PhD Transition Report On-Demand

Author Darren Gold joins us to share how you can figure out your own psychological “code” and optimize it to move your career forward. Understanding your own subconscious is the key. Then industry PhD Sherri Ter Molen brings listeners important tips for getting a job as a communication associate.

This week on the Cheeky Scientist Radio Show, we are joined by Darren Gold, Managing Partner of The Trium Group, where he serves as an executive coach to the CEOs of many of the world’s most influential companies. Darren joins us to share how you can figure out your own code and then optimize it to move your career forward. 

We’ll also be joined by Sherri Ter Molen, PhD, Communication Associate at National Council of State Boards of Nursing. Sherri imparts critically important career tips she has picked up throughout her industry transition and how other PhDs can move into similar roles.

Skip Ahead To:

00:08:18 Show Me The Data
00:03:29 PhD Advantage
00:32:17 Darren Gold
00:56:53 Sherri Ter Molen

Darren J. Gold is a managing partner of The Trium Group, where he serves as an executive coach to the CEOs of many of the world’s most influential companies. He is the author of the book Master Your Code: The Art, Wisdom, and Science of Leading an Extraordinary Life. The book has already received significant praise from the CEOs of companies like The Home Depot, Lululemon, Dropbox, StubHub, Roche, and from experts in the field of leadership and personal development like Greg McKeown, author of the NYT best seller Essentialism. 

Sherri Ter Molen, PhD, is an associate in Nursing Regulation at the National Council of State Boards of Nursing in Chicago, Illinois. She earned her PhD in Communications from Wayne State University where she wrote her ethnographic dissertation on the American reception to Korean pop culture. She has also published 4 book chapters, a journal article, and a book review on Korean topics. In other words, she is not a nurse, but she is applying her PhD-level skills in this not-for-profit role. 

1. As human beings, we subscribe to subconscious beliefs that drive our behavior and limit our results.
2. There is some alternative “code” that we can insert into our subconscious
3. Waking up to your own potential starts with awareness.
4. Even if a company or organization doesn’t have a role that’s open for you right now, they may soon…

Isaiah: What is the industry code you write about in your book? Can you break it down for us? 

Darren: Well, the basic premise of the book is that over the course of our lives—mostly in our formative years—we construct what I call a “computer program.” This is a metaphor for a set of subconscious, safety-based beliefs, values, and rules that automatically drive our behavior but also limit our results. And I assert that our fundamental choice as human beings derives from the simple knowledge that our entire life has been run by a program. I was almost 40 years old when I discovered that I was living a life run by a program written by a 7-year-old boy. That 7-year-old boy was writing a program that he needed to keep himself safe and protected. 

The discovery that we’re driven by a juvenile subconscious is incredibly liberating. In my book, I offer some alternative “code” that we can insert into our subconscious. This code represents intentionally constructed beliefs, values, and rules designed to lead to extraordinary results. And that choice is really the essence of the book: How do you construct this code that’s really going serve you? (Instead of you being run involuntarily by your own programming.)

Isaiah: Fascinating! I’m really going to “dig in” here because this is something that I’ve always been very interested in. It’s one thing to know my beliefs are vestigial childhood constructs, but how do you rewrite them? These beliefs are so anchored in you. How do you do it in an effective way where you don’t just feel like you’re lying to yourself about those beliefs? How do you go about doing that in a way that actually sticks?

Darren: Sometimes it takes what the late leadership expert Warren Bennis called a “crucible moment”: some crisis that forces you to re-examine everything. But you don’t need that. You don’t need to have some major, life-altering event to wake you up to your potential. It starts with awareness. The late author David Foster Wallace once provided this philosophical parable: These two fish are swimming along, and an older fish swims by and says, “Hey, boys! How’s the water?” The two younger fish look at each other, and one of them asks, “What the hell is water?” This is a great metaphor for life because we’re metaphorically swimming through the waters of our culture, our conditioning, our programming, and our beliefs…

Isaiah: What was the moment in academia where you realized that you weren’t going to stay there – that you were going to do something else with your life?

Sherri: I think I was really into my dissertation by the time I realized I didn’t want to live like this anymore. I didn’t want to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I wanted time with my husband and my friends. I was tired of missing all of my friends that were coming to town—coming to Chicago where I live—and I couldn’t even see them. So I just decided I didn’t want the lifestyle anymore. 

Isaiah: But when you started, did you think you were going to be a professor?

Sherri: Oh, absolutely. The whole point of going to a PhD program was to become a professor – my undergrad professors were really inspiring, and I wanted to be just like them. 

