Outsource what you can
In deciding to pursue my PhD and concurrently take on the Head of Department role, I knew I might have finally taken on just too much. It was a ridiculously busy time—heading a department going through major changes, working on my PhD, co-parenting our four children (aged nine to sixteen when I took on the Head role) and of course managing multiple other relationships.
Back then, the first part of any PhD required a substantial literature search, which was later synthesised to create a great topic—or something the student would be prepared to spend the next few years researching.
My studies were relevant to what we were doing in the department, but we did not have funds to pay a researcher to assist with the leg work. After agreeing to lead a series of workshops with the Australian Institute of Management on Strategic Information Services, I was given approval to use the payment for these workshops to fund my literature searching. (Remember this was still before the Internet.) I approached one of the really good students, Carey Butler, to see if she was prepared to be my paid research assistant, and, fortunately, she said yes. I did the conceptual work and initial literature searching then Carey followed up on these, found the relevant articles, helped index things and generally gave me great support.
I also set the expectation that I would work from home most of each Tuesday, and I did. Sometimes I did catch-up work for the department, and other times I worked on the PhD.
My kids knew too that if they needed something attended to, a parent permission form signed or anything else like that, then that should be done before 8.30pm. From about 9pm to 11pm many nights I was working on the doctoral work, or sometimes other Departmental work.
But I was not sequestered away—to this day, my study just has a light Japanese screen instead of a door and is next to the kitchen.
Making that decision to get some help, or to outsource, is hard, but most people do say that, with hindsight, they should have done it sooner.
Share your challenges and ask for help
Always be willing to talk about what you are doing with others, to share some of the challenges, as you never know what might eventuate.
I took a few months sabbatical in the first year of the doctorate to travel, met other researchers in the US, and participated in some conferences. My data gathering included interviewing dozens of senior executives in Australia’s major banks and it required some time to synthesise the findings. This led to the decision that I would need to take a few months off to complete the rest of the writing for the PhD. I was intending to take it as Leave Without Pay, which would also be a great incentive to get it done quickly.
However, one day I was discussing the timing dilemma with an acquaintance who had just been appointed to run a new commercially-focused research centre. He thought having me on his staff for a while would be a good thing as I understood what the centre was trying to achieve, had a relevant academic and professional background, and was part of a university with whom the centre was making linkages. We came to an agreement that I could spent eighty to eighty-five percent of my time on the PhD writing and about fifteen percent helping them get established. For that, he would pay almost my current salary. RMIT was happy about it as they had a link to the centre and so it was a bit of a win-win.
Getting the PhD done required discipline and drive. It also required an ability to compartmentalise what I was doing, which is something I have learned to do over time. It can be annoying to others as it means I might be overly focused and that level of persistence or focus can be off-putting or a bit of a mystery to others. People might call it selfish or self-centred, but I can live with that. After all, I had earlier supported Robert in many ways through his doctoral studies and, over many years, we have each supported each other to achieve what we wanted to do.
Many of the MBA students who have been in my classes have had similar experiences. If you have people to support and who need to support you, just figure out how you might get things done.
With open minds and wills it is amazing what can be jointly achieved.
3
Don’t be afraid to move out of your comfort zone
Inflection number three: Moving from a bureaucracy to entrepreneurship
As I was handing in swathes of my PhD thesis to Melbourne Business School, some of the MBS faculty started talking to me about possibly moving to join them. Technically, it would be a lower-level role than the one I had at RMIT, though the dollars would be similar. It would take me in quite a different direction but build on the doctoral work I was finishing.
It would be a big stretch again, as it would mean shifting my areas of teaching and taking on some new ones. At RMIT my major focus was teaching postgraduate students about management and leadership. At MBS it would be teaching MBA students about technology strategy and management. Also, MBS faculty were not offered tenure back then, which I had at RMIT. Instead, you were offered a two- or five-year contract. It tended to attract and build a cohort of academic staff who backed themselves and had very good links to the business community.
It would be another case of leaving a professional area where I had built a reputation, to take my career in a different direction and, in some ways, start all over again. But what mattered to me most was choosing the best long-term move in terms of my own learning. Which role had a bit more of a risky edge to it? Where would I be stretched and grow the most?
I chose the MBS option. It was a good move, but not without its challenging moments. The students generally had very high expectations of themselves and therefore for your contribution to that. Many were making considerable financial and personal sacrifices at key stages of their careers.
Moreover, MBS worked at pace that was a quantum faster than the then more bureaucratic RMIT. My role involved establishing a Key Centre for Technology Management and a new Master of Technology Management degree. What took five years to get started at RMIT took five months at MBS.
My colleague Peter Weill (now at MIT) and I did some ground-breaking research that investigated how organisations investing in technology-enabled business developments could get the most value from those developments.
I also learned that travelling for work is very stimulating as you have access to different people, businesses and a whole range of perspectives.
Inflection number four: Taking on a commercial Pty Ltd
In what turned out to be my seventh year at MBS (well, on my first tour of duty there), there were a number of career options opening up: I was being put forward to head the school’s Executive Education, and also for a full Professorship. I also continued to get a number of invitations to consider working elsewhere, but I knew I did not want to work at any other business school—MBS was the best, at least in the Pacific region.
Peter and I grew our academic publication record, won an international Best Paper award, had an article coming out in the Sloan Management Review, and a book under production with Harvard Business School Press.
I have learned over the years that I don’t like to repeat things year after year. Once I have achieved my own goals, it is time to take on a different challenge. Certainly, leading Executive Education at MBS would be a big challenge, but I had also been approached a couple of times by the US-headquartered technology advisory services firm, Gartner Inc.
My initial response was that I did not want to work for an IT company. After all, I was not primarily a technologist—rather someone who was able to bridge the gap and bring business issues and technology capabilities together. I spoke enough of both languages to be useful at a time where there were few hybrids around.
Then Gartner approached me again with a different proposition and I had come to realise that Gartner was a professional services firm, not a technology company. This time the role was leading the relatively new Executive Program for Chief Information Officers in Australia. This meant moving fully into the commercial world, running a real P/L, working with sales