What's your toughest challenge?

In seeking to shape the MindYOUInc. mission statement I reached out to a broad range of colleagues across the spectrum of academic and institutional leadership through a highly informal survey and asked one simple question. What's your toughest challenge?

I thought you might be interested in the wide variety of responses (this is the short list... and not a single respondent said "I don't have any"...)

Which ones resonate with you? Are you surprised by any of them? Is there something obvious that you are shocked didn't make the short list?

Challenges are ever-present and they can be very personal. We all experience our worlds differently. And though our challenges may be daunting, they are also incredible pathways to personal growth and a profound sense of accomplishment.

Are you ready for your next challenge? Looking for a little help? Give me a call and we can explore the opportunities together.

Toughest Challenges - the short(ish) list

• Massive institutional change – just the complexity of it all

• Adaptation into a new university culture and environment

• Deciding what to do next in my career – where to go from here

• Dealing with low performers / dealing with high performers

• Managing change

• Collaborations with those outside of my comfort zone

• Creating a productive and mutually beneficial relationship with my Board

• Communicating with people who don’t want to listen or don’t understand

• Defining strategic direction

• Managing egos and destructive interpersonal conflict

• Lack of funding to pursue my work

• Adapting to changing expectations

• Leading an ungainly network of researchers and non-academics

• Building a business case for funding of a new initiative

• Deciding among all of my priorities which one is the biggest waste of time

• Meeting targets when I don’t directly control any of the variables involved

• Feeling like an imposter – like I’m going to be found out

• Making the shift from leading academic to academic leader – going to the “dark side”

• Overcoming fear of failure

• Overcoming fear of success

• Deciding to pursue a new research direction and actually doing it against the advice of colleagues

• Dealing with all the stuff I don’t know as a newly minted, independent academic

• Constructively engaging with individuals who clearly don’t respect my work or my position

• Figuring out what it is I want to accomplish in my career and in life