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Episode 20

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Published on:

27th Mar 2024

Jean Paul (Part 2) on leading virtual transdisciplinary teams and stakeholder engagement

Jean Paul is a senior scientist at the Medical University of Innsbruck. In part 2 of our conversation, Jean discusses her experience leading an impact-led transcdisciplinary research project focused on supporting families with mental health issues. She highlights the challenges of stakeholder engagement, distributed team management, and transdisciplinary research. Jean emphasizes the importance of community engagement, virtual team collaboration, and fostering diversity in academia. She also reflects on the skills she brings to this role and the importance of investing in the team set up from the very beginning.

Overview

[00:29] Introducing Part 2

[02:23] Recap from Part 1

[07:27] Working with stakeholders

[13:35] Leading a distributed international interdisciplinay project team

[14:59] Learning leadership from diverse experiences

[18:25] The transferrable skills – listening and learning

[20:04] Supporting diverse career paths

[25:16] Insights for parents in academia

[29:22] Leadership, organisational design and virtual team management

[34:33] Making virtual collaboration work

[39:08] Future directions and reflections

[41:57] End

Related links:

Ludwig Boltzmann Institute/Gesellschaft

The sandpit-funded project – The Village Project

The Healthy Minds project

Dr Ghislaine Caulat – consultant on virtual leadership development 

Simon Martin – consultant for their organisational design in a transdisciplinary project with stakeholder involvement 

Project Design principles:

The design principles that came out of the oganisational design workshops:

  • Effectively coordinate and involve a wide (but manageable!) network of stakeholders
  • Be clear on expectations, results and deliverables within the team
  • Keep momentum, trust and energy going across the project timeline for the core team and wider stakeholders
  • Make sure that the perspectives of people with lived experience are heard clearly throughout the project (capturing the voices of people impacted by perinatal mental illness and those who are treating and working with the affected person and their families)
  • Enact high ethical standards in our research (especially when listening to personal stories of mental illness and challenges)
  • Demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary research partnerships with stakeholders, and challenge the landscape of traditional research and methods
  • Effectively lobby and influence (local and national policy makers), and raise awareness in society / politics through making our topics and results visible.


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Transcript
Geri:

Welcome to Changing Academic Life.

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:

I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick and this is

a podcast series where academics and

3

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others share their stories, provide

ideas and provoke discussions about what

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we can do individually and collectively

to change academic life for the better.

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Have you ever faced the

challenges of trying to co-design

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a project with stakeholders?

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And have a focus on both doing good

science and having an impact on

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actual practice at the same time.

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Have you ever wondered what it

takes to lead a research project?

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And more, challengingly a

distributed project team undertaking

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trans disciplinary research.

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And supporting diverse career paths.

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And do you wonder if you have the

skills and knowledge to practically

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make a distributed transdisciplinary

project team work well?

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If you said yes to any of these

questions or curious about them, I

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think you'll find lots of value in this

ongoing conversation with Jean Paul.

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Jean is a senior scientist at the medical

university of Innsbruck in Austria.

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In part two of our conversation

here, she continues to reflect

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on their very deliberate design

of both stakeholder engagement.

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And bringing the same values into

their organizational structure.

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Which is reflected in how they built

their team, built their relationships,

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manage meetings and lots more.

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Also loved in this conversation, how

Jean reflected on, how she developed

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the mindset and skills to bring to

this leadership role, even though

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she's a relatively young researcher.

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If you recently listened to part one,

You might just want to skip ahead now

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to about seven minutes into the episode.

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If you need a little bit of a recap,

both to who Jean is her background

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and to the project context.

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I'll let Jean introduce herself

again, just as a recap of

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where we got to in part one.

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Jean, do you want

to introduce yourself?

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Jean: A fellow Australian, and

I moved to Austria in:

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Up until then, I was working as

a researcher at the Children's

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Hospital in Melbourne at the Murdoch

Children's Research Institute.

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And I would describe myself as

a social scientist have quite

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a mixed academic background.

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I studied arts and science

in combination at university.

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So I've always been interested in science

and how things work, but maybe also in

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combination with how people experience

health and illness and medical systems

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and so my PhD in Australia was looking

at communication between doctors who

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specialize in genetics and their patients.

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I then did a couple of postdocs in

Melbourne as a qualitative researcher,

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always working in these topics to really

understand those complex questions

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of, you know, social representation

or understanding decision making,

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understanding behavior change

understanding relationships between

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professionals or between families, across

professionals, across organizations.

