Category: persistence

Living in the Snow Belt is a lesson in resiliency. Mother Nature may inflict record-breaking temperatures, but the good people of the Midwest adapt and roll with the punches.

We have had multiple snowfalls this week, and by the time I am awake the roads have already been plowed and become passable. People just get up and get out the snow blower, making paths through feet-high snow banks that have drifted over the sidewalks and driveways. They bundle up in enough layers to make them look like colorful Michelin Men waddling their way across parking lots and into businesses.

And, like today, when the weather is especially brutal, not only are schools closed, but even garbage collection is suspended in the interest of the sanitation workers’ safety. You just do what you’ve gotta do to accommodate and reschedule.

I imagine that those who don’t live here cannot imagine why people do. (Sometimes I wonder that myself!) But the weather instills a heartiness that permeates other facets of life and serves as a good teacher for how to overcome obstacles. It forces people to develop that elusive skill of “grit” that has become so desired in employees.

Clearly, I am not a fan of the -33 degrees temperature projected for tonight. I will grumble and grouse – and then make adjustments and get through it. Use that as a metaphor for how you can press forward in other areas of life, even when the situation may seem inconceivable to others.

Except for in a political context, you don’t hear much about only two percent of the population doing anything. So, when the graduation speaker shared that only two percent of the adult population in the United States has earned a doctorate degree, it struck me as a very small number. I earned my Ed.D. over twenty years ago and did not realize to what a small fraternity I belonged.

Then at a recent meeting with a cohort of innovation leaders, the Rogers Adaptation Curve was shared as a framework for the charge ahead of them. Only 2.5% of the population is considered as an innovator, giving context to the minority in which these leaders found themselves. The cohort was formed to provide support and counsel to similar change-oriented people since they were in such short supply in the general population.

Think about where not only you fall, but where others in your organization land. Whether it is in pursuit of a doctorate or on a mission to reimagine the child welfare system, anyone seeking to be part of a two percent finds themselves in a lonely position. What can you do to provide a safe environment, access to like-minded people and the inspiration to persevere until they reach the end they are seeking?

One may be the loneliest number, but two percent isn’t far behind.

The story of Lewis and Clark has always fascinated me – I wonder what it must have taken for these men and their crew to explore unknown territories with so little to guide them. People today set out on what they feel are “adventures” when they turn off the GPS, but Lewis and Clark knew nothing about the territory that they would face.

Can you even imagine setting out on a journey that you believed would be all on water, only to learn that most of your travels would be on land? And not just flat land; the explorers did not know that the Rocky Mountains existed. It would be daunting to cross the Rockies today, let alone 200 years ago on horseback, especially when you did not expect them to be there!

Lewis and Clark had every excuse to quit along their journey. The conditions were so much rougher, the mode of transport totally different and the time frame (two years and four months) significantly longer than they originally expected. And after surviving grueling conditions to reach the ocean, they then had to return – over the same rough terrain.

When you want to tell your boss that you are going to quit because you have hit a barrier, think of Lewis and Clark looking over that first peak and realizing that there were miles more mountains instead of the northwest water route that they were seeking. The obstacles you face at work are nothing.

I recently updated an article that provides pragmatic tips for completing a dissertation. I had written the article when I received my degree, but wanted to post it on LinkedIn to help the next generation of doctoral students get the monkey off their back and finish that degree.

I was surprised at how much had changed in those 20 years. When I wrote my dissertation, there was no Excel at the time and my academic advisor did not accept documents via email! I initially encouraged students to put their latest draft on a disc (not a flash drive) and put it in their car each evening so all would not be lost in case of a house fire (as happened to a classmate!). You no longer need dimes to access microfiche, money orders for the copyright fee, or boxes to mail the binders with the latest draft.

Regardless of the mechanics to achieve it, the ultimate aim of a dissertation is still the same: to demonstrate to the committee that a student can synthesize existing research and advance it with original research that moves knowledge forward.

Whether you ever write a dissertation or not, following that framework will be of great help in structuring an argument or proposal for almost any topic. Summarize “what is”, then share what you learned that supports or refutes that thinking, and what you recommend as a result.

The skill is in the discipline to actually do it, not in the doing itself.

Climbing the Dissertation Mountain: Pragmatic Tips on How to Finish, click here for a copy.