…

Isaiah: What were some of the changes you made that led to you getting hired? Was it the resume? Was there somebody you talked to on the phone? A referral? 

Sherri: In my case, it was definitely the resume. I actually applied for a position called “research associate,” and that position was going to be charged with writing literature reviews for the researchers in our division. When my HR directors sent my resume to my (now) manager, he looked at my resume and said, Hmm, not exactly what I was looking for, but I could use her in this other role.

…

Sherri: Before me, this job didn’t exist. They created it around me, so this is a great message for every Cheeky who is applying with various organizations: Even if they don’t have a role that’s open for you right now, they may soon. I do 3 big things here at my job. First, I work on what’s called the educational initiative. We offer online courses to nursing regulators, and we use a learning management system called Canvas. It is run like a university, so basically, I’m a university professor in a not-for-profit situation. I get to develop and teach Communications courses, and I get to be the incoming acquisitions editor for the Journal of Nursing Regulation. We have an academic/professional journal published by Elsevier, and I get to be the acquisitions editor for all the people in the world. Me – I get to do that. It’s amazing…

** for the full interviews, check out the video above

To get advanced access to the full-length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post How PhDs Can Master Their Code for Industry appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Author Whitney Johnson joins us to share her disruptive job-search strategy for PhDs who want to transition into industry. You’ll learn how to model your own transition after market disruptions. Then industry PhD Robert Hable will share tips on working toward a career in leadership development.

This Week On The Cheeky Scientist Radio Show, we are joined by Whitney Johnson: award-winning author, world-class keynote speaker, frequent lecturer for Harvard Business School’s Corporate Education, and a leading expert on personal disruption. She is the host of her own podcast, Disrupt Yourself. 

Whitney will share her expertise on strategic adaptation for job seekers and how to use these insights to accelerate your career transition.

We’ll also be joined by Robert Hable, PhD: a graduate of Cheeky’s SMBA program who is currently involved with BASF’s PhD Leadership Development Program. Robert will share his industry transition experience and how other PhDs can move into similar roles. 

Skip Ahead To:

00:06:45 PhD Advantage
00:09:35 Show Me The Data
00:33:30 Whitney Johnson
00:54:18 Robert Hable

Whitney Johnson is the CEO of WLJ Advisors and one of the 50 leading business thinkers in the world as named by Thinkers50. An expert on helping high-growth organizations develop high-growth individuals, Whitney is an award-winning author, world-class keynote speaker, executive coach, award-winning former Wall Street stock analyst, lecturer for Harvard Business School’s Corporate Learning, and popular contributor to the Harvard Business Review.

An innovation and disruption theorist, she is the author of the bestselling Build an “A” Team: Play To Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve, and the critically-acclaimed Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work.  Whitney also hosts the weekly Disrupt Yourself podcast and publishes a popular weekly newsletter.

Robert Hable, PhD, has his BS and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State and the University of Kansas, respectively.  His research interest and passion is renewable and sustainable fuels and chemicals, which he studied for 10 years in academia. “Robbie” joined the Association in the Fall of 2017 when his collaboration, graduation, and career plan were at their lowest points, and he had lost all hope in his dream of getting a PhD.  With the help of the Cheeky Scientist tools and community, he was able to change his mindset, graduate, and use the skills he acquired to make the most of his PhD.

Upon graduating in December 2018, Robbie’s first transition was in April 2019 with the corn starch ethanol company POET Biorefinery.  He was working as a Pilot Plant Engineer at their cellulosic ethanol pilot facility. Surrounded and managed by younger, BS-level engineers, Robbie enrolled in the SMBA and RDS groups of Cheeky Scientist.  A few months later, he had his second transition to his current position, which is in the PhD Leadership Development Program (LDP) with the world’s largest chemical company, BASF.

1. Disruption isn’t just about products – it’s about people too. And disruption is a crucial component of human happiness.
2. Skill mastery occurs in a cycle: The “S Curve.” After mastering a skill, you have to start over again.
3. SMBA shows PhDs how to adapt their mindset to industry and use the powerful tools they already have in order to secure industry jobs.

Isaiah: I want to start by asking you about this: What is a “disruptor”?

Whitney: What is a disruptor? A disruptor is a silly little thing that ends up taking over the world; like the telephone did to the telegraph; like the automobile did to the horse and buggy. Or more recently, we’ve seen Toyota disrupt General Motors and Netflix disrupt Blockbuster Video. And now, Uber and Lyft are disrupting cabs. But this theory of disruption… It isn’t just about products; it’s about people. But in the case of personal disruption, you’re both Toyota and General Motors. You’re both Netflix and blockbuster. You’re the disruptor and the incumbent because you are disrupting yourself. So that’s my definition or the term of art of personal disruption. 

