentor, coach, writing partner.

But I like it.

So why Don't academics write?  Boice gives us his results, after working with many academics, in the 1985 essay.

Do you see yourself in this list?  The blocks are in order of most frequent.

Interlude: Professors as Writers (Chapter One, Part One)

Writing “brings more professional rewards than anything else a professor can do, then why don't we do it?” (Boice, 1990, p.7, summarized also here).

Why do professors write?  According to Boice, professors write because writing:
 Weighs heavily in hiring, promotion, tenure
 Brings rewards of visibility, membership in the profession
 Provides a kind of self-education – you don‟t really know the field until you write about it

That last bit seems significant to me.  I spent three years working at a university with a 4/4 load.  Of the more than a dozen colleagues in my department, you could identify the ones who still wrote.  They were the best teachers, the most engaged colleagues, and the ones, frankly, who still liked their job.  Nicholas Karolides, Marshall Toman, Ruth Wood, Steve Luebke, I am looking especially at you, and I thank you for your friendship and collegial example.

Digression:  Some significant portion of those colleagues, I think, had even stopped reading, except recreationally.  After all, they had gardens to tend by 3pm each day.  In a small town, some of these colleagues caused a scandal, and complaints from the locals, such that each faculty member was asked to submit a "schedule" verifying how they were spending at least 40 hours a week on their work.  I honestly don't believe they all were -- but then, one of my colleagues would walk into class every Friday, announce that it was a "reading day," and then head to the faculty lounge to get coffee.  No wonder tenure seems... uncomfortable to some nonacademic people.

Boice also claims that 85% of publication is done by 15% of those in the profession.  I'm going to push at this a little bit because I think that there are some members of the profession who still write but in nonacademic forums -- Tom Zelman and Pat Hagen, who write popular book reviews, stay alive to their profession without putting all their energy into peer reviewed pieces.  I don't want to define publication too narrowly.

Still, this assertion matches my memory of an article comparing Communication faculty (one of my areas of disciplinary identification) dissertations against publications.  In "Normative Publication Productivity of Communication Scholars at Selected Career Milestones," Timothy Stephen and Renee Geel, Human Communication Research, Volume 33, Issue 1, pages 103–118, January 2007, we learn that "more than one third of the membership of the scholars sample had not contributed any articles to the field’s mainline periodical literature."  The sum total contribution of many within the 2/3 who do publish?  One article.

Writing is rewarded and rewarding, Boice is right, but it is not often enough done.

Why not?

In a 1985 Article, Boice surveyed some theories, which I will reproduce below.

Do you see your own reluctance to write in this?

Interlude: Robert Boice's Professors as Writers (Introduction)

I am taking a break from the intense reflective writing that has typified this blog for a look at a book I purchased at the Duluth Public Library book sale today.  I'll probably wander through this $1.50 find for the next few days.  Boice is also discussed by other bloggers (for example, Agraphia)

Boice's program to get professor writing includes four stages:

• Establish momentum and ideas with unself-conscious techniques
• Arrange external situations to ensure regular, productive writing
• Manage self-control of cognition and emotions
• Create social support, develop writing skills, and understand your audience

This all seems like good, common-sense advice.  But I imagine that it helps to have it articulated.  Very few doctoral programs train faculty in how to write, in how to self-identify as a writer.

I think that I have, myself, wasted vast amounts of time powering through writing tasks in lousy external (material and psychological) situations, for example.

Part of being a Peak Performing Professor includes writing, so this seems to fit the goal of this blog.  And this will get me out of my navel for a few days.

Interlude: DISC Assessments (3 of 3)

So, what are the criticisms of DISC Assessments?  After all, I seem to have, here, a picture of myself as I think I am, with a social scientific vocabulary to enhance that self-understanding, to make it not "self-intuition" but "self-knowledge."

But there are decades of criticism of the DISC.  Some are methodological.  Some are in terms of validity.  And some are, as you might guess, that it doesn't measure anything.  Rather, it self-fulfills  my own expectations.

