Episode 4

full
Published on:

3rd Aug 2016

Mary Czerwinski on managing people, managing stress, and the work to do good work

Mary Czerwinski  is a principal researcher and research manager at Microsoft Research in Redmond, US. Mary shares some great experiences about her role as a manager and how she plays this out practically in enabling and protecting people, and establishing a culture in a group. She also talks about some of the key insights from her own research work on stress and how to manage stress, from email management strategies, to designing technology interventions as well as some very easy practical interventions that we could all try out. A theme throughout is the importance of getting to know yourself and your values, and of planning– this is the work to do good work.

“How you choose to look at stress...” “Honouring your calendar”

She talks about (times approximate) …

01:45 Her current work and background

04:20 Managing and leading a research group

07:15 Establishing a group culture, dealing with issues, conflict resolution, one-on-ones

11:10 Insights from research on stress, managing email, choosing how you look at stress

17:00 Knowing the rhythm of your day, your priorities, and planning

18:20 Personal interventions, the ‘tools in the toolkit’ e.g., deep breathing, mindfulness techniques, new work on DBT, Pop Therapy

25:05 Challenges now with escalating pace, needing to say no more often, importance of prioritizing based on knowing what are your values

28:50 Wish for the younger generation: prioristing the important things and still having time to accomplish what you want to in work, needing to make time for family and self

30:08 End

Final notes:

Pop Therapy - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/pop-therapy/

Mindfulness – loads of resources https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/mindfulness

http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm



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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.

About your host

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Geraldine Fitzpatrick

Geraldine Fitzpatrick (Geri Fitz), is an awarded Emeritus Professor 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/coach who cares about creating environments in which people can thrive, enabling individual growth, and creating collegial collaborative cultures. Apart from her usual academic work, she is an international keynote speaker, and a facilitator/trainer of seminars, workshops and courses for academics and professionals at all levels, from senior academic leaders, to mid and early career researchers, to PhD students. She is also a mentor/coach 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.