You don’t have to be on every team
Photo by Jonah Löffler on Unsplash
Last week’s blog post discussed how academia is, at its core, a team sport. Some of the strongest and most enduring research careers are built on a foundation of collaboration, comprised of diverse partnerships that draw on a range of unique perspectives and skillsets to tackle interesting scientific problems in creative and ground-breaking ways. Collaborations are a great way to not only improve the research, but also to develop your networks and even find some life-long friendships. However, having said this, I would like to also put out a caveat: you don’t have to be on every team.
Whether you realize it or not, you have (or you are in the process of developing) a unique skillset or expertise that makes you an incredibly valuable collaborator. Perhaps you are leading your field in a particular statistical technique, or you are an expert with a specific method, or maybe you are well-known for your clinical work on a specific disorder. You may be the person that everyone asks to join their funding application, or the person asked to provide training to their graduate students and postdoctoral fellows on your speciality. This is certainly amazing, and these numerous and varied opportunities will enhance your international reputation. But it may also cause you to burnout. And if you’re not careful, you may end up prioritizing work that is not truly meaningful for you and your career. Also, if you don’t choose your teams wisely, you may not even get the credit you’re due for the work that you put in.
You don’t need to play every position on every team to have a successful career. (In fact, you can’t. It’s impossible.) You just need to know where your talents are best used.
There are a few ways to help guard against these issues:
1. Understand your strategic vision. Before you can appropriately evaluate an invitation to join a team, it is important to know what your own strategic vision is and what your long-term goals are. Does this potential new collaboration align with your strategic vision in new and interesting ways? Will it provide you with new knowledge or research opportunities that help achieve your current goals or inspire future projects? Or maybe the collaboration just sounds interesting or fun. Can you find ways to incorporate into your current strategic vision?
2. Be clear about the commitment and credit up front. Too often, collaborations can lead to burnout when you weren’t aware of just how much work was going to be asked of you. You may become resentful of the work that you are putting in if it suddenly becomes clear that your teammates didn’t have any intentions of giving you some kind of credit, whether that comes in the form of funding to offset your time or to support the time of your lab members, or listing you as an author on a paper for your contributions. Have a conversation about how much time is expected from you, or at least what the expected deliverables are so that you can estimate how much time that will be for you. Also discuss early on what the form of credit is acceptable or preferred for you. It’s better to have these conversations earlier rather than later and to set expectations accordingly. If the time or work requirement changes along the way, then conversations regarding type or amount of credit should be revisited to ensure all parties feel respected and acknowledged.
3. Know that if you say ‘yes’ to this, you are saying ‘no’ to something else. Everything is a decision. There are only so many hours of the day, and you can’t do it all without negatively impacting your mental and physical health. If you say ‘yes’ to this collaboration, given the time commitment and schedule expected of you, what will likely need to drop? Is the exchange consistent with your priorities and your long-term goals? If saying ‘yes’ to something you are only kind of interested in means that you have to put a project you’re really excited about on the backburner for a while, then the risk is too great. Sometimes, saying “no” strategically is just a part of saying “yes” to the right opportunities.
4. Don’t work with people who don’t fill your cup. Put simply, life is too short to work with people who suck. Whether they’re rude, take credit for other’s people work, or are energy vampires that leave you feeling drained, working with these kinds of people will leave you frustrated and annoyed. Choose teammates who bring you peace and joy.
5. Don’t engage in people-pleasing behaviours. Now, putting all of this into action and having some of the conversations I’ve suggested above may feel gross, or just otherwise fill you with dread. You may not want to have a conversation around time and credit because you don’t want to seem aggressive or greedy. You may not want to say ‘no’ to a collaboration because you don’t want the other person to not like you. You may also be worried that you’ll start some drama in your department or field if you decline to work with a team who has members that you find difficult to work with, or even don’t necessarily find trustworthy. Don’t take on these collaborations just because you want to be perceived as ‘nice’ or ‘collegial’. Doing so will just make you feel miserable and will cause you to be less successful in the long run. Bad feelings rarely stay confined to the specific situation that causes them; they carry over into the rest of your personal and professional life. Ask yourself if it’s really worth the risk, breathe deep, set boundaries, and have the hard conversations. Rest assured that breaking out of people-pleasing behaviors takes time and it takes work. Don’t hesitate to get a mentor, coach, or therapist to help you navigate this.
6. Recommend someone else for the opportunity. Maybe this collaboration isn’t for you at this time for whatever reason. But could you recommend a colleague, especially a junior colleague, who could fill the role and really benefit from the exposure to the network? Do you know someone else who is better-suited to manage the team dynamics up, down, and laterally? This allows you to still show support to the team, and also to promote someone else who may not otherwise get a chance to shine.
At the end of the day, you don’t have to be on every team to go far in academia—but you need to be on the right teams. When you choose collaborations that align with your values, your goals, and your energy, you protect yourself from burnout and set yourself up for meaningful impact. If you’re finding it hard to evaluate which opportunities to take on (and which to turn down), I can help. Let’s work together to clarify your strategic vision, set healthy boundaries, and build collaborations that truly support your career.
Next week: Plans give you opportunities