1. "There is evidence to suggest the only trait measured with any accuracy is, indeed, Dominance."  From:  http://www.salesteamfocus.com/whatwedo/psychometricTesting/shortcomingsDISC.php

This would be a criticism of the validity of the test, right?  Does it actually measure anything real.

Well, I think to myself, "Dominance," or the exercise of power over other people, is clearly one of the most significant issues of my personal and professional and intellectual life.  How do I exercise power over students (and when do I abdicate it)?  How do I exercise power over colleagues, and when do I abdicate it? So maybe, maybe, there is still some value in this tool.


2.  "A very high Dominance score means the person is more interested in dominating than in influencing, submitting or complying. It does not mean the test candidate is a very dominant person relative to other people."  From:  http://www.salesteamfocus.com/whatwedo/psychometricTesting/shortcomingsDISC.php
and "Like hundreds of other assessments based on the four style behavioral model, DISC reports the relative strengths of the person being tested. If a DISC assessment reports the individual is 75% “high D”, this merely means this individual is energized by asserting him/herself in dealing with problems. What it does not predict is how two people with similar DISC patterns will perform a job or interact with others." From http://hr.toolbox.com/blogs/ira-wolfe/why-disc-doesnt-work-for-employee-screening-49119
"It frequently happens that individuals who are relatively submissive in real life produce high Dominance scores i.e. results that have little correlation with actual behaviour and performance."  From:  http://www.salesteamfocus.com/whatwedo/psychometricTesting/shortcomingsDISC.php

This would be a criticism of the validity of the test, right?  Does it actually measure anything real across multiple test takers.  Is a "75" Dominant score seen in two people meaningful in comparing the two people.

Well.  Okay.  So someone may score "High D," simply because he has preferences in "Dominance," but in real life, may not be a particularly dominant personality.  I score "Low D," but know that I come across in some contexts as dominant (although I think that's just because I have a high procedural knowledge and a strong set of principles/ethics).

The creator of Wonder Woman is letting my down in the pop psychology department.


3.  "A high Dominance score on DISC does not even prove the test candidate is dominant in real life; it could simply be that he/she particularly avoids being influential, submissive or compliant. Some people score high on Dominance not because they have dominant personalities but because the adjectives they chose which resulted in their high Dominance score were the lesser of four evils not the most attractive of four possibilities." From:  http://www.salesteamfocus.com/whatwedo/psychometricTesting/shortcomingsDISC.php

This criticism is methodological.  The test is structured in a way that forces one to place the four dimensions in a hierarchy.  As a result, the top answer may not be the one one is drawn toward, but the one that is least offensive to the individual.

I got nothing.

As I think harder on the DISC, I also think:  this kind of four-part assessment would be like describing me as a (a) 5'6" (b) male weighing (c) 280 pounds with (d) high blood pressure.

That is entirely accurate, but it leaves out many of the most salient dimensions of me.

I'm not smart enough, at this moment, to list the dimensions left out of the DISC (although some versions, for example, use "compliant" instead of "conscientious," which I think shows some interesting biases, possibly gendered, in the four-part construct.

But by the time this blog is done, I will have done so many self-assessments, I should have some more solid grounding on how to compare them.

Interlude: DISC Assessments (2 of 3)

What do I look like when I complete the DISC Assessments?

DISC divides personalities into four basic dimensions, and then DISC seeks to assess the ways that the four dimensions interact.

What does DiSC stand for? What do the letters mean?

from:  https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc/overview/

	Dominance Person places emphasis on accomplishing results, the bottom line, confidence	Behaviors - Sees the big picture - Can be blunt - Accepts challenges - Gets straight to the point Learn more
	Influence Person places emphasis on influencing or persuading others, openness, relationships	Behaviors - Shows enthusiasm - Is optimistic - Likes to collaborate - Dislikes being ignored Learn more
	Steadiness Person places emphasis on cooperation, sincerity, dependability	Behaviors - Doesn't like to be rushed - Calm manner - Calm approach - Supportive actions - Humility Learn more
	Conscientiousness Person places emphasis on quality and accuracy, expertise, competency	Behaviors - Enjoys independence - Objective reasoning - Wants the details - Fears being wrong Learn more

The short version of the test was unhelpful, except for one element:  its visual graph comparing "how I am in my self-image" and "how I behave when I believe others are watching" shows that my primary strategy is to tone myself down, to diminish, to minimize elements of my DISC personality.

