7 Habits of Highly Effective Institutional Researchers (and other pearls of wisdom)

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7 Habits of Highly Effective Institutional
Researchers(and other pearls of wisdom)

• Originally Stephen Covey,
• translated into IRish by Daina Henry
• AIR May-June 2004

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Carlsons pearls of wisdom

• Rule 1 Dont sweat the small stuff !

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Carlsons pearls of wisdom

• Rule 1 Dont sweat the small stuff !
• Rule 2 It is all small stuff.

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Like Rick said in Casablanca Our little problems
dont amount to a hill of beans.
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Find and Maintain Perspective

• One mans mountain is another mans molehill.

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Find and Maintain Perspective

• One mans mountain is another mans molehill.
• In SAS language one programmers bug, is
  another programmers undocumented feature.

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Find and Maintain Perspective

• It took over a million years to create the Grand
  Canyon. And it all started with one little
  raindrop following a path of least resistance.

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Habit 1 Be Proactive

• Take control over those things which you can
  control yourself, your goals, your projects.
• You can not control another persons behavior.
  You can control your reactions to another
  persons behavior.
• Mother Nature provides worms to feed the birds,
  but Mother Nature does not throw them in the
  nest.
• We cannot change the direction of the wind, but
  we can adjust our sails.

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Habit 1 Be Proactive

• Plan.
• Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
• The best laid plans of mice and men

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Habit 2 Begin with the End in Mind

• Set goals. You cant get where you want to go, if
  you dont know where you are going.
• Make some goals very reachable (just let me get
  through this day without hurting some one)
• Make some goals require work and effort. These
  are the ones that will be remembered and
  rewarded.

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Habit 2 Begin with the End in Mind

• Institutions have mission statements, offices
  have mission statements. What is your mission
  statement?
• Mission statements and goals can apply to a short
  term project, a career, or your lifetime.

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Habit 3 Put First Things First

• Things which matter most must never be at the
  mercy of things which matter least. Goethe
• Put the big things in the basket first.
• Set priorities.

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Habit 3 Put First Things First

• Learn to say no, politely.

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Dont confuse important things with urgent things.

• NOW NOW NOW lt important

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Habit 3 Put First Things First

• The journey of a thousand miles, begins with the
  first step. And it begins with the first step.
• Bird by Bird.

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Habit 4 Think Win/Win

• Cooperation vs competition.
• It is a frame of mind and heart.

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Habit 4 Think Win/Win

• Win/Win or no deal agree to disagree.
• 3 characteristics of Win/Win integrity,
  maturity, abundance mentality.

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Habit 4 Think Win/Win

• Making lemonade out of lemons.
• A glass as half-full or half-empty. In IR-speak
  .5 FTEG (full-time equivalent glass).

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Habit 5 Seek first to understand, then to be
understood

• Shifting your paradigm.
• Empathy and compassion.
• Understand the real question, before you answer
  it.

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Speak friend and enter

• I dont know half of you half as well as I
  should like and I like less than half of you
  half as well as you deserve.

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Habit 5 Seek first to understand, then to be
understood

• To others we are not ourselves, but a performer
  in their lives, cast for a part we do not even
  know that we are playing.

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Habit 6 Synergize

• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
• Creative cooperation.
• Value differences.

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Habit 6 Synergize

• If everyone thought like you did, there would be
  no conflict and our IR jobs would be really easy.
  There would also be no plumbers, artists,
  astronauts, etc.
• The best music has harmony. And you dont get
  harmony, when everyone is singing the same note.

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Habit 6 continued

• Dont lose the forest, looking at the trees. And
  dont lose the trees, looking at the forest.
• Interconnectedness. We are just a small part of
  the whole thing.
• To see the universe in a grain of sand.
  (Sandberg)
• To see in the universe, all the grains of sand.

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Habit 7 Sharpen the Saw

• A habit of renewal physical, mental,
  social/emotional and spiritual.
• Importance of professional development.
• What did you learn in school today?

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Habit 7 Sharpen the Saw

• Self-reflection gives you the ability to know
  when to sharpen your saw.
• You need to know when and how to sharpen your
  saw. And sometimes you need help from the most
  unlikely of helpers

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Other pearls

• For 6 days, God toiled to create the earth and
  the sky. On the 7th day, he sat back, reflected,
  sharpened his saw, and said this is good. Not
  perfect, good. Even God knew when good was good
  enough.

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Summary

• Difficult times have helped me to understand
  better than before how infinitely rich and
  beautiful life is in every way and that so many
  things that one goes worrying about are of no
  importance whatsoever. (Isak Denison)

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When over worked, smile or laugh, because it is
all small stuff.
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Using the Habits

• How we live our days is ultimately how we live
  our lives.

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7 Habits of Highly Effective Institutional
Researchers (and other pearls of wisdom)

• Dr. Daina Paupe Henry,
• Associate Director Institutional Research
• The College of William and Mary
• In Virginia
• dphenr_at_wm.edu