Sustain Motivation in Change Processes (2): Reframing our Actions

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

Anne-Wil Harzing - (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 recent 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 the first blogpost – involved changing our mindset, whereas the next four steps – discussed in this 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 actions in four steps

In contrast to the suggestions for reframing our mindset, which were grounded in academic research, my four suggestions for reframing our actions result from my practical experience in leading change efforts in organizations. The lead image for this blogpost summarizes them briefly, but let’s look at each of them in a bit more detail.

Step 4: Small steps matter! Two sources of inspiration

In our change-making efforts we are often disappointed at how slow progress can be. Even worse, we sometimes experience setbacks where progress seems to be reversed. This means it can sometimes be hard to keep going. In this section we offer two sources of inspiration that both suggest that small steps matter. This is by no means a new perspective. There is even a Scottish proverb on this: “many mickles make a muckle”. Although often interpreted in financial terms, it also applies to personal development and change. Small changes or improvements can culminate in significant progress over time.

In academia we typically celebrate only big achievements. We often hero-worship those at the peak of our profession in terms of the traditional performance metrics such as publications in top journals. At the same time, we seem to be fixated on debating small problems in infinite detail, as is reflected in Sayre’s law: “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” By way of corollary, it adds: “That is why academic politics are so bitter.”

My wonderful CYGNA Lead Team colleague – Ciara O’Higgins – suggests reversing this and and focus on small successes in our jobs that every one of us can contribute to on a daily basis.

  • Did you deal well with a difficult question in class, maybe admitting that you found it difficult to answer and showing a bit of vulnerability in a safe way? That is amazing! Not everyone can do that. You have made the classroom as safe space for students too. [See also Sîan Stephens: Talk about Teaching with Pride]
  • Did you and your research collaborator manage to set up a meeting with a key stakeholder in your field, allowing you to ensure that your new research project resonates outside the ivory tower. Go for a celebratory coffee together now!
  • In chairing a meeting did you manage to respectfully shut up the department bully and let the shy, introverted, person make their valuable contribution. Well, done! You have just made the first step towards a safer departmental culture.

By focusing on and celebrating small steps, we may be able to address the big problems in our profession collectively. How do we educate our students to be independent critical thinkers? How do we ensure a focus on research quality and stakeholder engagement rather than fetishizing productivity? How do we create an academic culture that is inclusive to all?

Another source of inspiration that recommends focusing on the small steps is our Positive Academia campaign #EveryLittleActionCounts. Christa Sathish started this campaign in January 2024 on our Positive Academia LinkedIn group, which at that time had less than 1,000 followers. We currently have over 3,300 followers and the campaign now features more than 35 actions. They are launched every Monday to start the week positively and give our followers some food for thought and action.

Step 5: Get others involved

As change makers we often forget that #EveryLittleActionCounts also means that creating change ambassadors can help us achieve our goals. The slide below illustrates this step with an example for Equality Diversity and Inclusion in academia. However, the general principle applies to any change process.

First, as we have argued in our article on Managing (linguistic) diversity in MNCs, also discussed in Step 1: Embrace fluidity, any change process needs to rely on reciprocity. Change requires mutual adjustment. It shouldn’t be up to minority group members to adapt to the norms and values of majority groups. In the context of linguistic diversity, it shouldn’t just be up to non-native speakers to adjust to native speakers.

When changing academic cultures, it shouldn’t be up to junior academics to “fit in” with the norms and values of an older generation of academics. More diverse and inclusive academic cultures need to be co-created, reinforcing the best from every generation, not just the current academic establishment.

In this process allyship can be extremely powerful. It requires those in majority groups or positions of power to speak up rather than leaving this to those in more vulnerable positions. This has an added advantage: the voices of those in privileged positions typically have a more significant impact. For instance, when men activity support gender equality, it has a greater impact than when women do so, as they are typically seen to be more “objective”.

The images below are from the Man who has it all Twitter (now X) account, an account that highlights ridiculous gender stereotypes by flipping the gender. This switch of perspective – combined with humour – can be a very powerful way to convince people to not just think but also act differently. Every person that can be convinced can be a change ambassador.

In any change process senior management can make a big difference by modelling the expected behaviour. However, senior role modelling doesn’t mean that every action needs to originate from the top. Many change processes in universities rely on senior academics spending years in committees – sometimes with token ECR representation – to come to a consensus about an action plan, by which time the environment might have changed completely.

Why not experiment and try small local initiatives instead, fully accepting that some might fail. These experiments should be run by academics at different career stages rather than only managers and full professors. It is all about creating widespread commitment. Central planning rarely does this; it leads to passivity and reinforcing boundaries between management and employees [see also Step 1: Embrace fluidity].

