The benefits of creating 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 what a privilege it is to be speaking with you today. Thank you for tuning in. I'm especially excited to be talking to you today about why you need a strategic plan. Why you need a strategic plan. Now a strategic plan has been called so many types of things.

1:22 I think there is an individual development plan, or it could be in, I don't know what else it's been called, but I'm calling it a strategic plan. Okay, let's just pause and call it a strategic plan, and I'm going to explain what I mean. First of all, I'll tell you about when I first encountered the idea of a strategic plan. Now the time I encountered the idea of a strategic plan, I had been a faculty member for about seven years, and somehow honestly I had been successful. I made it. But most of the time what I would try to do is to create large blocks of time to get my research and writing done.

2:03 And if you are a busy clinician without real, you know, protective time for research, you know, sometimes protective time is protective time on paper, but it's not protective time in reality, especially when you have a busy clinic with no support. It's like, okay, when, you know, in about a week and a half, there'll be like a drop off, there'll be, I don't know, there'll be a thunderstorm or a snowstorm or something, half the patients will cancel, I'll get an eight-hour block, and then I'll be able to write this paper. So anyway, let's just say that I was getting stuff done, and somehow I was advancing. And yes, it was hard, and yes, there were, you know, very few of these big blocks that I needed to do the work, but when they came, you know, I could really use them and get a lot of things done.

2:50 And then I attended this program called the Faculty Success Program, also called the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity Boot Camp. There's another name to it that I don't remember, but Faculty Success Program is what it's really called, and it is a, you know, 12-week program, and they walk you through just different habits to grow as an academic. And I think for the most part, the program is geared towards PhD scientists and PhD researchers, but definitely it has some great tools for anybody, especially if you are in medicine and, you know, going, creating structures for your writing and research is not part of what you do.

3:38 So anyway, as part of the program, one of the things we did was to create a strategic plan, and it was such a novel concept to me, this idea that you look forward into the future for the next three months, and you say, this is what I need to do. These are the things I need to do to move my research and my writing forward. And the reason a strategic plan is so helpful, and I learned from the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, is that, you know, the strategic plan is the list of things that no one's going to come knocking down at your door to tell you to do. For example, you don't put on your strategic plan, patient care.

4:21 You don't say, clinic on Monday. No need to put it on the strategic plan, because guess what? If you don't show up to clinic on Monday, people will come and find you. And if they are not able to find you, you will hear about it. The backlash from a missed clinic where you just didn't show up will be so big, you know you're not going to miss clinic. But what happens if you don't submit your manuscript that's important for you to apply for the next grant? Maybe a mentor might be mad at you if they even know that the deadline has passed. Actually, they'll be upset with you if they're the senior author and that paper actually matters to them.

5:04 But if, you know, it's just one of 700 papers coming out of their lab, you know, it's kind of like, well, it's nice if it gets in, but if it doesn't, it's okay too. And so the strategic plan really is your home for all things that move your research and writing forward that don't have accountability. That's what the strategic plan is. At least that's how I'm talking about it in this episode. The strategic plan is your plan for your research and writing for the next three to four months. And these are especially the things that nobody, nobody's going to chase you around, at least not to the extent to which they will chase you if you don't do something like show up and do your shift.

5:50 You know that there's accountability for patient care, but not as much accountability for your faculty development and advancement. So I'm going to be talking about the strategic plan today. And I'm going to be talking about five things, five reasons why you should create a strategic plan, why it benefits you, why if you've never created one, you should create one. And I have five reasons today and I probably have more, but these are just the five that I'm going to focus on. The first thing that doing a strategic plan does for you is it gives you clarity.

6:33 The very first thing it does for you is it shows you exactly what you need to be working on. Now here's the thing, before you put it on your strategic plan, it was in your head. You know, it was in your mind. You've had some conversations probably with a mentor or two talking to you about the things you need to do and why it's important. And you know you need to submit a couple of manuscripts and then apply for the K or a couple of manuscripts and then go for the R. You know, you know that you need to start this new IRB for this research project. You know all these things. And yes, you have in mind that you're going to do them. Somehow you just haven't committed that goal to paper.

7:15 You haven't said very specifically that by the end of March 2024, I will have finished the protocol for this IRB that we're submitting. You haven't committed it to paper. You haven't made it a smart goal, right? People talk about specific, measurable. What is it? A? I don't remember what A is right now. Time bound is T. Realistic is R. And I don't remember A. But anyway, a smart goal. I'll put it in the show notes if I remember. But you know, people talk about making goals and you have these ideas in your head, but you've never really committed them to paper to make them concrete.

7:56 You've never set time bounds around it because it's like, oh yeah, maybe in the next year or two I'll be done with this. But you haven't said, no, no, no. By March of 2024, I will have completed this project. I will have the tangible protocol in hand ready to submit to the IRB. You've not made that commitment. But the moment you do, then you give yourself clarity on the things you're supposed to be working on in the next three months. And this clarity is such a beautiful gift. It's so powerful. It's so powerful because the moment you're clear about your goals, then you're clear about how to achieve them. Or even if you don't know how to achieve them, you're clear about what information you need to be able to successfully achieve them.

