How I create a strategic plan

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be speaking with you right now. Today, I'm going to talk to you about how I create a strategic plan. So last week I talked about the strategic plan, and I had questions. Asked of me about how I create a strategic plan, and I'm excited to talk about it today because I have to say that making a strategic plan is one of the things that's really changed my academic productivity.

1:32 It just really helped me focus, and it gave me the opportunity to have serious productivity. Up until the time that I started creating a strategic plan, I maybe published a paper or less a year. And since creating the strategic plan, it's been so awesome, my productivity has increased. Probably on average, we do four to six manuscripts a year that are published, so you know they go through the system. But anyway, so yes, a strategic plan is so helpful because it's a roadmap. You stop looking around and saying, well, what project can I do? You're like, well, I have these projects. I should be working on them. You stop looking around and asking, well, what can I work on now?

2:18 You have it before you, so you know that you have things to work on. So the strategic plan is awesome. I highly recommend it. And I'm going to talk to you today about five steps to a strategic plan. Five steps to a strategic plan. So the very first thing I do is I have an overarching goal for my future. And to answer the question of what is your overarching goal for your future is to ask, why are you here? Why are you in academia? You are a brilliant clinician. You could totally be doing anything else. You could own your own practice. You could be working in another person's practice.

2:58 You could be working with the government. There are jobs at FDA. You could be working in industry. So why are you here? Why are you here in academia where you command the lowest salary that you could of anywhere that you work? Why are you here? And so the first question in creating my strategic plan that I ask myself is, why am I here? And it's important because it allows me to have an overarching goal for my career. I'm not here to play. I'm not here to see only patients. Patients are important, and they're the foundation of my clinical training. But what I realize is that health care, as it is right now, serves a lot of people, but it could serve more people.

3:48 And there are so many questions that are yet to be answered. And I came to my career so that I could have impact, so that I could impact not just the patient in front of me, but the patient beyond that patient and patients beyond my lifetime. I came to have impact. I came to create a body of scholarly work that serves as a legacy that lives on after me. And I believe that academia is my vehicle to do that. And so yeah, it's why I came. And so that's why it was a shock to me when I started. And they're like, of course, you can be scholarly, but here's all this clinical work. Good luck. And because I have that overarching goal, I've continued to pursue it.

4:33 And my strategic plan is my vehicle to do that. Yes, clinical care is still part of what I do. But in order to help the patient beyond the patient, I really do need to give space and time to my scholarly work. And so my strategic plan, first of all, starts with an overarching goal for my career. Why did I come? And yes, there are people around me who say, oh, no, no, no, clinicians don't do that anymore. That was in the days of Ian Fleming. Not today. But I believe it's achievable today. I'm here because the dream is achievable. I'm here because other people are doing it. I'm not even the first to say I want a scholarly research career as a clinician.

5:13 I'm not the first. So is it extraordinary? Some people would say it is, but I would say it's not. And so my overarching goal leads me in creating my strategic plan because I want to lead a scholarly program of research that moves forward patient care, that transforms the lives of patients. I pay attention to my scholarly work. And my strategic plan is a vehicle that helps me get there. So number one is to be very clear about why you're here in academia and what you're here to accomplish. And I want to take a step back and say, I didn't always know that, or at least I couldn't always articulate that.

6:00 When I started, I just wanted to do research. And that's all I could say. And people would say, well, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? I'm like, I want to do research. And they're like, yeah, but what do you want to do? And I was like, well, I don't know. I mean, I guess I could do cancer associated with thrombosis. Actually, I really want to do sickle cell. I just had so many things that I was interested in. And it's because I was interested in many things. In fact, I'm still interested in many things. If you're going to have impact, though, you choose one and you really focus in on that one thing, or you choose no more than a couple and really focus in. And when I began to realize that as I grew in the academy, then I had to narrow it down.

