Papa PhD Gold: Four Practices You Must Learn From Gig Workers as a Scientist

Welcome to the second episode of Papa PhD Gold! In this riveting conversation, we have the pleasure of delving into the world of gig workers with Professor Sue Ashford from the University of Michigan, as she shares her insightful research on how these workers maintain their identity and vitality in a professional world full of uncertainties. Sue introduces us to the four key connections that experienced gig workers build to manage anxieties and thrive in their careers. This includes building supportive networks of peers or mentors, creating inspiring workspaces, identifying meaningful purposes for oneself, and establishing sustainable routines. Each of these connections plays a crucial role in sustaining creativity, productivity, and mental well-being amidst the challenges of independent work. And that is why it applies to you as a scientist. Whether you’re a gig worker, an academic, or simply curious about the dynamics as an independent professional, this episode is sure to offer you valuable perspectives and actionable takeaways. Come along and dive in!

Sue Ashford is the Michael and Susan Jandernoa Professor in the Management and Organizations group at the University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business. She has previously taught at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and received her MS and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University.

Sue’s passion is using her teaching and research to help people to be maximally effective in their work lives, with an emphasis on self-leadership, proactivity, personal growth, and leadership and its development. Her teaching at the Ross School currently focuses on the executive MBA program (negotiation) and several short-term executive education programs (leadership, change, growth). She also teaches regularly in the Leading Women Executives program of the Corporate Leadership Center and for various companies.

Key take-home messages:

• Building Connections: Sue Ashford emphasizes the importance of connecting with people who elevate and encourage you. Whether it’s a mentor, a writing group, or your spouse, these connections serve as a support system, keeping you on track and affirming your path.

• Creating a Space for Success: The place where you work can profoundly impact your productivity and mindset. Sue shares stories of various professionals who have tailored their workspaces to boost focus and creativity, turning their immediate environments into sources of inspiration.

• Finding Purpose: Understanding why you engage in your work can help you overcome the challenges of an independent career path. Sue shares her personal story of perseverance, driven by a desire to share wisdom and make an impact.

• Establishing Routine: If we consider routines as the “warden of accomplishment”, adopting consistent habits, such as setting daily intentions and defining weekly rhythms can support us in maintaining focus and achieving our goals.

Why Listen? Sue Ashford’s interview reminds us that while the path of gig work can be fraught with anxiety, intentional actions focusing on connection, space, purpose, and routine can build a solid foundation for a fulfilling career.

Connect with Us: Have thoughts about this episode? Want to recommend a guest for us to interview? Share your voice with us! Visit speakpipe.com/papaphd to leave a voice note. We value every piece of feedback and look forward to featuring some in future episodes.

Tune In: Don’t miss this insightful conversation aimed at helping you redefine your path Beyond the Thesis. Subscribe to Papa PhD on your favorite podcast platform, and join us next week for another inspiring episode!

P.S.: We’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode. How do you apply these principles in your work life? Share with us on our social media channels or reply directly to this email!

This episode’s links:

• Sue Ashford | Website
• The Power of Flexing | Book
• Agony And Ecstasy in the Gig Economy | Article

Episode Transcript

Sue Ashford:
What we found is the things that these experienced gig workers did, the ones that describe their identity as pretty firm, they knew who they were and they lived it, and they describe their working life as more vital, So they created what they needed for themselves to contain the anxieties that came from working in this style. So they did four things. They created four connections. So I’ll describe one, and then we’ll give you a chance to ask a questons. I have not done that.

David Mendes:
I’m curious to hear about that. Yeah.

Sue Ashford:
Okay. So one is a connection to other people. So people that, elevated them and encouraged them and focused them. So, you know, it might be if you’re a writer, you were in contact with your editor. If you’re a consultant, just one person had an independent group of consultants that were independent consultants that got together and they would share. For academics, it’s often a writing group, where you get together and you share your writing. But, basically, you know, it gives you, you know, a place to be if you don’t show up to your writing group. Somebody’s gonna wonder and check on you. It gives you, others like you who, you know, understand what you’re doing. It gives you people to give you feedback. It gives you people to give you affirmation, people to give you support. And so for a lot of people, it was their spouse, you know, and their spouse would say, yeah. No. You were built for this. Keep going. And, so that’s connection to people. So that one makes sense. Right?.