Isaiah: And your identity is a powerful thing, right? So if you’re disrupting it, that can cause some waves. And one of the biggest areas–which you’re very familiar with–where this personal disruption happens is when you change paths. What would you say is a good way to harness this disruptive energy or see it as a good thing rather than a bad thing? Some people see disruption as a bad thing, but it’s actually a healthy thing for both an individual and an organization.

Whitney: Absolutely. If you’re familiar with the diffusion curve, the “S Curve” that was popularized by PM Rogers, I have re-imagined that in the work that I do. I see everybody as being on an S Curve, and at the bottom of that S curve, you know that growth will be slow–or it will feel slow. There’s this sense that everything’s new – it’s a jumble of pieces. You don’t know how they fit together, which can be somewhat discouraging, but then you move into the sweet spot of an S curve and you think about when you were writing your dissertation. During that time,  you got to this point where you were like, Okay, I know what I’m doing. It’s exhilarating, and a lot happens in a short time. You’re starting to feel very competent and engaged. But then you get to the top of that S Curve and the growth starts to slow down. 

You’re no longer engaged like you were because you’re not learning, and you’re not getting the dopamine that makes you happy. And so once you get to that top of that S curve, you have to jump to the bottom of a new S Curve because you need dopamine. And when you’re willing to do that, your sense of self will solidify in a  positive way. Your happiness will improve. And as put forth by Clayton Christian, when you disrupt, your odds of success are 6 times higher and your revenue opportunity is 20 times greater. So there’s a practical, functional reason for being willing to be disruptive, but there’s also an emotional reason: It literally makes you happy to disrupt…

Isaiah: Let’s just jump right in. Describe what your position is and what you do at BASF.

Robbie: The leadership development program is a rotational program, so it’s 2 years, and you do 3 separate 8-month rotations at different R&D sites within the company. You do it all across North America, but you also get an opportunity to travel internationally to their world headquarters in Germany. I’m on my first rotation right now, and that assignment has to do with quality control and quality assurance. So I’m at their pilot scale-up facility, and they’ve taken on a lot of small manufacturing jobs. But they don’t yet have an established quality-control lab. I’m kind of the project lead for questions like,  How do we do quality control? And, How can we make it fit for this group? A big thing right now is digitalization, so they’ve got this new software that they’re training people on how to use: how to get the most out of that tool. That’s the current rotation, and then I’ll start my next one in May. So later on this year, I’ll have a brand-new position, and I’ll have to start all over in a new location. 

Isaiah: What do you think are the transferable skills–or the way you communicated them–that allowed you to get into this leadership position? This is essentially a management track position we’re talking about.

Robbie: Definitely, I’d say the biggest one is being able to understand your customer and being able to ask a lot of questions. That was one of the big interview points: Give us a time that you had a customer and you had to meet customer needs. And that’s where the SMBA training really helped me to get this job. I didn’t feel like I had a lot of training in working with customers from my time spent in academia, but working in SMBA helped me to adapt my thinking to: Well, I’ve had to deal with students as a TA. There were a lot of student needs like, Hey, I need help with this homework or How do I do this problem? Same with research. I was doing alternative fuel research, and it was like, How do I meet demands so that the alternative fuel-making was the same as the current petroleum crude that we’re doing? What are those needs? 

Before SMBA, I really hadn’t made that ideological connection between academia and industry. I was stuck in an academic mindset where the emphasis was completely on my technical skills, but SMBA helped me realize, Oh, a lot of my skills are transferable, and they can be adapted to a “businessman mindset.” So ultimately, I was able to answer those interview questions really accurately and impressively, and I could do it in ways I wouldn’t have thought of without the SMBA background…

** for the full interviews, check out the video above

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post Accelerating Your PhD Career Transition appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Author and PhD Coyte Cooper joins us to share his own wild transition out of academia. He explains how other PhDs can see rejection as an opportunity and use it to their advantage. Then PhD Yaping Moshier, sMBA, discusses how PhDs can work toward their own industry career in regulatory affairs.

This week on the Cheeky Scientist Radio Show, we are joined by Coyte Cooper, PhD and former professor, bestselling author, executive coach, Tedx Speaker, and expert in personal leadership. Coyte will share how he transitioned out of academia, faced and recovered from rejection, and used it to build ultimate business success as an entrepreneur. 

We’ll also be joined by Yaping Moshier, PhD, Regulatory Affairs Coordinator at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Yaping will share her industry transition experience and how other PhDs can move into a similar role.