 The bar graph on the right represents "David under a blanket," "David under erasure," "David toning it down in nearly every way" because (he believes) this make him more successful than behaving in the manner predicted by my "internal" style (represented in the chart on the left).  The only personality trait that remains "consistent" in my internal and external presentation is "Conscientiousness" --

Person places emphasis on quality and accuracy, expertise, competency  

Behaviors

- Enjoys independence
- Objective reasoning
- Wants the details
- Fears being wrong

From another site, I prefer this graph.  Makes me feel less like a person with four parts than that I have four dimensions to my single being.

These results also came from a larger battery of questions (from Anthony Robbins Coaching, www.tonyrobbins.com), so I suppose I place a little more trust in the results.  (The first assessment was based on 12 questions.)

If you'd like to compare the two "apples to apples," the similar chart is below.

The richer data and the richer interpretation of the interaction between the factors fascinates me.

My "S" score is so much higher than my C with the larger battery of tests.

Your score shows a very high score on the 'S' spectrum. The comments below highlight some of the traits specific to just your unique score.
• You possess an amazing ability to calm those people who are upset.
• You possess excellent listening skills – some of the best.
• You'realwayswillingtohelpoutinapressuresituation,evenif
you don't really want to.
• You are very patient in working with a wide variety of people.
• Increasing your sense of urgency could benefit your
performance significantly.
• You are seen as cool, calm, and collected on the outside (whether that is true on the inside or not). 

This feels true;  I sometimes wonder whether it's temperament or effort, though -- and then I remember how I high I score on the "introvert" dimension of the matrix (above) and it feels like the test has me right.  It is work for me, whether by temperament or not.

What does the matrix say about me?

The following statements are true to just your unique natural style:

• You demonstrate a high degree of competence in your area of expertise.
  
• You tend to be verbal and articulate about many different topics and issues.
  
• You have a large knowledge-base and a continuing appetite to learn more.
  
• You have the ability to self-manage much of your own organizational activity and workload.
  
• You have the ability to handle people with patience, and demonstrate high technical competence in your area of expertise.
  
• Tend to be more modest than egocentric, but you also have the ability to become assertive when
  necessary for emphasis or communication.
  
• You place high expectations on yourself and others, and are able to help coach others into a stronger quality orientation.
  
• Will be verbal if workload or areas of responsibility need partial delegation to other professionals on the team, otherwise, tendency may be to stay focused on the tasks at hand. 

The statements below are specific to your individual Adaptive style:

• Brings a high degree of competence in product and process knowledge. Others on the team may seek you out to answer a detailed question for them.
  
• You tend to judge others by objective standards, and want to be evaluated yourself by specific criteria as well.
  
• Project decisions are made after careful consideration of all variables and inputs. This process may take a bit more time in the view of some others on the team, but the decision will be a quality outcome.
  
• Extremely high sense of quality control and detail orientation in all you do for the team or
  organization.
  
• You set high performance standards for yourself and others, and expect all to meet those standards.
  
• On the job, there is a right way and a wrong way to complete all projects. Let's complete it the right way.
  
• You appreciate an occasional word of reassurance from their supervisor or board, as long as it is sincere input.
  

I'm still synthesizing all of this (and thinking about the ways, as any good academic would, to critique the four dimensions of personality that the DISC provides) -- that will be post three of three in this interlude.

Interlude: DISC Assessment (1 of 3)

So I took the DISC Self-Assessment, three times, by three different services.

