Heartfelt advice for early career researchers

This is the personal opinion of the author and does not represent Capgemini.

With thanks to all the wonderful people who have helped me, inspired me and mentored my on my career journey!

It was a privilege to be invited recently to give a keynote speech at the Cranfield University Defence and Security Doctoral Symposium at Shrivenham. I was delighted to hear all the papers presented, and see the posters for all the brilliant research being done.

I was asked to talk about alternative careers to academia, as someone with a doctorate who didn't go on to pursue a career in research, or even in the same field as my doctorate (archaeology).

I tried to think what advice I would have liked to hear twenty years ago, when I was just starting on on my career journey. I have been fortunate to have had a very varied career in the police service, civil service, and now industry (and I am only half way through, so who knows what could be next!). So I set out what went right, and what went wrong, in the hope others can learn from my mistakes.

My career as an archaeologist ended before it started, when I failed to get any of the jobs I applied for, so - needing to pay the rent - I applied for and got a research role in Thames Valley Police. I thought it would be interesting, an easy commute from where I was living, and had a vague interest in forensic science. As it turned out, I was very lucky to land in a really good role with wonderful people, which quickly evolved into working directly for the then Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Sara Thornton, and I was very pleased to have such an amazing senior woman role model. It was at this stage I started to find a bit of early ambition – I started to do nationally-important work on intelligence and counter-terrorism, attend meetings at the Home Office, and discover what sort of roles there are out there for someone with my skillsets.

My core skillset is that I am really good at reading, digesting information, and writing very quickly and articulately – that’s been the foundation of my career even now. Those skills are needed by senior people who haven’t the time to read and analyse things themselves, they need short clear useful summaries. When I went on to become a civil servant – which has been most of my career – I used those skills. So what is my advice?

CHANGE THE WORLD!

Find your purpose

Find what mission that inspires you and follow it with no regard to what other people expect of you – but make sure you run the right race!

Find your people

You need other people to succeed together. Find your people, supporters and champions. Be visible, communicate and let people know what you’re doing and what you want – quiet competence does not get rewarded. Even very senior people are only human so treat them as such and don’t be afraid to approach anyone no matter how high up they seem.

Be persistent

Attention is a gift: what you spend your time and attention on makes up your life.

Be positive

Ambition is a great thing but has a long history of driving people to burnout and destruction. Being ambitious at the expense of pushing other people down does not end well. You can’t always win at everything. Stay optimistic and don't get cynical.

Be patient

Careers are very long – you might not retire until your late sixties, you can fit a lot in. It’s a marathon not a sprint.

I’ve been able to do some really important work over the years, none of which I could have predicted when I started out with no real career goals in mind. I have:

• Been the secretariat for the national police intelligence portfolio writing the guidance on the police use of intelligence
• Created the first ever National Strategic Assessment for the UK police
• Led a major government review on the use of police powers to detain people in mental health crisis
• Set up and led the Government’s Defence and Security Accelerator

While I didn’t set out to do any of those things, they’ve given me a lot of satisfaction and a sense of achievement. Currently I’m very interested in space technologies and how we can preserve the space environment that we all depend on, so that is my purpose right now. You don’t have to have one mission and stick to it! But a general sense of direction and what interests you helps to guide your career choices.

DON'T CHANGE THE WORLD

I wanted to bring up early on the idea of failure and I wish someone had done that for me in my career!

I think a lot of people are scared of failure and that fear can lead them to do all sorts of unwise things. So it’s good to understand that failure is actually inevitable, and to embrace it. You won’t achieve everything you set out to do, you might not be able to change the world. Others might succeed instead of you, younger people will get promoted before you do, you get passed over for promotion or you don’t get a very good performance review. It happens to us all. Having an ordinary life is a good thing too – living your life under the delusion that you are special, extraordinary, often goes badly in a workplace!

When I finished my doctorate things had gone pretty well for me in my life and I felt very confident in my abilities. I was very able to do the analysis and writing aspects of my job extremely well. I enjoyed getting paid a good salary for the first time ever!

So, I had quite a shock when I found that in the real world workplaces are difficult things to navigate. Intellectual merit isn’t everything. In fact, it can work against you. I started to find some of my colleagues disliked me. I got up people’s noses when I didn’t mean to. One person described me as ‘arrogant’. A senior police officer shouted at me for upsetting his PA. Despite – in my view – outperforming everyone else, I didn’t get top marks in my performance review.