Skip ahead to:
00:11:08 Show Me The Data
00:30:02 Coyte Cooper, PhD
00:56:06 Yaping Moshier, PhD

Dr. Coyte Cooper is a bestselling author, international speaker and high performance coach who is one of the premier experts in the area of leadership and maximizing human potential.  A former NCAA Division I All-American, college professor, and the CEO of Earn the Right Incorporated, Dr. Cooper has worked closely with thousands of proactive professionals the past few years to develop a unique transformational system that helps audience members radically enhance their clarity, focus, ENERGY, motivation, passion and results on a consistent daily basis.

Dr. Cooper has poured into creating transformational books, coaching programs, keynote talks, and trainings that are designed to help people flip the script on negative patterns so they can maximize their potential.

Yaping Moshier, PhD, sMBA, is a business-minded clinical research professional currently working as a regulatory affairs coordinator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center. She supports investigator-initiated trials from the start-up to close-out, oversees compliance mandated by national and institutional regulatory authorities, and serves as a liaison between internal and external stakeholders.

Yaping completed her PhD training in Pharmacology at the University of Minnesota. After 5 years of postdoctoral training and during her 19-month career gap, she grows interest and passion in clinical research and medical affairs. She continues extending her network with medical affairs professionals in oncology, neurology and metabolic syndrome therapeutic areas to propel her career growth.

1. Hardships can be opportunities – it’s all a matter of perspective. Find the opportunity hidden in adversity.
2. Use adversity as a lesson – quickly mobilize by responding to challenges with decisive planning.
3. In regulatory affairs, you can expect to collect a lot of information from different parties to make sound decisions about important company issues.

Isaiah: Let’s talk about your biggest rejection. Maybe you can start with that darkest hour when you actually found out… What led up to that? Tell us about the feelings that you had.

Coyte: So I was being trained as a professor, and I heard horror stories about tenure. Yet for some strange reason, I never imagined that it would come knocking at my door. I always thought, I’m going to show up, work hard, and put everything I can into my academic work. And I did that. I mean, I worked really hard. The decision about my tenure was delayed for months, but everyone kept telling me it was fine, that everything was good… Then I got a message from my chair, and he said he wanted to meet with me. I thought this was the moment where they were going to give me good news. I was ready to celebrate and go buck-wild with my family. And I go into my chair’s office and he says,

“Hey Coyte, how’re you doing?”

And I say, “Well, I’m good.”

He says, “I have something I need to talk to you about.” He had this envelope in his hand. He sat me down, we set up his conference table, and he said, “I just want to thank you for everything you’ve done for our department. You’ve been a valuable citizen. You’ve just been amazing the last six years.”

Now, I’m an energetic guy. I’m enthusiastic. So I cut it in and I’m like, “Man, thank you. I’ve loved being here. Everybody’s been amazing. It’s been so special to me.”

And then I looked in his eyes. I could tell something changed. He had tears in his eyes and he slid forward the envelope and he goes, “Coyte… I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you’ve been denied tenure.”

My thoughts weren’t even the first thing that responded. It was my emotions. I felt like my stomach had just dropped out from under me. My throat just closed off. I was having a hard time catching a breath, and my face was flushed, and then my thoughts caught up. I remember thinking, What does this mean for my family? We just bought a house. I have two young kids. Our plan was to be here. This was like a dream job for me in my field.

My second thought was, Am I damaged goods now? Am I going to be able to get another job? It’s so crazy how those thoughts pop into your mind. But I just wanted to get out of there. My chair was talking about some other options where they would keep me on, not tenure-line, but there at the university. I just wanted to leave…

Isaiah: So that was the trigger for you to start your own business. But how did you get bitten by the “entrepreneurial bug” that bites so many PhDs? What made you want to take control and start your own business?

Coyte: The strange thing about all this is that even before I was denied tenure, I had urges to go out and write books and work more with people. The idea of going out and like she striving to change people’s lives, and to do it on a broader scale – there was always like a desire to teach and inspire people…

Isaiah: Yaping, can you describe your current role to us? What do you do on a day-to-day basis?

Yaping: In general, I support investigator-initiated studies. Sometimes, I’m invited to an IAT committee meeting to listen to any MDs propose their own studies. Once one of those is approved by the IT committee, I–as a regulatory specialist–will make sure everything is planned out to fulfill all the regulatory requirements. I also help them to develop protocols that can be carried out by their study team. And if the study has a pharma partner, then I contact them, and if the study is conducting an investigation on new drugs, then I am also their spokesperson…

Isaiah: So it sounds like a lot of coordination, clearly, from the job type. But a lot of documentation too. What is the field of regulatory affairs to you–now that you’re in it–versus what you thought it was before getting hired? What are some of the surprising things that you do that maybe the average PhD wouldn’t realize?