Why?  Because it was created by the man who created Wonder Woman!
(See: https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc/william-marston/)

I am still digesting my reports, but here is one page that I love.  It's advice for people who work with me:

Things to do to effectively communicate with David: • Ask for input regarding people and specific assignments. • Use the conversation to direct you back to the topic or issue at hand. • Be candid, open, and patient. • Be certain to remember to provide specific action steps and details for all involved. • Be accurate and realistic, don't over-inflate ideas or outcomes. • Allow time to verify the issues and potential outcomes. • If you say you're going to do something, do it.

Things to avoid to effectively communicate with David: • Don't rush the issues or the decision-making process. • Don't use unreliable evidence or testimonials. • Don't use someone else's opinions as evidence. • Don't be disorganized or sloppy. • Avoid being impersonal or judgmental. • Avoid being overly task-oriented. • Don't force others to agree quickly with your objectives and position. Provide some time to warm up to the ideas.

Culmination of Part One: The First Draft of the Dream Book (1 of 2)

The Dream Book feels a little "Oprah Scrapbooky," but here is the first draft (you will need to click and follow the link), in which I collate and assemble what I have produced so far in this project, working through Susan Robison's Peak Performing Professor.  I need to work through the subpages in each Vision section yet (as of May 27, as I type this.)

Here is what Robison has to say about Dream Books:

Now you need a way to manage all of your goals so let?s put together your Dream Book. (About 1/6 of participants in my audiences prefer a Dream Wall in which they park all of their goals. All of the following suggestions can be translated from books and walls into electronic forms.) You need the following equipment: 8 ½ x 11 three ring notebook; several sheets each of 6-8 colors of 8 ½ x 11 copy paper and several pages of plain white paper; (optional) notebook dividers; (optional) plastic sleeves for overhead transparencies. Or poster board for your wall, enough to hold many sticky notes. Follow these steps: Three hole punch the white and colored paper and put the white paper into the front of the binder in this order:Page 1 - Purpose statement in large font - maybe in script Page 2 - Mission statement Page 3 - Table of Contents. Use the 6-8 Vision statements as chapter headings. You can write or type these. Here is the beginning of Sasha?s table of contents: Chapter 1 - Home: My home is clean, organized and aesthetically pleasing and supports me, my spirit, and my work. Chapter 2 - Hobbies: I learn, practice, and perform music with my flute in order to stay relaxed and refreshed for my work. Chapter 3 - Scholarly work: I develop creative ideas for research and submit three articles for peer reviewed journals a year, four conference presentations/poster sessions a year with my students, and author, edit, or co-author one book every five years. Add the colored paper.Following your table of contents insert the hole punched colored pages and organize them in the order of the chapter titles or Vision statements. Pages can be oriented portrait with the stickies facing you as you flip open a page, or lined up sideways into landscape so you can read them if you turn the notebook sideways. You can use section dividers or just punch holes in the colored sheets. For example if you use purple for your Vision statement, ?I stay in contact with my family and friends sharing joy, supporting each other, and connected around mutual activities? put several purple pages into the book and have separate pages for goals related to families, friends and your activities with them. Your Home section will be on different colored paper with a section for each room or a section for Maintenance, one for Redecorating, etc. There may be some logical way to group the goals perhaps by subcategories. For example, in the Friends and Family section, there might be a page of goals related to each family unit or perhaps to each person. You might have a separate page for each friend. Sasha used pink pages for the ?teaching? category represented by her vision statement: ?My classes are well-prepared, interesting, creative, and collegial in their atmosphere.? On these pages she parked all of her goals related to teaching. She had a page for goals for developing interesting material, one for creating learning activities, and another for promoting a collegial class atmosphere through warm-up and team building activities.

Establishing the Pyramid of Power: The Vision Statement (Part Two) and Goals

So, I am working from the last post toward four statements of formal Vision and Goals.

Professional Vision:
To be a member of a profession that is open to alternative voices in writing, research, teaching, and community service, a profession made that way (in part) by virtue of my work in writing, research, teaching, and service.