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Geri: Jean then went on to talk about

applying for participation in a sandpit

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that was being held in Vienna, Austria.

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Um, and organized by the

Ludwig Boltzmann Institute.

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And so she describes the process and

also talks about the project that ended

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up being funded . And I replay this

here because it's important context

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for what we talk about in part two.

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Jean: there was a kind of core group of

us that, had this idea that children whose

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parents have a mental illness are really

missing a social network, in modern times.

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and you know, the informal support

and the low threshold neighbor

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that comes over to help out, is

something that could really make a

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difference to in these circumstances.

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And so we had this concept of the

village, which ended up getting funded.

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Geri: jean then went on to talk about

the way in which the project got set

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up, uh, based in Innsbrook in Austria

and discussing the transdisciplinary

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team they had, that was distributed

and some of the process of how they

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started recruiting participants.

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And again, just a quick recap for context.

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Jean: We gave a lot of control

to the hospitals to make decisions

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about how children could be

identified and how families might

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be recruited into the project.

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And the head of the psychiatry

department here wanted it to be the

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job of the doctors of the psychiatrists

to recruit families rather than

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the social workers or the nurses.

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Because he felt that it was the job

of psychiatrists to ask patients

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about their family and about their

general well being, not just about

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their symptoms, but understanding

their social network, understanding

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their world, so as a psychiatrist,

you can treat the patient better.

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Psychiatrists have a very short

amount of time to work with families.

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So that didn't always mean that the

conversation was very in depth and

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they may not have really understood

what the project was about.

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And if we had nurses or social workers,

they had much more time to reach more

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families, to have a higher recruitment.

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But through doing that, we were able

to have these questions about parenting

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and general well being of Children

or caring responsibilities introduced

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into the electronic medical system

of the hospital here in Innsbruck.

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And this is something that our

colleagues in Melbourne have been

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trying to get changed for over 20 years.

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Being in a small city and really

helping the community feel a sense of

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ownership of our research I think helped

make a change that hopefully is going

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to be very valuable for doctors in

thinking about who their patients are.

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When we started the doctors, some of the

psychiatrists told us that the project

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wouldn't work because their patients

didn't have children and we know that's

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Internationally, that's not true, but so

why would it be different in Innsbruck?

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And then we had some change over

time where some of the psychiatrists

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said, actually, I think this project

would be really valuable because if

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we start understanding about caring

responsibilities, maybe we can reduce

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the length of stay, inpatient stay for

these adults and help in their recovery.

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Can we also include some assessments

of recovery in the evaluation.

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Geri: So the whole approach of

being driven primarily by impact

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and it's still, it's research.

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But not just for the sake of high quality

journal publications and the careful

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thinking about who you involve and how you

involve them sounded really key to that.

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And this is where we pick up for part two.

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Where Jane continues to talk about how

they've worked with their stakeholders.

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And this leads onto a discussion

around leadership and project design,

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organizational design, and so on.

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What were some of the challenges

in working with stakeholders

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in this way in a project?

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Yeah.

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Because I think you talked before about

it's sort of about not having as much

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control in defining what goes forward.

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Jean: I think we had to start off in

a, from a very humble position, which

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especially for me not speaking German and

I was coming in to fix things in Innsbrook

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that wasn't gonna be accepted, if that's

the way I was gonna view, view the job.

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So we really had to start off by being

curious and inquisitive and listening to

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people and identifying their needs, their

concerns, their suggestions for solutions.

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And so we did that through

some network events, but also

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through qualitative interviews.

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And then we ran a series of workshops over

six months with a group of stakeholders.

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And I think what was really powerful

was in those workshops we used case

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vignettes from those interviews to

present certain situations where children

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might have been put in the pediatric

department of the hospital overnight

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because the parent was admitted and the

child didn't have anywhere else to go.

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And we then used those vignettes for the

participants to identify best practice,

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worst practice and prioritize as a group.

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What could we change together

within the scope of this project?

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What's the priority?

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Where should we target?

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Who should be doing what?

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I think some of the challenges

were that we were doing a research

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project that needed to be evaluated

and it needed to still be research.

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So some of the practitioners

might have a solution.

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And then feel that, why do you need

a research project, you just need you

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know, this group to have more money,

or we need one more team member here,

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and then that solves the problem why do

you need money to write papers and to

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do research on this and I think, yeah,

some of the challenges were the pace of

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research compared to Sometimes in Austria,

someone has an idea and they can get

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money from the local government to run

some kind of small service very quickly

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if it's, you know, if they're lucky.