So what was going on?

My wonderful boss Sara had some words of wisdom for me. She directed me to another book – Daniel Goleman's ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ’ and I think the title says it all really. What I was missing – and had managed to get all through university and my doctorate without – was very much emotional intelligence. By which, I mean, understanding other people’s emotions, perspectives, motivations, and behaviours, and my own, and how to factor these in to what I was doing. I’ve had other personal and professional failures - I’ve had long periods where my career has stalled, gone backwards, the role I was in – and sometime the entire department – have been abolished. I spent a year working on a project that was binned one afternoon - but each have been a stepping stone to something better.

Failing is learning to do better

It’s important to reframe failure as not being a personal failing of yours. Nearly always, you did your best and the circumstances didn’t fall your way. Luck plays a much great role in career success than anyone likes to admit.

But everyone has flaws, and sometimes those flaws are something that we can do something about. The important thing is to be aware of them and not be in denial. The best leaders are those who are deeply aware and even comfortable with their flaws, talk openly about their mistakes and are humble about asking and receiving feedback. No-one gets it right all the time. It’s a sign of emotional maturity not to be defensive, to own up to and admit mistakes, and to apologise meaningfully when you get things wrong, and to learn to do better next time.

So actively seek, and really listen, to feedback but ONLY from people you trust who have your best interests at heart. No-one likes to hear criticism and it can be very hurtful, especially if given the wrong way or people are careless with their words and timing. It’s fine to ask for more time before you can hear it, or to digest it before you respond. But feedback is a gift: it is reflecting back at you something about you, and the person giving it, in ways which you can learn from. And by the same token, be honest but tactful with your colleagues when they fail: they are only human too.

Enjoy the journey

Relish the moment, the journey is the point of it all! There is no promised land when you have ‘made it’ in a career, it’s not a question of rushing through everything until you get there. Very few people find that success is what it’s cracked up to be, or what they thought it would be. Careers are not always an upward trajectory and we do people a disservice by framing them as climbing a hill to a mythical summit.

The truth is that careers ebb and flow – sometimes you have more energy, sometimes less. Sometimes other bits of life are more important – having kids, spending time with the family. Illnesses and accidents happen.

It’s a cliché that nobody ever says on their deathbed that they wished they worked harder. But when they do interviews with dying people, they all say they valued the time they spent with loved ones, the holidays, being creative. So slow down and enjoy the view and the friends you make on the way.

Celebrate small successes

It’s nice when you get one big success but personally, I never seem to really be able to enjoy it. It’s usually been at the end of a long hard period of work and stress and I’m usually too tired to relish the moment – and my thoughts turn immediately to whatever the next thing is for me to do. And – being up close – it’s too easy to see the imperfections and what didn’t go well, rather than what did. So let other people celebrate your big successes, but to keep yourself going, it helps to pat yourself on the back regularly. I keep a daily note of positive things that have happened that day – things I did well, or went well – and it helps me to end each day in a positive frame of mind. So be proud of your own achievements, no matter how small, because they are all another step forward.

See the best in others

I spend a lot of time managing other people, these days – it comes with being more senior – and I could give a whole separate course just on the do’s and don’ts of people management. It’s so often done badly, and the cause of a lot of workplace misery. So I’ll summarise here by saying that generally people are all trying to do their best, and need encouragement, kindness and support, being ‘seen’ and listened to and able to contribute their ideas. So developing a habit of appreciating others, and complementing them, praising what they are doing, is incredibly important. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do, remember it’s an error and not malice. I’ve hardly ever come across anyone actually trying to screw things up or annoy people. Being angry is never constructive, so always stop and breathe – if necessary, take yourself out of the situation until you can deal calmly, and don’t take anything personally. It’s always best to try to dial down drama and conflict in the workplace, and never ever add to it.

Know when enough is enough

It’s generally better, in my view, to be the person trying to do stuff and make things happen, rather than being the person on the sidelines commenting on what other people are doing. BUT there is no need to be a martyr, sometimes you just have to walk away when it’s not working for you.