8:40 And so, okay, you need to maybe submit your first manuscript or write and submit your first manuscript, or maybe it's your first proposal. And even if you've never written a proposal before, you now know that this is the information you need to be able to successfully write and submit the proposal. But until you decided it was a goal that you were going to try to accomplish in the next three months, then you didn't have to put your foot in the ground and go find the information necessary to move forward. And so, developing a strategic plan is so vital because it gives you clarity. And I think it's been said that the real win is not the plans that you make.

9:21 Plans are worthless. But the actual act of planning is so powerful because you first of all have to figure out what is the most important thing, the thing for which I have no accountability, the thing for which no one's going to come knocking down my door if I don't do it. But it's the thing that actually advances my career. And when we think about that matrix of urgent and not important versus not urgent, definitely important, there's a specific name for the matrix. I really need to look these things up before I come talk to you guys. But that matrix of the things that are most important are the things that are not urgent but extremely important to your advancement.

10:09 And a strategic plan allows you to define what those things are and put them on a plan. It gives you clarity. And that is such a beautiful gift. Okay. So, it gives you clarity. The next thing it does is it gives you focus. So, the moment you have decided on a set of goals that you're going to accomplish over the next three to four months, now you know what to focus on. You know. There's no, oh, I'm not sure when I'm supposed to, you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said that by March 2024, I will do this. Therefore, I know what I'm going to do. You can focus on the thing that you've determined. One of the things I love about the strategic plan is that you make it for yourself.

10:54 I make my strategic plan for me. And I'm so glad it's for me because if somebody else saw my strategic plan, they would be like, what? It is uniquely targeted and tailored to me. Only I understand my strategic plan. The person who taught me how to do the strategic plan would probably be shocked at the kind of strategic plan I create these days. But it's uniquely yours. Nobody can create a strategic plan for you. Actually, I take that back. Anybody can create a strategic plan for you, but it's not powerful or effective until you create your own. And the reason you've got to be the one to create it is because it's for you.

11:37 You commit and then you go execute. And so the goals you set for yourself because you decided that they're important are the goals that you have power, energy, strength to execute on. The goals you set for yourself because you're afraid that someone's going to be mad at you, be disappointed in you, honestly, are not as sticky. And if for whatever reason that person maybe is out of town for a two to three week window, you'll feel relief that, oh, okay, I might not need to do this. Or you'll feel dread and anxiety over your goal.

12:18 And not many good things come out of that space of anxiety and dread over a goal. And so it really does need to be yours. It really does need to be your plans. And if you're not sure what to put on your strategic plan, yeah, talk it over with a mentor and definitely flesh out what kinds of things should you be working on over the next three to four months. But in the general scheme of things, it's the manuscripts, it's the grants, it's the research, it's all the stuff that's so important but that you may not actually have anybody pounding down on your door to do. And writing them all in a strategic plan gives you focus on what to do.

13:03 You know exactly what you need to focus on these next three weeks. You know you're going to be on consults. You know you're going to be rounding the hospital. And you know that when you come down from that week, you know what to focus on. You know when there is a little bit of space in your schedule, you're like, oh, I'm not free. I know what I need to focus on. And it's really helpful in that way. The third thing a strategic plan does for you is it helps you be realistic. It really helps you be realistic. You know how it is for many of us in medicine, how we love to please people. We're so good at it. I think it's just a big part of our training.

13:44 Just some things we have to unlearn. And people pleasing is one of them. But you know someone says, hey, hey, I have an emergency and I'm going to need to cancel my clinic on Thursday morning, but it's too late. Can you just take the whole clinic? And you're like, of course I can help you. Because of course you have time. But when you create a strategic plan, you know. You know what you're supposed to be working on. And you know you do not have an extra five hours in the day for an impromptu clinic. You know that it doesn't fit in your strategic plan because you made the strategic plan. And so one of the benefits of a strategic plan is it helps you become realistic about what you can and cannot commit to.

14:32 Someone says, oh my gosh, I have this amazing new manuscript project. And you would be perfect to be the middle author. You're like, my gosh, this is such an important project. When does it do? Oh, three weeks from now. You're like, wow, three weeks from now. I was hoping you would say four months from now. In three weeks I have this project, this project, and this project that I need to wrap up. And you're realistic about the things that you actually need to do. And so you're not just saying yes and giving away your time without realizing how much else is waiting for you.

15:12 You have a clear understanding of your commitments over the next few months because you created the strategic plan. You put time zones, you put time bounds around what you said you were going to be doing. There is no question what you're supposed to be working on. And yes, great projects will come along and want to derail you. But because you set the goals yourself, then you're able to be realistic about what you can and cannot commit to. That's number three. It helps you be realistic. Number four is that it gives you direction. I love this one.

15:53 I love the direction that a strategic plan gives you. It says, hey, I'm on my way to Germany. Okay. There are many ways to get to Germany. But there are many ways. There are more ways to leave to not go to Germany than there are ways to get to Germany. You can go by land. Actually, well, you can mix it up. You can fly. You can take a ship and then go some by land. It depends on where in Germany you're going. There are different ways to get there. You can mix and match different strategies. You can go to one other country, fly to one country, and then take the rail to get there.