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But I think that's also part of a bigger

challenge that that I've experienced in

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Austria compared to Australia, that a

lot of services are not evidence based.

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So there's a lack of health services

research and our colleague in Vienna,

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Ingrid Zeckmeister Koss is the Deputy

Director of the Austrian Health

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Technology Assessment Organization.

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And you know, the decision making behind

which treatments are valuable, and

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especially in mental health and social

services is very difficult to follow.

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And Austria is quite fragmented in its

service provision, and it, within Tirol,

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It's very fragmented because you have

the mountains and, you know, from coming

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from Australia distances are very short,

but I've grown to learn that they're

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actually a lot further away sometimes

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Geri: Because those valleys

make a big difference.

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Yeah.

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Jean: exactly and telehealth

isn't something that people

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really use or accept.

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So the services are very localized and

fragmented and can be quite short term.

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You know, something was.

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It was offered for some time, but then

it was only for one term and someone

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else, and it was lost to the system.

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So I think there were frustrations

sometimes from our stakeholders that we

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know the solution, you just have to fund

it, or you just have to do this, and

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why do we need to take so long in, in

doing all this process to have research.

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At the same time, there were also

stakeholders who had experience

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in research who maybe didn't like

how experimental it was and non

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traditional and the vagueness

sometimes in what we were doing.

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And that was sometimes also a

challenge for when we were running

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the intervention because we designed

a new role as someone who we call a

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village facilitator, who sort of helps

the parents create this network or

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strengthen this network with the child.

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And these village facilitators

had different backgrounds in

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psychology or pedagogy, social work.

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And this was a new role.

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And, you know, Austria isn't particularly

known for things happening so quickly

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and such innovations in systems.

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And that was very difficult for

professionals as well in, what

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are the expectations of my role?

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What do I do if this happens?

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And so they had.

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supervision, again, with this

relationship manager, Boltzmann,

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who had the psychology training.

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She would provide monthly supervision

with that group of practitioners

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to understand their role.

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And we also had monthly supervision

or monthly meetings with them for the

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organizational aspects, the questions

that they had that were coming up

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because we wanted to learn from them as

well, how that role worked in reality.

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And sometimes there were changes

to the role as it was going on,

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which caused challenges for the

evaluation of the project, which was

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led by a health economist in London.

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In terms of the complexity of the research

design it was quite high in designing

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something together with stakeholders,

implementing it and evaluating it

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within the space of four years.

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And then having COVID hit

in the middle of that time.

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So we had a six month extension.

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And just as we started to try and

find families to increase their

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social network, the lockdown started.

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And in, in Innsbruck, in Tyrol here,

this was, you know, the centre of some

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of the early spreads of the pandemic.

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So the hospital in Zams was one of our

study sites and they basically closed

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and were only dealing with COVID.

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And so mental health wasn't something

that they could respond to at all.

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So we had to wait, I think, six months

before we could even train the staff

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there to start recruiting families.

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Geri: So you've mentioned team

members in Vienna, in London, in

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Germany, and I see on the webpage

you've got some in Australia as

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well and all around the place.

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Can you reflect a little bit

on the experiences of being

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a PI and leading a project?

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Are you one of the few sitting

in Innsbruck and how do you

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deal with the distributed team?

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To keep every, especially in this

more open project and with the more

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transdisciplinary approach that you're

talking about, where people can't

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just get sent off into their little

silos to throw stuff over the wall.

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Jean: Yeah and we started also with

another researcher in Pakistan and another

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one in Norway who left during the project.

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So it was very international, very

interdisciplinary, and I was the

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only one then based in Innsbruck.

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We then employed a group here

team here who started six months

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after the project started.

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So for the first six months, I was

sitting here by myself in the biology

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building of the university talking in

my computer and having meetings online.

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People were very confused why I'd

moved to Austria to sit by myself.

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But I think, yeah, it's, it was a

big challenge leading such a team

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and my previous work in Melbourne,

I had been a postdoc, mostly

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working by myself, choosing my own

things, working for other people.

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The more I've been here, the more

I've realised how much I drew from

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outside in my private life and things

that I've done more generally to

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support my leadership position here.

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So I was I've always been involved in a

lot of sport and community development.

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And which the sports don't exist here.

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So I was heavily involved in netball,

which I've had to educate people on

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a little bit here and haven't had

a chance to start up a team yet.

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Probably exists in Vienna.