Goals:  

Research 

• To submit one scholarly work that crosses disciplinary and professional boundaries per year.  In 2016, I would like that project to be a piece on medicine and games with ME.
• To complete the monograph project engaged with JWF with this Vision in mind.
• To edit one scholarly collection every three years (a special issue, a forum,  an anthology) that integrates new genres and new voices.  To complete such projects begun with LH, BB, and LW.
• To seek a sabbatical in 2017-2018 or 2018-2019 to allow me to pursue this work in a new way. 

Teaching

• To always teach in a way that crosses disciplinary and professional boundaries.

Service

• To only accept administrative responsibilities in my university and discipline that advance alternative voices.  

Writing in the Profession

• To submit a minimum of four professional thinkpieces (for example, for Inside Higher Ed, for the Chronicle, for "middle state" online journals) a year, based in part on my experiences in research, teaching and service and my commitment to new voices.
• To write no less that four times a week for my blogs (that will help establish my own voice in the profession).

Overall Goal in my Profession 

• To recognize the powerful alchemy of this kind of intellectual intersection.  To recognize that connecting with other voices, other genres, other methodologies and perspectives creates opportunities.  To seize those opportunities as part of my professional vision, as a gift of serendipity and a blessing of being a tenured academic in the 21st century.

Community Vision:
To be a member of a community that is open to alternative voices in art and social justice, a community made that way (in part) by virtue of my work in art and social justice.

Goals:  

• To volunteer for three years of every six years with a local non-profit agency that advances issues in art and social justice.
• To not-volunteer for three years of every six, so that I can approach the work freshly and with enthusiasm. 
• To see this experience as a source of reflection for writing.

Creative Vision:
To be part of a world where by trusting others with the real expression of myself in writing, I create opportunities for them to recognize themselves and to consider their own self-expression.

Goals:  

• To write no less than five thoughtful, meditative Facebook posts a week.
• To submit an opinion piece once monthly for the Budgeteer.
• To submit a Saturday Essay four to six times a year for the website Perfect Duluth Day.
• To submit a work of creative nonfiction to a literary outlet once a year (e.g. Normal School, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre)
• To ensure, always, that the story I tell is mine, no one else's -- I have no right to tell someone else's story.  Rather, in telling my story, I want to inspire others to tell theirs.

Personal Vision:

To cultivate a personality (intellectually and emotionally intelligent, trustworthy, skilled in conversation, versed in a number of topics) capable of sharing the experience of theater, film, music and life with trusted friends and loved ones.

Goals:

• To continue regular journaling as a means of reflection on my life.
• To continue reading outside my field as a means of enhancing my intellectual versatility.
• To continue interacting with friends and loved ones in a way that enhances my skills in conversation, my emotional intelligence, and my ability to process life in a trustworthy way.
• To recognize relationship dynamics that do not enhance my skills in conversation, my emotional intelligence, and my ability to process life in a trustworthy way and to work to transform those dynamics.
• To develop the bravery or strength necessary to take the risks necessary to develop relationships unlike any I have had before.  

Establishing the Pyramid of Power: The Vision Statement (Part One: Three Phone Calls)

The Next Chapter of the Peak Performing Professor asks me to think about my vision statement.  

Purpose, Mission, Vision -- OMG, these are the tools that, in admin speak, have driven some of the worst workshops and strategic planning exercises I can imagine.  But trust, right?  Trust the process.  I will give this a try.  It will take me two posts -- this first one is preliminary.

What does Susan Robison mean by "vision"?

In an interview with Kim Pawlak, Robison talks about vision this way:

Vision Statement. Your vision statement is the outcome of your mission. Here’s a device to get at your vision, she said: “The phone rings five years from now. You’ve been waiting a long time for this very special call. Who is it and what do you want them to ask you? Is it the Nobel Committee asking you to come to Stockholm to accept your award? Is it yet another publisher chasing you down, offering you millions of dollars to write a book? What kind of call is it that you have hoped for and worked for your whole life and it’s finally coming together?”