Yaping: I used to think this job was more on the manufacturing side, like it was all documentation. Luckily, it’s not. I am an investigator, and I am also responsible for sponsors. There are a lot of decision-making points – project managers might come to me and need help dealing with violations or deviations from some protocol. Or if certain records need to be submitted to the FDA for regulatory review, I get to decide what needs to be done. So I collect a lot of information from different parties involved to make a sound decision…

** for the full interviews, check out the video above

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post How To Go From Rejection To Business Success appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Author Nir Eyal joins us to share his research on the psychology of attention, self-control, and time management. Technology distracts, but it’s not the root cause… Then PhD Irene Mencia Castrano describes her transition out of academia and into her current role as a senior innovation consultant.

This week on the Cheeky Scientist Radio Show, we are joined by Nir Eyal, time management expert, speaker, and author of the national bestseller, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. Nir will share his results-driven techniques for honing and owning your focus and time in order to reach your goals.

We’ll also be joined by Irene Mencia Castano, PhD, Senior Innovation Consultant. Irene will share her industry transition experience and how other PhDs can move into a similar role.

Skip ahead to:
00:09:26 Nir Eyal
00:33:53 Show Me the Data
00:59:05 Irene Mencía Castaño

Nir Eyal – Author, Speaker, and Thought Leader

Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. The M.I.T. Technology Review dubbed Nir, “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology.” Nir founded two tech companies since 2003 and has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. He is the author of the bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, Nir’s writing has been featured in The Harvard Business Review, TechCrunch, and Psychology Today.

Nir is also an active investor in habit-forming technologies. Some of his past investments include Eventbrite (NYSE:EB), Refresh.io (acquired by LinkedIn), Worklife (acquired by Cisco), Product Hunt, Marco Polo, Presence Learning, 7 Cups, Pana, Kahoot!, Byte Foods, FocusMate, and Anchor.fm (acquired by Spotify).

Irene Mencía Castaño, PhD, is a Pharmacist & Biochem Masters from Universidad Complutense of Madrid that spent some time in Germany and completed her PhD in the RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) Dublin – Ireland. With 2 years post-doc, she spent 7+ years in the regenerative medicine R&D area and generated relevant IP leading to a CEO innovation recognition award, also accumulating over 10 peer-reviewed publications, over 30 conference presentations (EU & US), talks at primary schools, and 10+ communication awards.

She joined CSA in March 2018 and began networking and gaining confidence to surpass the Impostor Syndrome and transition from academia. Since summer 2018 she works as Senior Innovation Consultant for Inspiralia Group – a middle size company leading the Public funding consulting in Europe and also expanding in the US. Here, she coordinates the preparation of bids by EU-wide clients, many start-ups! requesting up to 15 M€ from the H2020 Framework.

1. Technology distracts, but it is not the root psychological cause of distraction

2. The opposite of distraction is not focus – it’s distraction

3. Distraction is in itself a form of traction in which you are pursuing less important goals instead of the priority

4. The role of senior innovation consultant is part project manager and part project coordinator

Isaiah: Say you’re trying to get something done like trying to get a job or a promotion. Can you walk us through the key principles that you covered in your books? Like how to set up good habits and what we can do to not be a slave to technology but leverage it to our advantage.

Nir: I know the pain. I mean, I wrote this book for me. I was Patient Zero. There’s so much that can potentially distract you from doing what you know you should do. And that was exactly my position. I mean, five years ago, I constantly got distracted, whether it was when I was with my daughter or when I was doing my work or when I was with friends and family – I was constantly getting distracted. And so I wanted to understand why. So I bought every book I could find on the topic. And they all basically said the same thing. The self-help industry basically says it’s all technology’s fault: Stop using the technology and you won’t get distracted. But of course, that doesn’t work. I tried it. I got rid of my smartphone and I got a flip phone. I got a word processor from the 1990s that I found on eBay. And I still got distracted. You know why? You sit down at your desk and say,

Okay, now I’m definitely going to work. But there’s that book I’ve been meaning to read. I should probably do some more lit review, or wait, let me just clean up my desk. Oh, and then take out my trash.