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But I was on the board of our

local sports club, the netball and

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football club as the only woman

and the only person under 60 or so.

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And was writing grants to to the local

council in Melbourne to get funding for

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uniforms or funding for to waive fees

for families who are more disadvantaged.

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I was very and am very passionate

about community sports or organized

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programs like that in, creating places

for people to, to have responsibility,

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to have routine, to learn about

themselves, to learn from each other.

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And yeah, I think that also working in

Australia, I did some some work as a

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youth worker in Central Australia in a

remote community where most of the town,

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the people there weren't speaking English

and They were very sceptical of people

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from outside coming in to help because in

Australia we have a very dark history of

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not being able to support our Indigenous

population and not really having the

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rest of the country, I think, not really

having good knowledge on the situation in

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remote places aboriginal Australia and a

very big difference in life expectancy,

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but when I was working in those towns

I took the approach that I was there

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to spend whatever time I had with them

to provide services to support them in

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their activities that they wanted to do.

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So having a background in in

sport and also I used to work at

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the local YMCA as a, in holiday

programs or after school care.

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So providing activities for families.

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So that meant organizing bingo

nights or taking families out to go

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hunting or going to a swimming hole.

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And fairly quickly, they accepted me

and gave me a blood group or a blood

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name, which is in Australian, Aboriginal

Australia, they have Groups of families

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that are connected not just through

blood, but also through social connections

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which means that you're, as well as

having your parents, you have a network

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of people around you who can take on

parenting responsibilities and that

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sometimes it's a good thing because, you

know, your auntie, who's not necessarily

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your auntie, blood auntie, also needs

to look after you if you don't have some

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food or if you need help with schooling.

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But it also brings a lot of expectations

and sometimes shame for the adults

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who might not be able to provide that

support when people ask, because at

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least in the communities I was working

in, I think it's a bit more universal.

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It's very shameful not to be able

to give someone what they ask for.

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And that's, I think, very different

to Western communities that if kids

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want an ice cream, you can say no.

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Yeah.

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So I think those experiences the more

I reflected on them, the more I saw

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how they provided me with insights into

working in a country that I don't speak

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the language and I don't know much

about, so I had to wait and be told.

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Geri: So how would you summarise those

in terms of the transferable skills

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?

Jean: I think the skills were really that could be transferred to here

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were recognizing the importance of

community and of listening and respect

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and acknowledging that people have

their own solutions and you know,

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coming from outside, not being ignorant

to think that, you know, better.

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because you're from Melbourne or

because you went to a university.

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But everyone has their own their own

knowledge and their own perspectives.

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And you can create something

together if you are able to listen.

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In that way.

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And I think that's what all of my

community work taught me as well that I

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wasn't there to fix it to fix anything.

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I was more there to listen and learn and

see what would be possible together to do.

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Geri: Yeah, lovely.

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I mean, you talked about those terms

in terms of being humble and listening

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and being curious when you talked about

the stakeholders and so you also played

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out those same ways with the team.

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Jean: Yeah, and I think

the team that became more

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complicated as we went through.

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The first phases of the project and

had got to know about each other a bit,

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but the pressure was sort of building

as the research was getting underway

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and people were realizing maybe how

much they had to give away of their own

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expectations or if things were moving

off track from what they would predict.

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And so that's where the

Boltzmann was helping again.

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And I had, some support from the career

center there, which I think is also

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really valuable and in Australia, I

think that's more common that you have a

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department within a university or within

a research organization that really

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focuses on supporting people's career.

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Something that I think is often the

case, though, is that supporting

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careers in academia usually means

supporting them out of academia.

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And not really thinking what

diversity there is inside

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academia for people to excel.

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And I think that is something that the

Ludwig Boltzmann have been trying to

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work on, but I think could go a lot

further and more generally at other

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universities in Austria that it's

not about being a professor or not.

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I think there's so many different roles

that people can take and people can have

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in research and value that they can bring.

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And I think that's one of the

challenges in Austria that

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there really is this ceiling.

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But if you're not doing a PhD and

if you're not then moving on to the

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next step, it's much better for you

to get out and do something else.

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Geri: Yeah.

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And we need to take much broader views

now when we're training so many more

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PhD students as we often talk about,

and the number of permanent positions,

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if you wanted to continue in that more

traditional path, are quite limited.

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And it is true about the diversity

of contributions that can be made.

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So is there anything else you'd

want to reflect on in terms of

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how you've helped facilitate

distributed team working together?

