Sustain Motivation in Change Processes (1): Reframing our Mindsets

First of two blogpost with seven tips on how to sustain your own motivation when leading change efforts

Anne-Wil Harzing - Wed 5 Feb 2025 07:42 (updated Mon 3 Feb 2025 16:09)

In February 2024, I gave a presentation to a group of university Diversity & Inclusion advisers in the Netherlands. Rather than focusing on the topic of D&I as such, I decided to talk about the difficulty of sustaining your motivation in this role. D&I advisers are typically focused on helping others, but in the process of achieving more inclusive academic cultures might well burn themselves out.

Inspired by my article with Sylwia Ciuk and Martyna Śliwa on Managing (linguistic) diversity in MNCs that frames achieving organizational inclusion as a process that involves both a conceptual shift (thinking differently) and a practical shift (acting differently), I came up with seven steps that could help D&I advisers sustain their motivation.

When traveling back from the event, it suddenly struck me that much of the presentation could be applied to any process of (social) change. [I have written before about how the liminal space created through travel is always a good time for new ideas: How to find your next research project?]. Hence, I wrote up the presentation as a white paper: Sustaining motivation in change processes: Reframe your mindsets & actions.

The first three steps – discussed in this blogpost – involved changing our mindsets, whereas the next four steps – discussed in a second blogpost – involved reframing our actions. If you are interested in a particular step, you can skip directly to it through the following links to the white paper.

Reframing our mindsets in three steps

A first line of defense in sustaining our motivation during change processes is to reframe our mindset. To do so, I suggest three sources of inspiration that may allow you to think differently. They are all based on recent academic research, respectively in the areas of equality, diversity & inclusion, talent management, and positive organizational scholarship.

Step 1: Embrace fluidity in dealing with people

The first step draws on recent developments in equality, diversity & inclusion (EDI) scholarship, and suggests that our natural human tendency to categorize people in boxes might be counterproductive for any successful change process. This is because it reinforces the two ;negative aspects of diversity – separation and disparity – rather than emphasizing the positive aspect of diversity: variety.

These different operationalizations of diversity are drawn from Harrison and Klein’s seminal work (2007), who explain that diversity can mean one thing but three things:

separation: differences in position among people, reflecting disagreement or opposition
disparity: differences among people in social assets or resources such as pay or status
variety: differences among people in terms of information, knowledge, or experience

Harrison & Klein contend that when diversity is thought about as separation, it leads to reduced cohesiveness, more interpersonal conflict, distrust, and decreased team performance. Disparity-type of diversity is associated with more within-team competition, resentful deviance, reduced member input, and withdrawal. In contrast, viewing diversity in terms of variety results in greater creativity, higher decision quality, and increased team flexibility.

In our paper Managing (linguistic) diversity in MNCs, we propose changing the way we think about diversity and differences: from viewing them primarily in negative terms (separation and disparity) to embracing their positives (variety). Connected to this is the necessity to move away from thinking about categories of difference in binary terms, towards a conceptualisation embracing fluidity.

In the EDI literature, fluidity has become best-known in demographic characteristics such as gender and race/culture, both of which are of course highly relevant in academia too. However, in the above paper, we argued that it also applies to linguistic diversity, where the traditional practice has been to create a binary distinction between native and non-native (English) speakers. Other important diversity characteristics are (dis)ability and neurodiversity.

For each of these characteristics, I argue it is more productive to see individuals as being on a spectrum/continuum on all of these. Moreover, where they consider themselves to be on the spectrum might be context dependent. Hence, acknowledging this is more likely to lead to productive relationships and successful change processes, making it easier to sustain our motivation.

Fluidity in university roles

Going beyond demographic characteristics, less emphasis on binary distinctions in terms job roles and categories in academia would also reduce frustration and demotivation in our daily interactions. Too often, I see academics talk about researchers versus teachers, academics versus professional staff, and managers versus employees, as if these are part of completely different species.

But surely every academic engages some form of teaching, even if it is teaching PhD students or guiding ECRs? Surely every academic is engaged in scholarship, whether it is scholarship of discovery (research), integration (synthesis), practice (application), or teaching (pedagogy). The level of emphasis on teaching versus research is a matter of degree, not a categorical difference.

Creating a strong separation between academics and professional staff is equally counterproductive. Many academics are engaged in professional service roles (for instance staff development, running apprenticeship programs) and many professional staff members are engaged in some level of teaching and research too. Many professional staff members working in research or Research Higher Degrees administration have PhDs too. Moreover, careers in universities oftentimes encompass periods in both academic and professional service roles, especially for women.

Finally, the binary distinction between “evil management” and “innocent and powerless employees” that many non-managerial academics seem to subscribe to is a full-proof recipe for frustration and demotivation. Academia is quite unique in that most incumbents in university management positions are academics themselves and return to being a “normal” academic after their managerial role. My firm belief is that everyone should take a stint in university management to appreciate how difficult it is to be a university manager.

Step 2: Leverage your strengths

My second tip to sustain your motivation is to focus on your strengths and leverage them, rather than to focus too much on addressing your weaknesses. This draws on the literature on talent management and personal development. Talent management has been studied from a variety of theoretical perspectives. One of these – positive psychology – is very compatible with the general principle in personal development that we grow more in our strengths than in our weaknesses. As personal growth is an important source of motivation for most professionals focusing on your strengths can be key to sustaining your motivation.

