Persevering down the rabbit hole

Graduate school teaches you a lot. One of the things you learn is that we really don’t have any new ideas. Every great thing we think we came up with someone else already said/wrote/did. It can be really disheartening to think you have a brilliant idea only to realize there is already research on the same thing from forty years ago. When this happens you have to get to the original source and find out if they really said what you are trying to or if there are ways to expand the idea in some way. Sources and citations are key in research for better or worse. They are our currency. The impact/importance of our work is often considered in terms of how many other authors cite you.* Not giving credit to someone via citation in a paper is plagiarism. That is bad. As a Professor of Business Ethics I do not want to be the person who didn’t properly cite someone (#unethical). 

When I started working on tightroping I did my research. I looked at Google Scholar, I tried every key word similar to tightroping and I didn’t find anything. I looked at social psychology and sociology as well to see what those researchers were up to and I decided that I was on to something. Yes, there are other concepts that make up part of tightroping (i.e., impression management) but they are not the whole story. So off I went! 

About sixteen months into my research and writing I was reading an awesome book called Delusions of Gender (2010). And there on page 58 I saw this written: This catch-22 positions women who seek management roles on a “tightrope of impression management.” This sentence took me to a citation that says this: A phrase (tightrope of impression management) coined by Janet Holmes, author of Gendered Talk (2006), cited by Cameron, 2007, p. 141.

As you can see from my thoughtful margin notes this threw me for a loop. 

From the way this is written, it seems like this is a phrase people know. How did I miss it? “Coined by” makes me think this is something people say often!!! Was I stealing some other woman’s idea? Had I heard it and (accidentally) just repackaged it? Am I an idiot? Should I stop writing about tightroping? This was all followed by a flurry of texts to friends, a little bit of crying, some Scotch, and trash television to get it together.

I needed to find the Holmes citation to see what she was talking about. So I looked up the book and saw that Dr. Holmes was a sociolinguist (I am not) so I felt better about not bumping into this phrase. I also saw that the complete title of her book was Gendered Talk at Work: Constructing Social Identity Through Workplace Discourse. That’s a wobbly start. This told me that it was likely that Fine cited Cameron who cited Holmes and Fine may not have read the original quote. Still with me? Ok. No big deal so now that I had the Holmes book, I will see where she COINED this phrase. But guess what? She didn’t. On page 35 Holmes said: Joanna Brewis cites research on senior women who trod a tightrope of impression management. I looked up that citation in the index and found that, Dr. Joanna Brewis (Professor of People and Organizations), wrote: Telling it like it is? Gender, language and Organizations theory. This is a chapter in a book titled The Language of Organization (2001). By some miracle our library had an e-copy of this book. There, on page 299, Brewis said: Sheppard makes reference to the fact that her women managers had to be careful to tread a ‘tightrope” of impression management. 

At this point I believe I literally lost just a bit of my mind. WHO IS SHEPPARD????

Off to Brewis’ bibliography where I found that Sheppard was a sociologist in Canada. She wrote a chapter titled Organizations, Power and Sexuality: The Image and Self-Image of Women Managers that appeared in a book from 1989 titled The Sexuality of Organization. I had to request an actual physical copy of this book from the library, wait for a human to find it, and then go to the library to pick it up. Like the olden days. Now, with The Sexuality of Organization in my grubby little mitts, I started reading her chapter. On page 145 this phrase appears: They (women) live in the spotlight, highly visible, and they are very much alone up there on the corporate tightrope. CORPORATE TIGHTROPE! Wait, WHAT??? After several long, slow, deep breaths, I checked to make sure Sheppard didn't cite anyone. She didn’t. I had come to the end of the citation rabbit hole. And what did I learn? 

No phrase was “coined”

Sheppard is not using “tightrope” in the way other citations say she is

There is no direct mention of impression management 

People don’t read the things they cite

I wasn’t stealing some other woman’s idea

The library pick up desk is on the ground floor

Academia is maddening (I knew that this was just a reminder)

If you made it to the end of this harrowing tale you, my friend, have perseverance. It has a lot of different names: grit, determination, moxie (that is a fun one!!), tenacity, stamina and it is absolutely vital to achieving your goals. When this is how you operate, you muscle through even when things suck. The initial research on grit indicated that it was the key element to success, but new studies show that you also need passion about what you are doing to truly get you through the muck. That makes sense to me. I always say I don’t have my PhD because I am a some genius, I have it because I am determined. Even when I was wallowing in statistics-related self-doubt I was writing a dissertation I believed in and that drove me to keep going. That little dash of passion definitely helped. 

If you are thinking that this just isn’t something you have, it turns out you can work on it. Perseverance is a skill. There are some specific things you can do to develop your perseverance over time and part of making these changes is a growth mindset. If you  aren’t currently feeling the growth mindset and don’t want to persevere through any of these readings, let me offer you Dr. Duckworth’s TED talk. Baby steps count on the road to developing this skill!

Now that I have confirmed no ideas were stolen, I am going to keep writing about tightroping. I made it a verb and filed my trademark application. This website is the initial citation and I coined the term. I hope it becomes popular enough to get mis-cited. 

*If you ever use Scholar.Google for research look @ the citation count of a paper. That is usually an indication of the degree to which other researchers find it valid and useful. Alternatively, the count is high because this researcher is already “academic famous” and everyone cites them without actually reading what they wrote. 