16:34 There are different strategies. But there are more ways to not go to Germany than there are ways to get to Germany. And so what a strategic plan does for you is it gives you direction so that every time somebody comes and tries to take you away from the direction in which you have said you're going over the next three to four months, you get to say, hey, hey, hey, this is taking me in a different direction than I committed to. And now here's the thing about the strategic plan. It's not like it's set in stone and written down forever and ever and you can never change it. It's not that. But it is that you are very clear on where you're going. And if anything is going to come and take you and move you in a different direction, it's an opportunity for you to stop and say, hmm, this new direction, does it serve me?

17:26 Does it serve my career? Does it serve my interests? And it's an important question you get to ask only because you've already set the direction. It's like you already set the GPS. You're on your way to Canada. Or let's be more specific. You're on your way to Montreal. And then all of a sudden, someone comes and says, hey, I see that you have set your GPS to go to Montreal, but I really love you to go to Texas. And if you're going to go to Texas, you've got to readjust the GPS. You've got to say, okay, well, why don't I take Montreal out and put in, you know, Houston, Texas, because that's the new direction. But if you're going to go to that, then you ask yourself, is this new direction the direction I now want to go in?

18:12 Knowing that, hmm, Houston, Texas is all the way on the other side, far, far, far from the direction you were going in towards Montreal. And you need to dress differently too, depending on what time of year you're going. And is this really what you want? Do you want at the end of your journey to Houston, Texas to be so far from Montreal? Is this what you want to do? And so it helps you be very, very clear about your direction. And it helps you decide on whether or not you want to change your direction. But the beauty of it is that you're making the decision intentionally, not by accident.

18:52 Because what's happening to many of us without a strategic plan is that by many of us, I mean me, right? For some years of my faculty career, I had no strategic plan. What happens to people like us when I had no strategic plan is that I would wake up and find myself in Houston, Texas and be like, oh, what a lovely place to be. It's so worth here. And then remember that, wait a minute, aren't I supposed to be in Montreal? How did I end up here? And so the lack of direction just can be very confusing for you. And it allows you to make decisions that take you far away from your intended destination because you didn't set an intended destination. And so it really helps you get direction.

19:38 The other thing it does for you is it helps you assess yourself. It helps you with self-assessment. You know, it's one thing for you to have that meeting with your chief or your chair at the end of the year and say, wow, you didn't accomplish these important metrics of being a faculty member. It's one thing to have that conversation with somebody once a year, but to have with yourself three months later and say, huh, you said XYZ was going to be accomplished by the end of three months and wow, not even a quarter of X is accomplished. What happened? You know exactly where you didn't accomplish the things you said you were going to accomplish.

20:22 You don't even need anybody beating up on you or yelling at you or asking you, hey, why didn't you do this? You are able to assess yourself. In fact, you don't even have to wait till three months are over. In the middle of the first month, you know how far you've gotten. You know by the second month, you know by the third month, you're able to assess yourself. And so then you're able to decide, well, did I try to do too much? Did I cut back the next time? Because it is actually hard for us to be realistic about what we can and cannot accomplish in the three to four month period. It takes many iterations of creating a strategic plan to be clear about what can and cannot be accomplished in that period of time.

21:03 But it allows you to do the self-assessment. So you don't have to externalize it. You don't have to have somebody else come tell you what you're supposed to be doing. You don't have to have somebody else come tell you what you're supposed to do because you got guidance in creating the strategic plan and you're able to tell at the end whether you met the goals that you set for yourself or not. And so those are five reasons, five things, five good points. So five reasons why a strategic plan will help you, five benefits of a strategic plan. Number two is focus, number three is being realistic, number four is giving you direction, and number five it helps you do your own self-assessment.

21:50 These tools are important because if you think about the theme of this week, you really are big on you taking ownership of your own career, you leading your own experience because you know what, you can't lead anybody else, not in your own career. You can't force anyone to do anything for you. You can't make anybody care for your career as much as you care for your career. And so I hope that these tools have been helpful for you to think about how to move your career forward. And if you are looking to work with a coach to help you move forward, identify your goals and to create structure and strategy to succeed in moving those goals forward, I would love to talk to you.

22:34 I'd love you to reach out to me on Facebook. Send me a DM. So you'll see in webinar or you can even send me a message on LinkedIn and I'm also an Instagram, but you probably will get higher engagement if you send me a message through LinkedIn or Facebook, but I will definitely be looking out for that. And I just want to encourage you that you know what, you've been betting on yourself since you started your medical journey and I believe that you don't have to stop betting on yourself today because you know what, you are pretty amazing. You've come this far because you have done the work you put in the hard work to make it possible and you've done it before you will do it again.

23:18 I'm so confident of you doing that. All right. I encourage you to enjoy your week. Practice one of these things. Tell me if creating the strategic plan, if you're able to, if you need some pointers in creating a strategic plan, I'd love to help you. Send me a DM and I'll give you some more information. All right. It has been a pleasure talking with you today. I look forward to talking with you again the next time. 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.

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