BE YOURSELF

I once went on a course which described how your sense of self can be like a sponge, or a stone: if you are very spongy you can have quite a weak inner core which can be easily swayed and influenced by others and soaks up emotional energy from those around you: a stone never changes or grows but it is emotionally unassailable. Think of yourself as having a strong inner centre – one which is truly you, your power centre and nothing can touch – but with the softer edges of empathy which you can control when you need to – that’s what setting your boundaries are all about.

Listen to your feelings

Mindfulness teaches you to tune in to your feelings and observe them, acknowledge them, but at a distance – you sit with them, breathe, and let them go again. The point being, that 'you' are not 'your feelings', they are just a sort of emotional weather and very often affected by simple things – how much sleep you’ve had, if you’ve eaten recently. Maybe you need some fresh air. Maybe you need to give yourself a bit of a talking to. Maybe talk to a counsellor. A lot of people are afraid at work, insecure, anxious – and that’s fine and normal – but you can’t let it holds you back. Courage is feeling the fear, and doing it anyway.

That all matters because being aware of how you are feeling helps you manage those emotions better and not impose them unduly on other people – I had a boss whose mood ruled the whole office. An entire group of people knew they were going to have a good day or a bad day at work, based on the moods and whims of one person. That’s very poor leadership. Of course we can take time to acknowledge and share each other’s feelings about things, but bringing a consistent and stable mood to work is, I think, the definition of professionalism. Remember you are responsible for your feelings and reactions to things, not anyone else.

Prioritise your health and wellbeing

This is a very important bit of advice about life, and one it took me until my late thirties to grasp. One boss told me to put on your own oxygen mask before you help anyone else; and he meant make sure you’re coping ok yourself before offering emotional support to anyone else. Some people seem to need endless help and reassurance, and you have to set some clear boundaries. Put yourself first – it’s not selfish, it’s necessary for survival. My three pieces of advice here are:

• To touch briefly on gender politics in the workplace, I always like a piece of advice from Mumsnet: "women are not men’s support people". So don’t fall into the trap of being anyone’s ‘mum’ other than your own kids.
• Don’t be a perfectionist or a people pleaser, and especially not both. In fact if possible don’t care too much about what other people think of you at all.
• Wear your professional identity lightly – your organisation can always do without you so make sure you are ok without it

Be grateful every day

Another cliché but so helpful to think about what you’re grateful for in life and keep a sense of proportion. I’ve had stresses I agonised over for days, and worried about all night – everything was fine, and I can hardly remember now why it affected me so much. Remember what’s really important and how lucky we all are. I kept a gratitude journal during a particularly tough year – and again in COVID – and it really helped me focus attention on what really matters to me – a good conversation, a nice walk in the countryside, my friends and family, my kids, the simple joy of a hot bath.

Keep learning and growing

Another really important piece of advice. One of the key things everyone looks for in new hires is being keen to learn and interested. Nobody expects you to know everything – or anything – so keep asking questions, ask for help, and keep learning throughout your life. There's no such thing as being too senior to learn!

I think career planning is impossible these days – the jobs you might do in future probably don’t exist now. So be open to opportunity, take risks, and say yes to things which seem interesting.

But, remember that formal education – where the point is for you to learn – stops now. The workplace is not the same as being in education, expectations and outputs are very different. So, think how you can add value to a project, bring your own ideas, and wherever you can, have a unique point of view.

Be your own cheerleader

It’s a harsh truth that nobody is going to plan your career for you, or tell you what to do. No-one has plans for you. What you do now is totally up to you, and while others might support you, you have to be your own supporter-in-chief. Find ways to encourage yourself, tell yourself ‘well done’ for good bits of work and ensure others know about them too! And be kind to yourself and not your own critic. We all tell ourselves stories to make sense of our place in the world: make sure your internal narrative is at least as nice to you as you would be to someone else.

Talk to your bosses about what you’re good at, what you do well and how they can best use you (they aren’t mind-readers so you have to tell them). But, don’t be dogmatic about it, be willing to try things outside your comfort zone and take on new challenges.

So in conclusion, a final quote from Melody Beattie, Journey to the Heart:

"Music is all around us. Listen for it. Seek it out. Know you’re welcome to join in. Don’t worry about how well you carry a tune or whether you know all the words. You’ve been invited to the campfire. Come. Sing along. You’ll have the time of your life."