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Jean: Yes, I think also coming from

Australia, I've had a bit of a privileged

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position that our university systems are

much more flexible to diverse careers.

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So you don't have to decide at

the age of 13 what type of future

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you're going to have, what type of

profession you're going to have.

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And even at the age of 18 I think it's

changing a little bit in Australia with

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the more American style university system.

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But at least when I was training, I

could do two degrees at the same time

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and keep my feet in both camps, I guess.

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And I've been able to maintain that.

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And I guess, you know, calling myself

a social scientist is a little bit

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of a vague term anyway, which I

like staying in that vague area.

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And I think that's not as possible

for people inside Austria who've

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been trained in the Austrian system.

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Especially having a medical

university separated from

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other parts of the university.

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If you're wanting to do interdisciplinary

research in health it's very complicated.

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And people in humanities can be much

more theoretical and not as applied

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sometimes because they don't have

access to the groups that they would be

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generating theories about, and people

inside the medical university don't

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have the skill set to do that more

theoretical or social aspect of research.

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So in, in my team here, I think I've

provided opportunities for team members

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to have that career path, at least

until now, and we see how that works

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So in this the next project that was

funded, we have two PhD students who are

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enrolled in the psychology department

but have very different backgrounds.

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So one originally did her bachelor's

degree in economics and then a

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:

master's at the at the more technical

university here, more business oriented.

342

:

But was interested in behavior change

and decision making about tourism

343

:

and then was working in the village

project and now is working on a PhD

344

:

topic around peer support for mothers

who have a postnatal depression.

345

:

And I have another PhD project who's

also a PhD student, who's also a project

346

:

manager, and he studied sociology

and then organizational studies.

347

:

And now he's doing his PhD in psychology

but both of them are interested in

348

:

implementation science as a discipline

or using implementation science in

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:

health research but that doesn't have

a very strong home yet in Austria.

350

:

It's more in psychology, but in Australia

you can come at implementation science

351

:

from quite a lot of different disciplines.

352

:

Geri: Yeah.

353

:

Yeah.

354

:

Again, the parallels, because I grew

up here in Austria in the technical

355

:

university, and it's that similar sort

of disciplinary silo as a university.

356

:

And I think for all of us, The complexity

of the problems that we're dealing with,

357

:

if we want to have real world impact, we

necessarily don't have all the answers

358

:

ourselves within any discipline or even

within any person in a discipline because

359

:

we all bring different perspectives

even when we might wear the same label.

360

:

And I do see that over the time that

it has changed, I see that at our

361

:

university, they're much more open to

employing people in positions in the

362

:

faculty, in the informatics faculty that

don't have a strict Computer science

363

:

background, which, and when I first

started here would have been totally

364

:

unthinkable, well it was unthinkable,

it was, you just couldn't do it.

365

:

We've had many fights because

I, our research area is quite

366

:

similarly bringing together people

from different perspectives.

367

:

We probably should be wrapping up and

there's so many more things that I'd

368

:

love to talk about, you know, cause

I know this new project is to do with

369

:

supporting parents and children during

pregnancy and the perinatal period.

370

:

.

I know you've just started that project really.

371

:

Some of the people that I speak

to on the podcast talk about the

372

:

challenges of being an academic or

a professional and the challenges

373

:

of having babies or having family.

374

:

Are there any insights that are coming

out from your research so far that may

375

:

be relevant to people working in the

academic research space and how they

376

:

might handle that perinatal period.

377

:

Jean: I think at least in Austria,

there are quite a lot of services, but

378

:

not a lot of awareness of services and

supports, and I think something that

379

:

probably is quite helpful is having

discussions ahead of the birth on

380

:

expectations and expectation management.

381

:

We've just had a medical student who's

finished his thesis just now looking

382

:

at a historical analysis of perinatal

mental health services in Austria and

383

:

the changing role of families and women

and expectations about motherhood.

384

:

And I think something that was discussed

a lot in those interviews is the pressure

385

:

on women which exists even more in

smaller areas of Austria to be a good

386

:

mother, for everything to be perfect.

387

:

And, you know, as a midwife, you would

also know this, the information that

388

:

Parents are getting around the birth.

389

:

It's just expanding exponentially

in how to do things right.

390

:

And losing sight sometimes of what

the baby's telling you and what you're

391

:

telling, what you're What your gut

is telling you, what feels natural,

392

:

what feels normal, and I think things

can become overly complicated and

393

:

therefore, you know, overly stressful

from social pressures from the outside,

394

:

and especially if you're an academic,

then you're interested in, Picking

395

:

up all of that knowledge and all that

information and I think sometimes it's

396

:

also helpful to put that to the side and

just try and focus on the baby and the

397

:

family unit and What feels good for you?