6:41 And focus. And I'm not just now saying, well, I want to lead research. It's like, well, I'm very specific. I have come to the specific population to make this specific change. This is my goal. And if I achieve this goal, or when I achieve this goal, it'll have been an amazing, amazing achievement. I would be like, whoa, this was a great achievement. You know what I mean? Just wow. I'm just excited just thinking about all the lives my work is going to change. And so now I can articulate it. Now I understand it. Now I have the words. You know, in a sense, when I started, I was like a baby who could hear everybody speaking, but I couldn't yet speak the language.

7:22 And that's for many of us clinicians. We understand research globally, but we don't understand the language of research. And not just the language people speak around research, but the way people behave and act around research. And it's by watching and being in close proximity with people who are succeeding in research that we're able to now be able to develop our own language and be able to put words to our feelings, to our experiences. And so my overarching goal is my first step. The second thing I do is I write down all the things that need to move my scholarly work forward. And those are mostly the things that have no accountability. I don't put anything clinical on there.

8:02 I don't put clinical care. I don't even really put my presentations that I do at work. I don't because, you know what, if I don't show up to clinic, I'm going to hear about it. If I don't show up to round in the hospital, three people are going to call me within the hour. Right? There is built-in accountability for many things that we do in clinical care. But guess what? If I don't publish the paper, you know, it'll just be a paper that wasn't published. No one will know. If I don't move my, you know, grant writing forward, no one will know that I'm not working on the grant. It'll just be like a year later and at my annual review, it will say, okay, yeah, what grants did you submit? And I'll be like, well, you know, it was, right?

8:45 There's no accountability, at least not an immediate accountability. Like, okay, maybe in a year, someone will ask me, how does that help me today? But clinical care, if I don't show up, somebody will call me within the hour. The patient is waiting. Where are you? And so the things that I want to move forward in my scholarly work that have no built-in accountability are the things that go on my plan. So I write down the list of everything that I want to accomplish that's not, that doesn't have any built-in accountability. And that's step number two. It's a long list of things I want to accomplish. And usually I'm a little bit ambitious.

9:26 Or maybe it's not even so much ambition. It's that I don't really have a sense of how much it takes to do the things I say I want to do. And so I just have big goals. And I'm like, yes, publish paper. What does it take to publish paper? Analyze the results. What does it take to analyze the results? Collect the data. What does it take to collect the data? Submit the IRB. Wow. All I wanted to do was publish the paper. And all of a sudden I've dreamed up four steps before I can publish the paper. And so I have not always been realistic about what I can accomplish within the timeframe that I want to accomplish it. But that's not where I start, though, when it comes to writing the list.

10:08 I just write a list. Like, this is all the things that I want to accomplish. This is the list of everything that is important to me in terms of my scholarly productivity. OK. So I have a list. It's a full list. It's got a lot of things. It's just like a brain dump. Just put everything on there. Number three, I create a category for grant submissions. I create a category for grant submissions. I create a category for grant submissions. My grant submissions category is first. It's the thing of all that I do that I love to do the least. I don't hate it, but I love it the least. I enjoy writing, but I love it the least.

10:50 And so it comes as number one. Because no matter whether I love it or not, it's a big driver of my research program. Because when I have funding, I can focus on the work. When I have funding, I can recruit other people to the work. When I have funding, I can more easily convince collaborators to be part of the work. Funding is critical to the forward motion of my research program. And therefore, I spend a lot of time making offers. And I call it making offers now because now I understand in business is what you do. You make offers. No one can buy your product until you offer them the product to buy.

11:31 Nobody can fund my research program until I make it clear what my research program is about. And so writing grants is the vehicle for funding my research program. Therefore I write grants. And it's on my strategic plan. I look forward to the next three months because each strategic plan I create, I create for a three-month period. It's a three-month strategic plan. And to be honest, I've experimented with a couple more months, a couple fewer months. And I would say I think the sweet spot for me is actually a four-month strategic plan. It's sufficient time to get work done without being overwhelming. Okay. So I create a category for grant submissions. And that is number three.