Right? That’s feels like a productive thing to do. And I kept getting distracted because I didn’t find a book that explained the deeper psychology of distraction. I really wanted to dive into the root causes. So the way I set up this paradigm is that if you think about the word distraction, what does it really mean? Well, the best way to understand distraction is to understand the opposite of distraction. The opposite of distraction is not focus. Many people think that the opposite of distraction is focus. I don’t agree. If you look at the etymology of the word, actually the opposite of distraction is not focus. It’s traction. Both come from the same Latin root, trahare, which means to pull. Traction is any action that pulls us toward what we want to do.

Now, the opposite of traction is distraction. Anything that pulls us away from what we plan to do. So why is this so important? Number 1, anything can be a distraction, right? How many times have you sat down at your desk and said, okay, now I’m going to work on that dissertation. Now I’m going to work on that hard project. I’m finally going to stop procrastinating. I’m going to do what I said I’m going to do – right after I check email – right after I Google this one quick thing. Right after I do just a bit more research. And I would argue that those tasks are what we call productive procrastination, right? It feels productive, but it’s still a distraction because it’s not what you plan to do with your time. So conversely, just like how anything can become a distraction, anything can be an act of traction.

I argue the time you plan to waste is not wasted time. That if you plan to go on Facebook or YouTube or Netflix, there’s no moral hierarchy here. Why is Facebook inferior to watching a football game? There’s no difference. If you want to play a video game, enjoy yourself, but do it without guilt. By planning ahead, by saying, This is what I want to do with my time, as long as it’s consistent with your values and you’re doing it on your schedule, there’s nothing wrong with it. So we’ve got traction, we’ve got distraction. Now, the missing piece is: Why are we drawn to traction or distraction? This is where it gets really interesting, because all of our behaviors are prompted by two types of triggers…

Isaiah: I have to know… What is a senior innovation consultant? I love the title. I’d love to hear what you do.

Irene: It’s a part of innovation where you are mainly directing companies. I meet with clients, I organize calendars with my collaborators and with our writers. We organize a work plan to prepare all the documentation for a proposal that is sent to a public body. This involves a lot of things. It involves a lot of technical expertise in multiple areas. It involves a lot of meetings, lots of questioning to get the information from the client, lots of portraying guidelines to the person who is working with you, a good bit of traveling… Actually, traveling at least once a month. The company’s very dynamic, so we are all over Europe, really. Basically, I’m working with profiles that involve high management in all cases.

Isaiah: So you help small, medium-sized companies get funding. Whether it’s from the government or from private sources.

Irene: I’m specially dedicated to government, but we have some part with connection for private sources too.

Isaiah: Are you technically an industry company, or would you be more in the nonprofit sector? Or more in the government?

Irene: My employer is definitely a for-profit company. We have our KPIs very established.

Isaiah: So the company gets a commission from a small-to-mid-size company client if they get awarded money from any of these sources, and you are really doing a lot of the coordination. Are you consulting more with the businesses or the funding sources – or both equally?

Irene: We have instructions, basically public guidelines, from the funding sources because everything has to be public. But my real contact is with the client. I have days where the average number of meetings with different projects and clients is at least 2 or 3.

Isaiah: So you’re, so you’re managing people – you’re managing the project overall. Probably multiple accounts, I’m guessing multiple projects.  And then this involves a lot of time management and understanding the budgets, the commissions, everything that is involved…

Irene: Yes. There is a lot of free planning. I just have to spend so much time organizing how we’re going to do everything.

Isaiah: What are some similar roles to yours? It sounds like senior innovation consultant has some aspects of a project manager and some aspects of a project coordinator.

Irene: Yes. I think the most similar role would be that of a project manager at an intermediate level. I’m not doing most of the technical work itself – of actually controlling the project execution. My position is kind of overseeing that and the person who is executing the technical work reports to me. But there is also a strong component of the technical writing itself that is very much like medical writing – the majority of the projects I’m working with involve medical writing of some kind…

** for the full interviews, check out the video above

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post How PhDs Can Own Their Focus appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Author and PhD Donald Asher joins us to share his formula for successful salary negotiation. Donald is a renowned master of business acumen and industry survival. Then author and PhD Michael Watkins shares onboarding tips for industry jobs gleaned from over 15 years of personally coaching CEOs.

This week on the Cheeky Scientist Radio Show, we are joined by Donald Asher,  PhD, internationally recognized author and speaker on careers and higher education. Donald is known as “America’s Job Search Guru,” and he has authored 12 books published in multiple languages around the world.

Donald will share his formula for successful salary negotiation strategies for your industry job.

Then we have special guest Michael Watkins, PhD, founder of Genesis Advisers and author of The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter. Michael will share his best onboarding tips for PhD industry jobs which he has gleaned from over 15 years of coaching CEOs to master career transitions at the highest levels.

