Where do narratives of ‘failure’ come from?

By Dr Kay Guccione, Head of Research Culture and Researcher Development.

In my professional circles we are still talking about the concept of making sure that researchers ‘don’t see non-academic careers as failure’. We’ve been saying this for at least the 14 years I’ve been in the profession and even longer than that, say my colleagues who were there years before me. We might ask, why would people think leaving academia is a sign of failure? How has this idea of equating ‘leaving the academy’ with ‘being a failure’ persisted, when so much else has changed including access to careers support for researchers; policy and practice changes in universities to enable time and permission for career development activities; declining pay and conditions for academic roles; funder expectations that researchers be developed for a range of career pathways; greater awareness of career options and opportunities available; and a generally more engaged and empowered researcher workforce.

My observation is that equating ‘leaving the academy’ with ‘being a failure’ is not happening in a basic transactional way. How the conversation doesn’t (often*) go:

• Researcher: I am leaving academia
• Principal Investigator: OK. You are a failure. Bye.

Or:

• Researcher: What are my options for future careers?
• Supervisor: Only academia, everything else is garbage. Sorry.

The examples above are comedic because this is kind of blunt and unskilled conversation is (increasingly) unlikely to happen. So, how are we, through our daily conversations, unintentionally setting up the mental reflex that leaving academia involves failing, or being ‘lesser’? There are four, separate, contributory ideas that I’d like to pick up for closer examination in this post:

(1) People who love their job and think it’s the best job anyone could possibly have.

(2) Leaving academia might really involve an element of failure.

(3) The words we select and the power behind them.

(4) Making someone else’s career success about ourselves.

The first point is an obvious one. Some people greatly enjoy their own career and would happily do it forever. They simply want others to enjoy what they have enjoyed. I see myself reflected in this; I think my job is the best. It’s not stretching the imagination though, to realise that being overzealous about my job, could lead others to the idea that I place less value on their choice of career. Over time we can forget the realities of the struggles we went through to get to this point of enjoyment or be out of touch with the challenges colleagues are facing. Let’s remember too that just because we are lucky enough to have the stability benefits of a permanent contract in a fantastic job, that’s not a good reason to keep someone locked into a pattern of hopeful precarity on the promise of it becoming ‘the best job’ at some unspecified future point. The stability is surely one of the components of the job that makes it enjoyable.

On the second point. Many researchers complete their doctorate or research contract with a firm intention to move on from university life. Others (and this is getting more common) will begin their doctorate or postdoc with the clear aim to collect their qualifications and/or experience and move on to a different career track. Yet, for many, there is actually an element of failure surrounding them leaving academia. They perhaps go through many job or funding applications and interviews, and for reasons not due to their intellect or quality, don’t secure an academic job. For some, leaving academia really does represent that they weren’t able to stay in their first choice of career path. It doesn’t mean that they are a failure by any means. But theirs is a reality of having strived for something and not succeeded. In rejecting the idea that ‘leaving is failing’ we should be careful not to erase their process of grieving and moving through the emotional side of changing career paths. Grief for a lost career and the investment made in it can be experienced in different ways too. It can involve, for example, finding out that the job to which you aspired for years, isn’t actually what you though it was, when you get to see the realities of the role.  

Thirdly, how we talk about others’ career choice, the words we select and the power behind them, can inadvertently cause our colleagues to feel defensiveness, shame, or hostility towards us. Imagine someone in our team lets us know they are going to be moving on soon, how can we avoid the classic pitfalls that set up the idea of failure?

• Ask ‘what’ not ‘why’. It’s better to say “what drew you to that role?” Rather than “why did you take that role?” ‘Why’ questions can be experienced as a value judgement, and that puts people on the defensive. However you mean it to sound, it can feel like you’re saying their choice needs to be explained.

• Avoid giving ‘but’ responses. If we say ‘but you’d have made an excellent academic’ it’s sounds like a rebuttal of their choices, not words of encouragement. It’s not our place to disagree with their choice. A ‘but’ statement sets us up in opposition, not as an ally.

• Avoid making assumptions about salary, values, flexibility, or fit.

• Don’t imply they won’t be able to ‘come back’. It reveals our own anxieties about change. If we say ‘there’s no easy way back to academia’ or ‘are you sure you want to close that door forever?’ – they’ll hear, ‘I expect you won’t like it’ or ‘I expect you won’t succeed’ or ‘I expect it to be an awful experience.’ Another value judgement is established, even if we intend our comments to be supportive.

• Take care not to suggest they have chosen their next role in ignorance or naivety. Replies that suggest they were ‘scared off’, or will be ‘wasted’ ‘bored’ or ‘unhappy’ or ‘starting from scratch’ in a new role never turn out to be the compliments we think they might be.

• Avoid saying they are going to ‘the dark side’, and instead seek to understand the benefits they are excited by.

Instead deploy a simple. “Congratulations, you’ll be excellent in that role. Lucky them. We will really miss you.”

My fourth point is that even though it’s hard to separate someone else’s success from our own feelings of loss as their manager, making someone else’s success about ourselves is a real downer to someone who just wants to celebrate. It’s true that recruiting their replacement, finishing a project to the satisfaction of the funders, or making a long-term investment in developing a new potential colleague and collaborator, presents to us administrative workload as well as an emotional workload. Managers, supervisors and PIs are human, and this means we can also feel blindsided, insecure, overwhelmed, embarrassed, disappointed and sad as well as being (as often assumed) judgemental and superior. Doing this managerial and emotional work is part of the privileged position of leadership, and my view is that as leaders, we should deal with ‘our stuff’ separately. That sometimes involves admitting to ourselves (and our therapists, if no one else) that we are upset by our staff leaving for entirely personal reasons, for example:

• Because we are jealous. In truth we hate what our job has become but have normalised the struggle and feel that if we have to put in the work then so should our staff.
• We feel that they are breaking the personal bonds of friendship and collegiality, we feel abandoned and a sense of personal loss.
• We are worried that it’s something we’ve done wrong and feel defensive about it.
• We feel that what we invested in their development is owed back to us, as loyalty.
• We wanted them to do some work that contributes more to our professional goals than theirs: papers, projects, data for grants etc.
• Others will judge us as their manager, and we need something to say at the water cooler that doesn’t bruise our ego. Easier to say “They just weren’t up for the hard work” than say “They got a better offer” or “This has made me reflect on whether my job is actually worth the effort I have to put into it”.
• Fear that we won’t know how to advise them anymore and which takes us out of our comfort zone, being an equal instead of a superior.

I hope you find use in this analysis of what could inadvertently cause concern about being seen as failure, even when the word ‘failure’ hasn’t been used. Team leadership is a hard job, and a lot of responsibility. Hopefully this has provided points for reflection and equipped you to spot those cryptic negative messages when you see them, as a manager and as a colleague.

*Yes, I know, there are some people who would still say those things out loud. Cringe.