12:12 What grants over the next four months am I going to submit? Now what's interesting is that I do need to look further ahead. And before this step, I've actually gone back and decided what are upcoming opportunities. You know, there are some opportunities that come every year. So if I miss the last cycle, I'll get the next one. There's some opportunities that are limited. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I'm just going to pause and tell you that there is no such thing as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In life, there will always be opportunity. It will come from everywhere. If you miss this opportunity, there'll be another opportunity and then the next opportunity after that. So my point is that never get anxious or afraid or allow yourself to be thrown off course by a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because the reality of life is that opportunities will always come looking for you.

13:01 Your job is to prepare for them. Okay. So I was talking about the grants that I write for and that I, you know, I put on my list. I have already earlier gone and looked and seen what are the RFAs that usually come around this time of year? Which grants am I committing to? What makes sense realistically as far as timeline? And sometimes the grants are due at the beginning of my strategic plan quarter or at the end of it and it just helps me plan. So the grants I'm going to submit are on my strategic plan is really the first thing I put on the strategic plan. Okay. That's number three, my category for grant submissions. Number four is my category for manuscripts. I have to tell you that this is my favorite category.

13:42 Can you feel the love? Yes. I love manuscripts. Oh my goodness. They're so awesome. Okay. So I have to take a step back and tell you I love writing. When I was a child, I wanted to be a writer. And you know, I don't know why we ask kids this question. We're like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I tell you the funniest and best answer I've ever heard was a kid who said, I want to be a good person. And I'm like, go kid. Yes, that's exactly right. Your goal is to be a good person. What's all this stuff where it's like, you know, I've got to decide what I am before I even understand what the world's about. Anyway, I'm getting off the soapbox now to say that when I was a child and people would ask me that question, what do you want to be when you grow up?

14:24 I said, I want to be a writer. And I said that because I loved books and I love the power of storytellers to change my life. I didn't go out much when I was a kid. My siblings would be out playing, learning to ride bikes, doing all these fun things. And I would just be holed up in the bathroom reading a book. I loved books. I traveled the world in the books. Anyway, so that is the reason why I felt I was going to be a writer. So I love writing. And my parents discouraged me. At least my family did. They were like, yeah, you can be a writer. But what are you going to do for money? Yeah, so being a physician was my second plan.

15:05 So anyway, I love writing. And so writing manuscripts is one of my loves in science. We love writing beyond science writing, but when it comes to my scholarly productivity, my best kind of writing is manuscripts. So they're number two. And I list them because I love writing. And what I do is I list all appending manuscripts. So I have a publication pipeline. And I will need to record a podcast episode as to what a publication pipeline is, if that's not something that's familiar to you. But just in brief, it's just a list of publications that you have either in concept, in development, already in progress, in data collection, just the different phases of your publication, of your publications.

15:46 How many are submitted in review, in revision, just that whole list. You have a timeline so you know where the publications are and what is the next step on each publication. So I have a publication pipeline. And so going into the quarter with my strategic plan, what I do is I list all my publications. And I list them in order of priority. So priority is original research manuscripts first. So those are kind of like in my first list. And then everything else, reviews, case reports, all those great pieces of writing that don't carry as much weight as the original research article. Those are second tier on my list. And so I write them all out.

16:28 And I will confess, and please do not tell Carrie Ann Rockamore, who taught me how to do a strategic plan, I will confess, I have 10 manuscripts on my strategic plan going into any quarter. And I don't have 10 manuscripts because I hope to submit 10 manuscripts in the quarter. But I just have a list of things that I'm working on so that if there is ever a day, I wake up and I'm like, wow, I don't have any work to do. I have all this free time. I look at my list and I'm like, wow, there are 10 manuscripts on there. Which one are you working on today? So there's just always that sense, not of anxiety, but always a reminder that there is work to be done, lady. You are not free. You have work. And but it's not also a thing of overwhelm. If I do not complete 10 manuscripts submission, and I'm yet to people, so the goal is not the 10 manuscripts.