It takes far less energy to move from first-rate performance to excellence than it does to move from incompetence to mediocrity. Peter Drucker

Obviously, any job has elements that do not play to our strengths. However, we can often mitigate these weaknesses through a range of measures. First through job crafting, a proactive strategy to change certain elements of your job to make it better aligned with your personal strengths. In academia, we have more options to do this than in most other professions. Most of us have some level of discretion at which roles we get more involved in, as well as the way we execute these roles.

However, some job tasks just need to be done, even if they don’t play to our strengths. So, for those, try to find a complementary work partner. At first glance, this may not seem as easy in academia as in other professions as much of our work is conducted individually. However, there are many academic roles that are team-based or that could be designed to become so. Team-teaching for instance allows well-matched colleagues to draw on each other’s strengths, as do research collaborations. Many leadership roles such as Department Heads could be effectively performed as a team with complementary skills.

Another way to mitigate your weaknesses is to leverage tools or technology. Hopeless at time management? Set up (or ask someone to help you set up) an alert system to manage your diary. Easily overwhelmed with email traffic? Invest time in setting up email filters and/or activate focus-mode on your email/social media notifications. Not a natural at face-to-face networking? Dread walking into a room full of people you don’t know? Consider preparing for networking events using social media. This can help you establishing low-level connections before the event, making it easier to engage during the face-to-face event.

Finally, if you need some concrete knowledge or miss specific skills essential to your job, do ensure you get the training you need. But do not expect that training will fundamentally change your strengths and weaknesses.

Step 3: Focus on the positive

Academics are professional critics. That’s perfectly normal. We need to be critical to ensure that our academic research is conducted with the highest level of integrity. We also need to be critical as reviewers to ensure the research that does get published is sound. However, many of us also carry over this critical attitude over to our daily working lives. Especially for older academics who have been “around the block” a few times, this may lead to increasing cynicism, defeatism and loss of hope. I am not oblivious to the many dysfunctionalities in modern-day academia. You cannot work in academia for 35+ years without being exposed to its “dark side”, including questionable research practices, academic misconduct, bullying, discrimination and harassment.

However, this attitude can easily lead to a fixation on the negative and may even lead to self-fulfilling prophesies. By sharing only our negative experiences, we are led to believe that – for instance – engaging in self-interested and unethical behavior to increase productivity is the norm rather than the exception. We may well start thinking that we are “mugs” for not following this example and “relax” our own ethical principles, thus causing or at least reinforcing the very behavior we are trying to address. Finally, we may well be “digging our own grave”. Our focus on the negatives in academia might lead the public to think that academics climb the career ladder through egotistic behavior, bullying and cheating, largely at the taxpayers’ expenses. In turn, this will lead to a lack of confidence in academia among the lay public, stymieing our ability to make a difference in addressing society’s biggest problems.

Moreover, our predominantly negative attitudes do not make us happier or more productive either. I found this article about energy management at work very helpful as it links physical and mental well-being. It reports on a study of ways to recover energy at work (measured as vitality and lack of fatigue), rather than recovery during non-work times. Frequently used strategies such as checking email, drinking coffee or surfing the web do not appear to lead to recovery. Instead, strategies related to learning, meaning at work, and positive relationships with colleagues create energy.

What I found particularly interesting is that venting about a problem to a colleague is a strategy that has a strong negative impact on energy at work. This certainly rings true to me. Although it can be good to "let it all out" occasionally, regular venting sessions only leave one more pessimistic and fatalistic. I found this email response by a colleague particularly illuminative. That is #Positive Academia for you.

I've noticed that, when I'm annoyed at everyone and everything, doing something nice for someone else is a good re-set. I don't apply this at work very much, but I shall start.

If you are interested in a more positive approach to shaping the future of academia, consider following our Positive Academia LinkedIn group. Drawing on Positive Psychology and Positive Organizational Scholarship, we provide a positive way forward and argue that #EveryLittleActionCounts. I explore this in more detail in Step 4: Small steps matter! Two sources of inspiration.

Changing your perspective

The same result can often be interpreted both negatively and positively. The above slide focuses on gender and national diversity on a specific metric in research evaluation: the 2% most highly cited academics. In one of my White papers I conducted an analysis of this for Business & Management (see Highly cited academics in Business & Management over the years) listing the top-25 academics in this field.

The overall sample (top left in the image) clearly shows a lack of diversity. It includes only five female academics, most of whom are in the lower regions of the top 25. The same is true for non-North American academics. Only five non-North American are included in the top 25 and they are largely clustered at the very bottom.

However, splitting up the sample by “academic generation” and comparing the oldest generation – starting their career between 1954 and 1979 – and youngest generation – starting their career in the 21st century – clearly shows how much has changed over the years. The most recent generation shows that nearly two thirds of the academics in the top 25 are non-North American. There are also five women in the top 10, including three in the top 5. The increasing diversity over time is also reflected in the graph in the bottom right-hand corner.

Hence, the glass half-empty approach would have been to say, “look at the lack of diversity in the world’s most cited scholars in our field”. But the glass half-full approach pointing out the change over time is – in this case at least – a far more productive approach to take and one far more likely to sustain your motivation and argue that #EveryLittleActionCounts (see also Step 4: Small steps matter! Two sources of inspiration).

Conclusion

I hope the the three steps above have given you some tips to reframe your mindsets and help you sustain your motivation in any change processes you are involved in. Although all three steps are important, I do think that reframing our mindsets to focus on the positive (a core tenet of Positive Academia) is crucial in sustaining our day-to-day motivation.

Related blogposts

academia behind the scenes positive academia research focus impact societal impact social media cooperation gender cygna research integrity

Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.

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