(Ring Ring Ring)

Hello?

Professor Beard, we are preparing a conference on rethinking graduate education in the 21st century.  We think that you have innovated in your research, your advising and teaching, and in your program administration and advocacy in ways that could not only model other undergraduate and terminal MA programs, but reshape doctoral education.  Would you be willing to address our organization this year?

I would love it.

(Ring Ring Ring)

Hello?

It's Friday night, David.  The DSSO is playing tonight, and your friends Gwen and Adam are performing, right?  I'd love to get dinner in Canal Park, we can catch up on the day, then walk to the DECC for the performance.  Afterward, we can get some drinks and talk about the music, which, if it moves us, will open the door to talking about the other things that have moved us in the week.

(From here, we play "choose your own adventure")

A.  I'd love to.  Where can I meet you?  
B.  I'd love to.  Let's meet after work at home, we can decide where we eat then.  I need a shower, anyway.
C.  I'd love to.  Let me get a babysitter for our children.

I understand that I cannot control whether someone else loves me as a partner, nor can I control whether or not children are part of my life.  
So while B and C are part of my heart, I focus on what I can control:  that I can be the kind of personality, intellectually and emotionally adept, with whom a diversity of others will want to share the experience of music and art and the experience of their lives.

(No Ringing)

Someone, somewhere, is reading something I wrote.  

As they read it, they lean in toward their companion and say:
1.  Honey, what do you think about this passage I am about to read to you?
2.  Honey, in this essay, I have found what I needed for my next project.
3.  Honey, this essay reminds me of something.  May I tell you about it?
4.  Honey, this essay is horseshit.  I want to tell you about it?
5.  Sass that hoopy David Beard?  There's a frood who really knows where his towel is.

I can't beat that last one.  More on this tomorrow -- converting these phone call stories to a vision.

Establishing the Pyramid of Power: The Mission

Chapter Four asks me to talk about my mission(s).

In her interview with Kim Pawlak, Robison tells us that:

Mission Statement. Your mission statement is more practical, and changes every three to five years for adults, and sooner for students. Your mission statement answers the question, “If I am here for this purpose, what shall I do about it? “To write your mission statement, you will need to know what your strengths are (three verbs), what your values are, and to whom you typically offer yourself to,” she said. “As a result, your mission statement will follow this formula: ‘My mission is to (verb, verb, verb), that are my strengths, for, to, or with (people, people, people), who want (value, value, value – your four to eight values). When you put your mission statement together, it’s really helpful to use information from the outside world, such as your students.”

Ghaaa.  I hate hate hate writing to fill in formulae.  But this process is about surrendering to something else, right -- to argue, to think critically about the book and what the book asks me to do, but to submit to the experience.

So here is the formula again:

My mission is to (verb, verb, verb),  -- and notably, the verbs here should be my strengths.

for, to, or with (people, people, people), 

who want (value, value, value). 

Robison suggests, or at least models, personal and professional missions, more than one mission yielding the same purpose.  I accept this the same way that astronauts head into low orbit with more than one mission on a flight.

...

Teaching and Service Mission
My mission is to develop rhetorical abilities in students (inside and outside the classroom) who want to express themselves as a means of bringing about change in their communities and in themselves.

Writing and Research Mission
My mission is to exercise my own rhetorical abilities for readers (inside and outside my discipline) in a way which uses my expression of myself and my ideas to model and to create an opening for their expression of themselves and their ideas.

Personal Mission
My mission is to cultivate relationships with friends, family, partner and possibly, someday, children that form a safe space for us to speak freely to both support and challenge each other to grow.

Self-Assessment Interlude: the R2 Self Assessment

In The Peak Performing Professor, Robison recommends the R2 Strengths Assessment.  It cost quite a bit more than I would normally spend, but I'm curious about where this is going.  (Here's hoping that the exchange rate between British Pounds and Dollars is not terrible.)