17:13 The point is not the 10 manuscripts. The point is just to remind me to keep moving work forward and to not be complacent. It also helps me because when people are like, well, Dr. Momener, clearly your schedule is free. I'm like, no, it's not because there are 10 manuscripts that need to be addressed. I don't have time for your extra stuff. So it's very helpful to me. And that's what I do. And I love manuscripts. And getting to the place now where I have a lot of trainees working with me and they get first dibs on writing manuscripts, which I have to tell you, it slows me down in the sense that I'm a faster manuscript writer than a fast than you know, if somebody else is writing the manuscript alongside me, then I'm really coaching them to write.

17:54 And I have to tell you that it's so fun. And if you're not yet doing that, like mentoring someone to write, you absolutely should. Because no matter what stage of career you are in, you can always mentor somebody else. It's really fun to mentor someone in something you already know. But that means that my manuscripts don't move as fast as I would want them to. And that's part of the reason why I have 10. Because at any given time, my first authors are not ready to move the manuscript forward. So anyway, I have a lot and I enjoy writing manuscripts and I actually really enjoy mentoring the trainees who are helping me write manuscripts now. And so there's a category on my strategic plan for manuscripts.

18:34 And that's number four. Number five is my creative pursuits. I told you that as a child, I always wanted to be a writer. Writing is my dream. It's my happy place. I love to craft sentences. I love writing. Yes, roll your eyes, call me a nerd, whatever you want to do. It's the thing that I love. What's the thing that you love? Yeah, own it. And I own my own my writing love. I love writing. But I tell you that when I was a child saying I love writing, I want to be a writer, I was reading books that excited me and that, you know, lifted me to new places of imagination and creativity. I was not writing science manuscripts.

19:15 I was not. And so even though I write manuscripts and science and yeah, it's awesome and amazing, even more awesome and awesome and amazing are all the manuscripts I write that have nothing to do with science. So they're my number three category. So my first category is grant submissions. My second category is manuscripts. They're my number three category. They're my most important category to my life. But they're number three right now as I'm a faculty member in an academic institution where scholarly manuscripts are number one. But I don't allow my own creative pursuits to fall off because you know what? They give me life. Oh my goodness, the kind of energy that comes out of my body from writing a manuscript that I love.

19:58 I mean you should check out my most recent publication, Miracle of Gratitude. You can buy it on Amazon. But I do. I do. And I will tell you, one of the reasons I have it on my strategic plan is because it's writing that gives me joy. And it's writing where I don't have to jump through hoops. I don't have to jump through hoops of the reviewers say go change this. I mean, every writing can be improved by reviewers. And I do have my own writing review. Like I will send my own writing out to be reviewed by my company of reviewers. But they're like family and friends and they love me. So they're not going to try to tear me down with their review, you know, with their reviews.

20:39 But so I do send out my manuscripts for review. However, what I'm saying is that it's a space for my creativity. And so I do not allow it to be subject to the same, you know, sometimes the, you know, tear you down kind of reviews that can come back through, you know, reviewers for journals because, you know, there are a lot of people who are burned out and the burnout kind of just, you know, explodes in different places. And sometimes it's onto your manuscript. Wow, I digress. But I'm coming back to say I have a category for my creative pursuits because I love writing. And the writing that really brings me energy and just oh my gosh, it's just such a beautiful place for me is my own writing.

21:20 And I publish my own work. I do because it's like, yeah, all my other stuff can go through the publication process. Stuff I write for myself, I publish for myself. So I have my own publishing company that allows me to do that. But anyway, so those are the three major categories because grants are important to fund my research programs or grants are on there. Manuscripts are important to move my scholarly work forward and communicate my science. And so I do that. But my creative pursuits give me joy and they're on my strategic plan as well. Okay, so that's five things that I do to create the strategic plan. And then I put them in an Excel spreadsheet and I outline them over the 12 weeks.

22:00 So it's like you have 12 weeks in this quarter. What are you going to work on in week one? I have only three things I allow myself to put in any one week. And to be honest, it probably would be sufficient to have just one thing per week. But I put three things. And that's because, you know, your work is staggered. And so you're ready to write, but that manuscript is not ready for you. So what else are you going to work on? That's why I have three things every week. So I go through, I look at the 12 weeks and I arrange everything, you know, only three major things over the 12 week period. What I prioritize is grants. I prioritize grants according to when the submission deadline is and not the external deadline but our institutional deadline, which is freaky long before the grant is due.