SMART Goals

Good morning blog readers! In my first post a few weeks ago I laid out my SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely) goals for sabbatical. As a reminder here is my plan:

• Weekly or bi-weekly blog posts on academically-adjacent ideas about the invisible burdens on women @ work and tightroping

  • I am consistently posting Tuesday and Thursday @ 11am

• Monthly blog posts where I rant about how Sheryl Sandberg sold us all a lie and that leaning in is a bunch of bullshit and/or stories about my son

  • Son stories ✔️

  • Sheryl Sandberg post coming next week ✔️

• Six or seven completed book chapters

• An additional dog

• A book contract with an actual company so that I don’t have to make hard copies of what I write to give as gifts

It’s been less than a month but I am feeling good and that’s probably because making progress on your goals is shown to make us happier. It feels great to write and, weirdly, science also shows that it also makes us happier. You know what else makes us happier? DOGS!!!

Please meet our newest family member: Mango San Carlos 🥭

His brother, Mr. Crenshaw Sniffers (L) wavers between indifference and slight jealousy. Human son is very happy with this development. A New Life Rescue was wonderful if you are looking for a dog-faced friend. I can officially cross this (measurable) goal off my list!

I already knew how much I love having a dog but the actual research on what they bring to our lives is so interesting! Dogs are shown to increase our levels of oxytocin thus literally making us feel better. They also decrease stress levels in us and our kids and can make us healthier. This begs* the question: do these benefits carry over to work? It looks like they do! Workplaces that allow (well-trained) dogs in the office decrease absences and increase employee retention. They also increase productivity and communication between employees and it’s a great way to attract younger employees. There are clearly people who do not appreciate doggie licks or barks during meetings so having dogs in the workplace can be a tricky thing to establish. Understanding your employees is crucial to making this work and there are some great suggestions if this is something you want to implement or pitch at your office. If just thinking about having your furry friend with you all day sounds like a dream here is a list of companies that will let you.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a baby dog belly to rub!

*unintentional dog pun

School days

I love back to school time. This is not surprising. But I don’t like it in a cliché “hooray the kid is out of the house” way (though not complaining about no more daily drive to/from camp). It’s more of a fresh start, new pens, so much hope for what can change and be different sort of way. The beginning of the school year is a time for kids to try on new identities, make new friends, and (hopefully) learn a bunch of useful stuff. But you know what else it’s for? ANXIETY!!! Anxiety for me. Anxiety for my kid. Anxiety all around! This isn’t my constant companion run of the mill anxiety. This is specialized. This is driven by my worry for my kid and his feelings and what other kids will say and do.* 

Parents try so hard to create a safe space for their kids at home. We want them to express themselves and know that we love them no matter what. We are basically trying to create a psychologically and emotionally safe space. Psychological and emotional safety is all about ensuring that kids can ask questions, come up with crazy ideas, and make mistakes knowing that they won’t be punished or humiliated. It also means that they can question and push back on things. And by “push back” I mean be a sass monster who has to have the last word. I have no idea where he gets that…

It’s also important to develop psychological safety at work. Guess why. Because PEOPLE go to work. Not mindless cogs, but actual humans who (even when grown up) need to feel that they can speak up, ask tough questions, and not be chastised or fired. This is often tricky to develop because your supervisor isn’t your Mom or Dad (unless they are?). It’s this human part of work that I think we need to remember. Maybe if we picture our colleagues as little kids just starting first grade we would do a better job at creating a psychologically safe environment for them and everyone at work would reap the benefits. 

To close let me share this grammatically incorrect, old-ass song about going back to school my Pap-Pap used to sing to me. It went like this:

School days, school days

Dear old Golden Rule days

'Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic

Taught to the sound of the hick'ry stick

You were my bashful, bashful beau

I was your queen in calico

You wrote on my slate, "I Love You, so"

When we were a couple of kids

I looked it up and Pap-Pap’s version differed slightly from the original 1907 version but both mention a hickory stick. Hickory sticks were used to beat children when they weren’t paying attention or got an answer wrong. That is the opposite of psychological safety. 

*It is also driven by the fact that I have to think about whether he is physically safe at school and that is truly terrible

Chunky love

I just opened a jar of peanut butter, realized it was chunky and actually said “Oh, FUCK* yeah!” out loud. Is it ridiculous to be this excited about something so mundane? I don’t think so. If something so small makes you happy why not embrace it? There is a lot of research out there that shows that appreciation or gratitude (even for the small things) leads to greater overall satisfaction with life, improved mental health, and a bunch of other useful stuff. The consensus is that we should write down what we are grateful for. This way, rather than just being forced to talk about what you are thankful for at the Thanksgiving table it becomes part of your daily routine.

I do not want to do that.

The idea of adding anything to a daily routine is a hard pass for me. When people say they wake up, journal, meditate, and do some stretching all before their first coffee I have thoughts. I assume either they live alone and have no kids, or they wake up at 4.30 to fit all this into their day, or they are a zillionaire with no job. I do not fall into any of these categories so I looked for other options and I found some great suggestions. 

These aren’t hard to do. Asking someone what’s awesome in their life is a pretty great way to bring gratitude into normal conversations without being over the top. Genuinely thanking someone for their efforts isn’t hard and it makes people so happy to know that you see them. Speaking of being happy, it turns out that the best way to make yourself happy is to do stuff for other people. From what I can tell, a big component of gratitude is just getting out of your own head and actually paying attention to the people and things around. I can do that. 

 * I was going to change this to “hell” because I was worried that people may not like swearing but then I remembered the ENTIRE POINT OF WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO!! Not going to tightrope my own damn website.