Step 6: Create synergy across activities

Any change process is time-consuming. However, we can leverage the time we spend on managing change by identifying and creating synergies across activities. In my presentation to Diversity & Inclusion officers in the Netherlands (see above), I pointed out the considerable synergy between the philosophies underlying D&I and those underlying the Recognition & Rewards program in the Netherlands.

However, synergy can apply to any change process. For instance, I leveraged my presentation helping D&I officers to manage change in their organizations by writing it up this - more generic - white paper on change processes, and applying it to our new Positive Academia change initiative.

More generally, we can leverage small local initiatives aimed at changing academic cultures by sharing them outside our institutions, inspiring others to follow our example. For instance, my colleague Sîan Stephens wrote up two blogposts based on her experience with bottom-up teaching initiatives at Middlesex University.

Christa Sathish, my co-conspirator in Positive Academia, created a website for her funded project at Westminster University: Reflective Blogging for Impact: A Pathway to Employability, Equity, and Societal Impact in Higher Education. During her PhD in media studies, she also blogged about her research. This allowed her vision to reach beyond her own university.

Tatiana Andreeva, one of our CYGNA organizing team, leveraged teaching research students to do literature reviews by running a session on publishing literature reviews for the CYGNA Women in Academia network, and writing up a series of very popular blogposts for my blog.

In the dark ages of the 20th century, I leveraged my efforts as ECR representative on the university's research committee where I managed to change our journal ranking by collating rankings from different sources. I did so by making the resulting list available to academics worldwide on my newly launched personal website. This led to the Journal Quality List that – 25 years later – is now in its 71st edition and is still downloaded some 40,000 times a year. [See also: Why did you create the JQL and the PoP software?].

I also created a role as coordinator for international students at a time when international student support was still in its infancy. This meant I could combine my research in cross-cultural management with practical sessions on cross-cultural communication skills, and advocacy for international students. I also ended up organising trips in Yorkshire, and even international dinners at our home, complete with a dedicated website.

These examples all relate to synergy with external engagement. However, synergy can also be reached between teaching and research. Do you want to create positive change in your classroom by improving engagement? Why not turn this into an experimental study and publish the results in an Education journal?

Synergy can also be achieved between leadership and research. Are you a Research Dean wanting to change the way academic research is evaluated? Why not publish the result of your investigations, as I did when proposing different metrics and data sources (see: To rank or not to rank).

I hope these examples have inspired you to think about your own academic roles and change initiatives in a more synergistic way. Remember, never do something for a reason, always do it for multiple reasons.

Step 7: Take care of yourself! Peer support is crucial

Finally, being involved in change efforts can be draining. Progress is often slow. There will certainly be days that you feel like giving up. I have sustained many academic volunteering initiatives over the years that were all aimed at changing academia for the better:

However, for each of these initiatives there have been times where I just wanted to walk away from it, leaving all the hard work and frustration behind and just taking it easy (see also: Please be polite and considerate and Thank You: The most underused words in academia?).

Usually, I indeed took it easy for a while, focusing on the many other things I enjoy doing such as walking in London and reading history. You will all have your own favourite self-care options. But what is most important is to acknowledge that our change endeavours can be hard at times, and that sometimes we do need time to recover and reflect.

What may also help you is to build peer support networks. Two of the six initiatives above – CYGNA and Positive Academia – are conducted in collaboration with others. This means that whenever you feel like you have had enough, others can take over the lead for a bit or just listen to your frustrations.

Although support networks can be cross-institutional or even international, local support is crucial too. Hence, in my role at Middlesex, I set up a range of peer support networks for my mentees, Departmental Research Leads, Heads of Departments, and New Professors (see also Section 3 of my narrative CV). Local peer support networks are an excellent way to foster resilience.

These groups should not be too big; they will lose the personal touch if they are. So at CYGNA – which is now approaching 450 members – we are setting CYGs (CYGNA special interests groups) for academics interested in Teaching & Scholarship Research, and for various career stages. We are also running weekly CYGNA Writes sessions. Attendance for these initiatives typically varies from 10 to 20 participants, providing more space for interaction than our - much bigger - plenary meetings.

Conclusion

I hope the four steps above have given you some tips to reframe your actions and help you sustain your motivation in any change processes you are involved in. Although all four steps are important, I do think that remembering that every little action counts (a core tenet of Positive Academia) is crucial in sustaining our day-to-day motivation.

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Copyright © 2025 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Mon 3 Feb 2025 16:09

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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