398

:

Geri: Yeah.

399

:

That sounds great advice just to take

the pressure off because also we're

400

:

probably unnaturally oriented to

wanting to be perfect and good just

401

:

being in this career path anyway.

402

:

And this becomes yet another

performance metric in a way.

403

:

Yeah.

404

:

Jean: say one other thing in Austria

then would be the parental leave is for

405

:

mothers the expectation that mothers are

going home and taking the responsibility

406

:

for the baby in those first years and

that your job is protected depending

407

:

on your profession, but generally, yes.

408

:

And there are opportunities for

fathers to take parental leave as well.

409

:

But sometimes the fathers don't know.

410

:

Or the job, even though it

might be against the law doesn't

411

:

ensure that job will be there

if the father takes the leave.

412

:

Or there's social pressures that

you're seen as weak if you're a

413

:

stay at home dad in that time.

414

:

And so I think, yeah, especially in

academia, you're potentially missing

415

:

out on opportunities if you're away

from work for a year or for two years.

416

:

So there are and there should be

opportunities to explain absences for

417

:

parenting reasons, but also that there

are opportunities for fathers to take

418

:

on those responsibilities as well

and share that job with the mother.

419

:

But they're not as well known and they're

more difficult to to get put in practice.

420

:

Think in Austria, the expectation

is still the mothers take the leave.

421

:

And I don't think,

422

:

Geri: yeah.

423

:

Is there anything that we haven't

talked about that you'd like

424

:

to discuss before we wrap up?

425

:

Jean: yeah maybe just briefly in

terms of my leadership position.

426

:

So the, I had a special

intervention support from an

427

:

expert in virtual leadership.

428

:

From a woman called Ghislaine Caulat,

who's a social action researcher

429

:

in leadership and in organizations.

430

:

And the Ludwig Boltzmann put

me in touch with her to think

431

:

about how we could manage online

communication, online team management.

432

:

In addition to in person management,

because this is happening in parallel

433

:

with my team and we ran a series of,

she did some interviews first with the

434

:

team to talk about expectations, and

then we had some workshops together and

435

:

designed new ways of working virtually,

which really changed the atmosphere in

436

:

the team and something that I've carried

on Into this next project as well.

437

:

With the next project at the start,

we knew from the first project

438

:

that you really need to invest in

the team set up and expectations

439

:

and organization early on.

440

:

So we wanted to do that differently

because we didn't really get the chance

441

:

to think about that in the first project.

442

:

We sort of had to hit the ground running.

443

:

So we also had some support from

the Ludwig Boltzmann and used a

444

:

consultant from the UK to do some

organizational design work with us.

445

:

And the result of that was really

to change the activities of our

446

:

work in a completely different way.

447

:

Rather than having work packages

structured around time or discipline,

448

:

we ended up organizing our work

around, more around the objectives

449

:

that we wanted to have in our work.

450

:

So we have a unit on stakeholder

engagement, a unit on participatory

451

:

research awareness and social impact and

policy, and each of our investigators are

452

:

responsible for one of those units with

me overall with overall responsibility.

453

:

And this was really to try and reinforce

the value that we wanted our work to have.

454

:

And making sure that those important

aspects were front and center and

455

:

not a tack on element at the side.

456

:

Geri: yeah.

457

:

And just that in framing it in terms

of what the work objectives are does

458

:

that also increase the need for people

to talk together across the different

459

:

locations, disciplines to come together,

to contribute to that objective?

460

:

Jean: I think one of the challenges

then in this new organization is

461

:

that traditional research then is

only conducted in one of the units.

462

:

participatory research and the other

units may be seen as non research units.

463

:

But that's something we reflected on

together that you know, the research

464

:

project is this whole global set of

activities and everything is coming

465

:

together to reach the research

questions and the research objectives.

466

:

Also that the investigators

have different expertise.

467

:

So in this new project, we have one

health economist one psychologist,

468

:

two psychiatrists, and myself.

469

:

So none of them are you know,

public health communication experts

470

:

or working in policy every day.

471

:

So we didn't leading those units

didn't mean that they have to

472

:

be the expert in that topic.

473

:

You know, we're still working

collaboratively to really think

474

:

about what the, how to bring

those units to their objectives.