The R2 works in quadrants.  It promises, in the right hand, to tell me what are my "strengths" as opposed to my "learned behaviors."  (My learned behaviors still rock, but they require effort, concentration, to manifest, whereas my strengths are more organically part of my way of being in the world.)

What can I learn about these strengths, and how do I work within the horizons that they make possible for me?

Well...

This is how the R2 assessment both describes me and advises me to take the best advantage of these strengths.  It feels right to me.

My highest family of strengths is "Being" -- defined in the image below.

Again, this feels right to me.

Where am I weak?

This is my weakest family of strengths, "Motivating" --

Again, this seems consistent with my sense of myself.

And what are my weaknesses?

The report tries to encourage us to minimize the effect of our weaknesses.  While one could develop learned behaviors, I suppose, to overcome a weakness, it may be better to minimize the effect of weaknesses.

The report is long and complicated, and I'll be thinking about it for a while.  Robison suggests that I draw upon it to develop my "mission statement."  That work begins tomorrow.

Establishing the Pyramid of Power: The Purpose

The end of Chapter Two of Susan Robison's Peak Performing Professor establishes the Pyramid of Power.  I won't summarize it here (because I want to respect Robison's intellectual property), but I will point to places where Robison does that work, or her reviewers do that work.

First, the four parts of the pyramid:

Robison defines the parts of the pyramid in an interview with Kim Pawlak:

Purpose Statement. Your purpose statement is your philosophical belief. This doesn’t change much across your whole lifetime. “You may be able to come up with your purpose statement in minutes, or it may take you over a year,” she said. “The amount of time it takes is no reflection on your intelligence, your physical attractiveness, or your mental health. It is a phenomena all by itself. So if you’re struggling with your purpose statement, it’s something that’s going to be an ongoing take-home assignment for you. One woman I worked with spent half of her time teaching at a university and the other half of her time serving as a liaison between a diversity center on campus and the urban community in which she lived. We came up with a purpose statement for her that said: ‘I am a bridge connecting ideas and people for the greater good.'”
Mission Statement. Your mission statement is more practical, and changes every three to five years for adults, and sooner for students. Your mission statement answers the question, “If I am here for this purpose, what shall I do about it? “To write your mission statement, you will need to know what your strengths are (three verbs), what your values are, and to whom you typically offer yourself to,” she said. “As a result, your mission statement will follow this formula: ‘My mission is to (verb, verb, verb), that are my strengths, for, to, or with (people, people, people), who want (value, value, value – your four to eight values). When you put your mission statement together, it’s really helpful to use information from the outside world, such as your students.”
Vision Statement. Your vision statement is the outcome of your mission. Here’s a device to get at your vision, she said: “The phone rings five years from now. You’ve been waiting a long time for this very special call. Who is it and what do you want them to ask you? Is it the Nobel Committee asking you to come to Stockholm to accept your award? Is it yet another publisher chasing you down, offering you millions of dollars to write a book? What kind of call is it that you have hoped for and worked for your whole life and it’s finally coming together?”
Goals:  What things shall I do to make my vision come alive because I’m living my mission because I know what my purpose is? These things are your goals, which can be broken down into tasks. “Once your Pyramid of Power is in place, it motivates and energizes everything you do,” she said.

The goal of Chapter Three is to force reflection on purpose (summarized here):

Each of us needs to reflect upon and construct a 1 or 2 sentence explanation that answers the question: why am I here on this earth? What am I here to do? This may seem hard. We all have so many talents and passions, but if we really boil it all down, what essentially is our purpose? 

The purpose statement operates at a very high level of generality.  An example given here is "“I am a bridge connecting ideas and people for the greater good.”"

Note that phrased with that level of generality, the purpose statement applies to professional, family and community life.

So what is my purpose?

In speech, in writing, and in listening, I cultivate the free expression of ideas and the free expression of self in myself and in others.