Skip ahead to:
00:07:55 Show Me The Data
00::28:48 Donald Asher, PhD
00:57:16 Michael Watkins, PhD

Donald Asher, PhD,  is an internationally recognized author and speaker on the topics of careers and higher education.

In America, he was named a “Career MasterMind” by the award-winning portal, QuintCareers. He is well known for having written 12 books including Cracking the Hidden Job Market, The Overnight Resume, How to Get Any Job, Who Gets Promoted, Who Doesn’t, and Why (named career-management book of the year), and the best-selling guide to getting into graduate school, Graduate Admissions Essays.

Donald has been the career columnist for USAirways Magazine, education columnist for MSN, and a contributing writer for the Wall Street Journal’s CareerJournal.com and CollegeJournal.com, college.monster.com, monster.com, careerbuilder.com, wetfeet.com, jobstar.org, Dow Jones’ Managing Your Career Magazine and National Business Employment Weekly, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, and the NACE Journal.

He is a featured speaker over 150 times per year, including recent lecture tours in Canada, Mexico, India, China, South Korea, Ireland and Germany, where he spoke about international career trends and the borderless career.

Michael Watkins, PhD, is the co-founder of Genesis Advisers, a global leadership development consultancy based in Boston Massachusetts, specializing in transition acceleration for leaders, teams and organizations, where he coaches C-level executives of global organizations.

He is also Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at the IMD Business School and previously was adjunct professor at INSEAD, and an associate professor at the Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government.

Michale is author of the international bestseller, The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, referred to as “The Onboarding Bible” by The Economist. 

1. Hiring  includes several phases, including orientation, onboarding, and acculturation.

2. After getting hired, PhDs  need a “work buddy” to show them the ropes.

3. Academia is fundamentally different from industry, and you must always research a company’s culture before investing your time with them as an employee.

4. Look for ways to add value in your new role – they may be different than what you came onboard to do…

Isaiah: I’m very excited to talk to you today, because this is the 1st time that we’re going to get a chance to hear your onboarding insights. Can you help us understand onboarding and why it’s important? 

Donald: Well, I always like to differentiate onboarding from orientation and from acculturation. I call orientation “badges and benefits.” Where’s your ID coming from? What keys do you have? What’s your password for the intranet? These questions are answered during the 1st day or 3 of employment. A lot of people think that they’re done at that point, and that orientation takes care of things. Onboarding is when you acculturate to the overt norms of the organization – the written rules.

But you’re not done until you get to acculturation, and the interesting thing  about this phase is that you acculturate not to the rules, nor the regulations. You acculturate to the people and the norms, the unwritten rules. And once you know the unwritten rules, then you’re a member of the organization  – that’s when you’re really done learning the foundations.

Isaiah: Where do you see people struggle the most within these 3 areas? As somebody who’s worked with a lot of academics who were getting their 1st job, where are the sticking points? 

Donald: The biggest problem is thinking that the rules are what you’re supposed to do. So with PhDs in particular, they want to know the rules, and they want to follow them! But in organizations, the rules are step 1, like the “baby step.” PhDs don’t get that you have to acculturate to what the other employees do. On Wall Street, for example, you typically don’t leave the floor until the senior person on that floor goes down in the elevator. So if the senior person works until 5:20, you work until 5:20.

But the minute that senior person leaves, everybody clears out. No one’s going to tell you that. But that’s a norm. That’s a completely acculturated norm. It’s important for PhDs to realize they’re not done just because they have a badge and someone told them where to park. That’s just the beginning of trying to figure out how to succeed in that organization.

Isaiah: So really, you’re talking about the unspoken rules. And what you’re alluding to is that PhDs are very literal, which we are. You’re a PhD yourself, right? You can really be very direct here. How can we get better at finding the unspoken rules when we’re very literal? You know, we like to read  through things. If it’s not on paper, we don’t really follow it. How can we be more aware? 

Donald: Well, let’s start by figuring out how to get you a work buddy. I once conducted a program for mentoring. As a side note, I want to encourage all of our listeners not to use the word “mentor” – it’s just going to get you into trouble. Call them “work buddies.” The best relationships with a work buddy are not in your reporting structure, so they’re not your boss, nor your your boss’s boss. But they do need to be a superior. Sometimes, it can be hard to find someone who is senior to you, but not in your reporting structure. You need someone you can call up and say:

Hey, what do I do about this?

Or:

What’s the record response to that?

You might look through the list of people at the company, find a PhD, and say:

Hey, I just got hired.  I’ve been a postdoc for three years, not really sure how industry works. Would it be okay if I asked you a question from time to time?