22:46 Oh, did I say that? I'm taking it back. I appreciate my grants office and the thoroughness with which they review my grants. Thank you, grant office. OK, so I write the grants out first and they take priority based on the deadline. And then the second thing are my manuscripts. And then the third thing are my creative pursuits. I don't put my creative pursuits on there first, even though I love creativity and I really enjoy that piece. Because to some extent, that's work I'm going to be doing anyway. And I don't really need anybody to give me accountability to do that work. I will do it. And so what it helps me do is accomplish all the other things. Like I finished the grant, I finished the manuscript, and now I can look forward to it's like the dessert at the end of a big, healthy meal.

23:32 It's like, oh my gosh, I get to eat this dessert. And it helps you just go through the stuff, the broccoli and all the stuff that you might not want to eat so you can get to the dessert. And so my creative writing goes last on the list. And after I finished all the things, at least there's nothing left to do. It's like, oh, well, I'm ready to work on that paper, but it's not available. I'm going to write my own creative pursuits. So anyway, that is how I create my strategic plan. And then what I do is I take it off the Excel spreadsheet, I make it into a big PowerPoint poster, and I print it. I send it out to the printers. Yes, I pay money to send it out to the printers and I make it into a big poster. And then I put it in my office. It's a big poster on my office and there it is.

24:15 There is the accountability. It's like, that's what you said you were going to do this quarter. There it is. And as I finish things, I go and I cross it off. And if you were ever an amazing intern like I was, okay, maybe my residents might not have called me an amazing intern, but I became better over the course of the year. Okay. As an amazing intern, you have a checklist. Every good intern has a checklist. I love checklists. And so what sweetness to go through and just cross things off my strategic plan. Oh my gosh, it's so awesome. Okay. It is really awesome to be able to cross things off the strategic plan. So I get to do that. And so there it is. That's how I create a strategic plan.

24:58 I create a strategic plan every quarter, but really I create a strategic time three times a year. And I also actually this year I tried something different. I tried to do a transitional strategic plan because now that my, I have older children now, older as in they are not your teenagers, but they're older than, you know, when they were, when they required me for everything. I realize now that their schedules affect my productivity. For example, the summer schedule is a different schedule from the school schedule. I welcome the school schedule because it just gives us routine. I can be very, I know when things are happening because I know when the school day ends and I know exactly what time I have.

25:40 So it does vary. So this year I experimented with two strategic plans, one for the first half of the year into the summer and then the second for the second half of the year after the summer, because the summer is kind of like a, you know, there's a lot, there's a lot of moving targets during the summer and it's not always realistic to imagine that I can accomplish so much during the summer. So I experimented with two strategic plans this year and I'll have to see if I continue it into the future. But yeah, there it is. My summary of how I create a strategic plan. I want to invite you this week to create your own strategic plan. Maybe you've never done it. Maybe you've never really thought about your overarching goal for your career. Today is the day.

26:21 Go write it all on paper. What are the scholarly pursuits that you have that no one, no one is going to pursue you? Maybe your mentor will yell at you. Please don't let mentors yell at you. Yelling is not okay. But for the most part, no one's knocking at your door saying, are you working on that paper this morning? Most of the time people are not doing that, but they will knock on your door and say, where are you? The patient's waiting. And so what are the things that are on your list of scholarly activities that need to be on a strategic plan? Write them down. And guess what? I would love to hear them. I would love for you to share them with me. Share how you created your own strategic plan. Take a picture and send it to me via our podcast website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com.

27:03 All right, it's been such a pleasure talking with you today. I have to tell you, I have so much fun talking about the strategic plan. Yes, totally nerd activity. All right, it's been a pleasure talking with you today. Please share this episode with somebody else who needs to create a strategic plan. All right, talk to you soon. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast. Where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

27:47 Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it. As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.