475

:

Geri: love that, that you've used this

participatory stakeholder engagement

476

:

to design your organizational structure

and ways, how you work together.

477

:

Did you also do any work in terms

of defining shared values and things

478

:

like that as part of that initial team

building work with the new project?

479

:

Jean: Yes.

480

:

Yeah, so the project itself was funded

over two stages through the FWF and it

481

:

was using this Connecting Minds program

of funding where you had to firstly obtain

482

:

funding for a workshop with stakeholders

and then demonstrate how the workshop

483

:

results fed into the final proposal.

484

:

So already from there we started to define

research priorities with our stakeholders.

485

:

But once we had the funding and the

project was starting with the team.

486

:

We also thought about values that

would underpin the working model

487

:

of the organizational design.

488

:

And we did interviews with stakeholders

again in terms of the organizational

489

:

design and their experiences on

working in research or Different

490

:

organizations and what their

expectations and values might be.

491

:

And then we brought those into

our workshops where we clarified

492

:

what our vision was and what

our principles to design that

493

:

organizational structure could be.

494

:

Geri: Nice.

495

:

Can you share those values that

came out or the principles?

496

:

Jean: Yeah.

497

:

Oh

498

:

Geri: and I can, oh, I, I can just, I can

put a link to it on the webpage there.

499

:

And you also talked about the

virtual leadership and virtual

500

:

team and the process that you

went through with that and how it

501

:

improved in the previous project.

502

:

So what were the key things that

made the virtual collaboration

503

:

work that came out of that?

504

:

Jean: So we, we came up with

a set of rules that we use

505

:

for our virtual meetings.

506

:

So that would be the most

kind of practical outcome.

507

:

And the first is no cameras and no muting.

508

:

And so cameras.

509

:

The thinking behind this and the research

behind this is that you can only process

510

:

so much information at a time and visual

information can mask someone's emotion

511

:

much more easily than verbal information.

512

:

And, therefore a meeting with cameras is

more likely to lead to misunderstandings

513

:

and miscommunication because someone

might be agreeing with a verbal

514

:

gesture but in their tone of voice

might show some hesitancy, which you

515

:

could miss if you're just trying to

process all that information at once.

516

:

Another The reason is that the cameras

sometimes fail, like you said, if it's

517

:

a bad internet connection and that's

detracting from the meeting itself.

518

:

So no cameras and no muting means that

even if you're sitting there nodding,

519

:

if you're on mute, you can be doing

something else at the same time.

520

:

So we don't mute, and it brings a sense

of closeness in the meeting because you

521

:

use minimal responses like you are to

have that sense of conversation rather

522

:

than a monologue from one speaker.

523

:

And we also share roles

within the meeting.

524

:

So everyone has a chance to write minutes.

525

:

We also have a role of a

facilitator, which is different

526

:

to the leader of the meeting.

527

:

So the leader of the meeting is

responsible for clarifying the purpose

528

:

and the agenda and organizing the date.

529

:

The facilitator, in contrast, is

responsible for the group dynamics, so

530

:

they should be, as well as participating

having an eye on the time practically,

531

:

but also thinking there seems to

be a lot of tension on this topic.

532

:

Is something going on here?

533

:

Checking with the leader.

534

:

Okay, we've spent a lot of time on this,

but I don't think it's been resolved.

535

:

It sounds like so and so is

still not sure of the outcome.

536

:

Should we just check that again?

537

:

So they're trying to help the leader

reach the goals of the meeting

538

:

through understanding the group

dynamics and keeping an eye on that.

539

:

And then the minute taker at the end

of each agenda item shares the minutes.

540

:

For everyone to see and has to write if

there's been any conclusions, decisions

541

:

or actions taken and if there's actions,

who's responsible and by what date.

542

:

And that is agreed upon before

the next agenda item comes up.

543

:

So it's a simultaneous minutes and

at the end of the meeting, there's

544

:

less chance that people have gone

away with different interpretation

545

:

and they're shared straight away.

546

:

And because those roles are shared

then, you don't have the as much power

547

:

hierarchy in that it's not just the junior

person in the team who's stuck taking

548

:

the minutes and can't participate fully.

549

:

Geri: Right.

550

:

They're all great tips and tricks.

551

:

Anything else?

552

:

Jean: I think for the leading an

interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary

553

:

team that I've taken away

is that you can't how much.

554

:

How much value there is in having

short conversations with all

555

:

your team members regularly.