Mostly, PhDs will have to find their own work buddy. Of course, a well-designed mentoring program will also do this. They’ll assign someone who is supposed to work with you and answer these types of questions. But my advice is not to wait for the organization to do this for you. Find your own work buddy. And I want to give everybody a warning. When you join a company, there’s going to be someone who comes up to you and wants to be best friends forever. They’re they’re going to glom onto you.

You’re like new, fresh meat in the organization.  I want to encourage you to keep your distance from people who are overly friendly right off the bat – possibly, they’re like that because they’re like the unpopular kid and you’re new. They may not give you the best advice. You might feel the urge to say, I want to be friends with this person ‘cause they’re super friendly, but they may be a pariah to the other employees. So keep your eyes on the horizon at least until you see who gets along with whom and who is admired and who is respected…

Isaiah: So why did you decide to write books about onboarding?

Michael Watkins: I was teaching at the Kennedy School of Government. I was very interested in organizational change-type work. I was teaching a particular class about a framework on change and some very experienced leader raised his hand and said to me, That’s all very well, Michael, but  you’re assuming I know everything about the organization. And that was the impetus to start down the road of thinking about transitions, because the reality is that you’re taking a job and you’re kind of struggling your way up the learning curve. At the same time, you’re trying to begin to have an impact – begin to establish yourself. It’s hard, right? It’s challenging. It continues to motivate me even today, many years later, as I’m studying the subject. 

…

Isaiah: I think a lot of our viewers would say that they’ve been academics their entire lives, and they’re trying to make the transition to industry. Of course, we see on our side, over and over again, that all they care about is getting the job. And I’m sure this is the same for any population. Then they get the job and they have no idea what to do. They’re excited, but then it’s a black box. Is this something that you work with people on? 

Michael Watkins: Absolutely. Here’s the closest parallel to the kind of people you’re talking about. I do a lot of work with healthcare companies–like Johnson & Johnson–that have very serious R&D organizations, and they bring a lot of people from clinical and research organizations into this commercial environment. And then people really can struggle, right? Because the whole logic of the way those institutions works – it’s just completely different, right? It’s not that places like Johnson & Johnson don’t care about research – they care about it deeply. But they’re running a company, and there are commercial realities, right? They’re highly regulated. They care deeply about their reputation. And then there’s the reality of navigating these complex organizations, right? Academic organizations are as Byzantine as they can be politically, yet they’re pretty simple in some senses, right?

…

The most basic question to ask yourself in a new role is, “How can I create value here?” This is effectively a research question, right? So activate your research skills! Figure out what role you are going to play here that creates value, and keep asking yourself that same question. Don’t assume that what you’ve been told you’re there to do is actually what you’re there to do. There is a difference between recruiting and employment – recruiting is like romance, and employment is like marriage. During the recruiting process, we’re falling in love. I’ve got my best suit on, the organization is telling the best version of its story (why it wants you to come onboard and the exciting things you’re going to get to do). You promise that you’ll always do the dishes, and they assure you that they really like your mother. And then there’s the reality – you get into the environment, and it’s a little different. So don’t assume that everything you learned during that recruiting process is the full story. And it’s not that anyone’s lying. It’s just that everyone’s got their best suit on, you know?

You also want to get a read on the organization before you go in. It may not be a natural thing to do, but you should be asking yourself, “What’s the culture of this organization, and is that a culture I want to live in?” So you’ve got to do some triangulation. There are more online resources these days that can give you insight into the nature of the workplace culture you are thinking of joining. You can also try to find people who have worked for the organization before. That culture fit is just so critical – what you don’t want to do is get into that job and find out, I really hate this place.

Isaiah: What questions can you ask about culture, and how can you figure out those unspoken rules? 

Michael Watkins: I think it helps, 1st of all, to recognize that organizations can have very different cultures. You may, for example, assume the normalcy of the culture you grew up in. The same is true of the organizations you’ve “grown up” in, and if you’ve developed your career in academic research environments, they have a certain culture. Yet the culture of most large industry organizations looks nothing like that at all.

The way status works in an industry organization, or the way things are rewarded in those organizations – these are typically very different from academia. You want to ask yourself things like, “What is valued here? What are the behavioral norms that operate in this place?” I’ll give you a simple example: When I was doing my doctorate at Harvard, I was somewhere between the engineering and economics and social science folks. And an economics graduate seminar is kind of like an armed conflict, right? I mean, you go in and you (so to speak) beat the crap out of each other. And then at the end, you smile and move on. Now, if you do that in an industry company, if you come in and you go, “What a stupid idea,” they will not respond well!

** for the full interviews, check out the video above

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