2.2 (Part Two) Lifetime Achievement Award

Exercise 2.2 in The Peak Performing Professor asks me to talk about a lifetime achievement award.  If I got one, what would it be for?

Yesterday was such an exercise in dodging around real feelings by burying my thoughts in academic language. Today, I will simple and straight to the point, with the hope of coming back to this in an essay I might publish one day.

At my lifetime achievement award, or my funeral, since the way I tell this, there is a strangely eulogistic tone to it:

I want a room full of people assembled, and each of them should be able to say this thing: 

"I wanted to say something, I wanted to become something, and David played a part in making that possible." 

And I want to look down from the emptiness of death and say:  "And I was made better because you could say what you wanted to say, because you could become what you wanted to become."

Self-Assessment Interlude: The VIA Character Inventory

In The Peak Performing Professor, Robison suggests a number of strengths inventories.  I took the VIA Character Inventory.

Here are my results.  Remember, this is a self-assessment;  I answer based on my self-image.  I imagine others viewing me, my life, my actions, might see things differently.

About VIA:  Established as non-profit organization in 2001, the VIA Institute on Character is a global leader in the science and practice of character. We are proud to offer the VIA Survey, the only free, online, scientifically validated survey of character strengths. (VIA stands for Values in Action.)

Research shows that, within the US, there are trends to answers in VIA:  "Researchers found that, within the United States, the most commonly endorsed strengths are kindness, fairness, honesty, gratitude and judgment" (Wikipedia).

In order of importance as registered by VIA, my character strengths are:

1. Fairness
Treating all people the same according to notions of fairness and justice; not letting feelings bias decisions about others; giving everyone a fair chance.
2. Kindness
Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them.
3. Judgment
Thinking things through and examining them from all sides; not jumping to conclusions; being able to change one's mind in light of evidence; weighing all evidence fairly.
4. Gratitude
Being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen; taking time to express thanks.
5. Love of learning
Mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether on one's own or formally; related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows.
6. Humor
Liking to laugh and tease; bringing smiles to other people; seeing the light side; making (not necessarily telling) jokes.
7. Bravery
Not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain; speaking up for what’s right even if there’s opposition; acting on convictions even if unpopular; includes physical bravery but is not limited to it.
8. Prudence
Being careful about one's choices; not taking undue risks; not saying or doing things that might later be regretted.
9. Creativity
Thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualize and do things; includes artistic achievement but is not limited to it.
10. Forgiveness

Forgiving those who have done wrong; accepting others’ shortcomings; giving people a second chance; not being vengeful.

11. Honesty
Speaking the truth but more broadly presenting oneself in a genuine way and acting in a sincere way; being without pretense; taking responsibility for one's feelings and actions.
12. Curiosity
Taking an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake; finding subjects and topics fascinating; exploring and discovering.
13. Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence
Noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in various domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience.
14. Leadership
Encouraging a group of which one is a member to get things done and at the same time maintain good relations within the group; organizing group activities and seeing that they happen.
15. Perspective
Being able to provide wise counsel to others; having ways of looking at the world that make sense to oneself/others.
16. Zest
Approaching life with excitement and energy; not doing things halfway or halfheartedly; living life as an adventure; feeling alive and activated.
17. Social intelligence
Being aware of the motives/feelings of others and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick.
18. Hope
Expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it; believing that a good future is something that can be brought about.
19. Perseverance
Finishing what one starts; persevering in a course of action in spite of obstacles; “getting it

out the door”; taking pleasure in completing tasks.

20. Love
Valuing close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing & caring are reciprocated; being close to people.
21. Teamwork
Working well as a member of a group or team; being loyal to the group; doing one's share.
22. Humility
Letting one's accomplishments speak for themselves; not regarding oneself as more special than one is.
23. Self-Regulation
Regulating what one feels and does; being disciplined; controlling one's appetites and emotions.
24. Spirituality
Having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe; knowing where one fits within the larger scheme; having beliefs about the meaning of life that shape conduct and provide comfort.