556

:

So I have one to one meetings with

everyone every fortnight and even if

557

:

it's not, it doesn't feel so necessary

because you're working across disciplines,

558

:

it's just a chance to debrief and to

maybe clarify some kind of assumptions

559

:

or feel closer to each other, especially

if you're working at distance.

560

:

Bring people, in on the same page you

know, check how their work is going

561

:

and how that might relate to something

else that someone else is doing.

562

:

So maybe that is a bit of a full circle

back to my work in Melbourne, where

563

:

I was working by myself, but still

trying to keep these connections across

564

:

Geri: I was just thinking

exactly that you're a community

565

:

builder and a connector.

566

:

Jean: Yeah, so it's a valuable

skill to have in this role, I think.

567

:

Geri: Yeah.

568

:

That's been honed over time.

569

:

What next for you then, do you

think after this project, because

570

:

this is still short term funding.

571

:

Jean: Well, in the course of this

project, I now have a permanent

572

:

position at the university.

573

:

Geri: Congratulations.

574

:

Jean: Thank you.

575

:

That also gives me a lot of Yeah,

positivity that the university values

576

:

qualitative research and a medical

university in Austria, in Innsbruck.

577

:

That in the course of this project

not having had done any qualitative

578

:

research in, in, I don't think in

their part of the university much

579

:

at all, to employing someone in a

permanent position is a big change.

580

:

And I, I get so much support from the

university here from my boss and from

581

:

the rectors in valuing what I'm doing.

582

:

I've also applied for another proposal.

583

:

We have to wait and see on intercultural

comparisons of peer support work

584

:

in mental health in here and Japan.

585

:

So at the moment the plan is here.

586

:

Having a permanent position in research.

587

:

But we'll see what the future holds.

588

:

I've yeah, always got an option of

going back to Australia if things become

589

:

complicated, which they sometimes can.

590

:

Geri: Yeah.

591

:

Yeah.

592

:

Excellent.

593

:

Well, thank you so much for the

time today to share all this.

594

:

A lot of the people who might

listen to this podcast, would

595

:

come more from the human computer

interaction technology area.

596

:

I mean, there's a whole range of

people and it's both encouraging and

597

:

also points to the work still to be

done that we're seeing sharing many

598

:

of the same challenges and approaches.

599

:

And also that there are so many people

across so many different disciplinary

600

:

areas driven by the same cares and

concerns and bringing, you know, different

601

:

contributions in trying to make a

difference in research and have impact

602

:

while still care for doing good science.

603

:

So thank you.

604

:

Great to meet you.

605

:

Thank you, Jean.

606

:

Jean: Yeah.

607

:

Thank you so much for the conversation.

608

:

Geri: You can find the summary

notes, a transcript and related

609

:

links for this podcast on www.

610

:

changingacademiclife.

611

:

com.

612

:

You can also subscribe to

Changing Academic Life on iTunes,

613

:

Spotify and Google Podcasts.

614

:

And you can follow

ChangeAcadLife on Twitter.

615

:

And I'm really hoping that we can

widen the conversation about how

616

:

we can do academia differently.

617

:

And you can contribute to this by rating

the podcast and also giving feedback.

618

:

And if something connected with

you, please consider sharing this

619

:

podcast with your colleagues.

620

:

Together, we can make change happen.

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About the Podcast

Changing Academic Life
What can we do, individually and collectively, to change academic life to be more sustainable, collaborative and effective? This podcast series offers long-form conversations with academics and thought leaders who share stories and insights, as well as bite-size musings on specific topics drawing on literature and personal experience.
For more information go to https://changingacademiclife.com
Also see https://geraldinefitzpatrick.com to leave a comment.
NOTE: this is an interim site and missing transcripts for the older podcasts. Please contact me to request specific transcripts in the meanwhile.

About your host

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Geraldine Fitzpatrick

Geraldine Fitzpatrick (Geri Fitz), is an awarded Professor i.R. at TU Wien, with degrees in Informatics, and in Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology, after a prior career as a nurse/midwife. She has International experience working in academic, research, industry and clinical settings. She is a sought-after facilitator, speaker, trainer and coach who cares about creating environments in which people can thrive, enabling individual growth, and creating collegial collaborative cultures. She works with academics and professionals at all levels, from senior academic leaders, to mid and early career researchers, to PhD students. She is also a mentor for academics and has been/is on various Faculty evaluation panels and various International Advisory Boards. An example of a course is the Academic Leadership Development Course for Informatics Europe, run in conjunction with Austen Rainer, Queens Uni Belfast. She also offers bespoke courses.