David Mendes:
It does make sense. Some examples you said are just one person, like a mentor or a spouse. But some of them, it seems to be kind of more of a small network of people who give you that security or that kind of village that’s built in when you’re in academia or in a company. But when you’re working on your own, it’s not built in anymore. You kind of need to nurture it itself.

Sue Ashford:
Yeah. Build and nurture it and maintain it.

David Mendes:
And maintain it.

Sue Ashford:
Otherwise, it tends to fall apart. Whereas, you know, I always liken it to I I grew up I had there were six kids in my family, and so, you know, I never had to think about whether I wanted to maintain a relationship with my brothers and sisters. I just went home to visit my parents, and they happen to be there.

David Mendes:
A question I have around that is, so there’s clear a clear difference to me between, let’s say, a mentor, an editor, someone who’s kind of a A boss. Yeah, kind of a boss, but in a, you know, in a different way than than in a than in a company. But someone who is kind of pulling you up and, like you said, give showing your showing you your value and and kind of, confirming to you that you’re on the right track. And but it it’s different when you say a writing group. It feels more like a group of peers, but then you have a bunch of them that are maybe like minded, that maybe could be the subject that you work on, your personality agrees with them, etcetera. Did you ask of of the people you interviewed how they came up with building either of these types of relationships, these more one on ones or these more group relationships? Because I don’t think it’s, evident to everyone. And if you’re very involved in finding your path and trying to do the right thing, And especially if you’re an introvert, for example, it might be tough to even think of, okay, how do I build a small community? How do I find a mentor? Someone who kind of can pull me up.

Sue Ashford:
Yeah. We’ve continued a group of of us have continued on this research. And we have one paper we’re working on right now on the relationships that happen for independent workers. And one of them might be helpful for your introverts, which are parasocial relationships. You know, my advisor was this very scary man, very queer, very direct, very sure of himself about what I should and shouldn’t do. And, and that was one of the lessons I had to unlearn over my life was that his was just one opinion. Turns out he did differently about it. But I would often think, what would Larry do? That’s a parasocial relationship. You’re not really in the relationship, but you know enough about that person to to to be guided by, you know, what they think or the advice they would give, you know, or this is an idea that Larry would love. So I feel a sense of affirmation, even though Larry has died, Larry’s gone. Or your mentor didn’t take the time to invest in you, but you’ve seen through a talk or two, you’ve seen a person you really admire and you think, you know, what would that person would love this track that more. Get the affirmation that way. And we found that people did that.

David Mendes:
That’s really interesting. And, actually, someone I don’t recall the exact person, but someone on the show told me, oh, this is my mentor, and it’s someone who is not alive anymore and but who wrote books that the person really gets inspiration from, and the person considers this writer, a mentor. So it I think it it does fall into that parasocial.

Sue Ashford:
The second connection that people build, beyond people, that they contained helped contain their anxieties, etcetera, was to place where they typically did their work. And, I live that. My office is full of tchotchkes that, that mean something to me, that tell me people are with me, that tell me I’ve accomplished this or that, you know, that I know what I’m doing, you know, that kind of thing. And people talked about that. You know, a writer said, you know, a novelist, she said, I put up some of my reviews and awards in a place that’s visible to me. So when I’m stuck, I say, no, you know, I obviously can do it. You know, clearly that’s not available to brand new PhD students. But, you know, you’ll get an email from someone saying something, you know, that could be put up on your wall. But it’s not all about affirmation. Sometimes it was about bringing focus. Like one, a novelist, other than the one I just talked about, he did all of his writing in a six by eight foot shack out on the on a property. And he said that space contained him, contained his thoughts so that he could be productive. It’s been if the space went any bigger, it didn’t work. And so, you know, another guy who was an independent consultant, so he’s out there fighting for business all the time, trying to get someone to accept him and bring him in. And he said, You know, my office looks like the cockpit of a fighter jet plane with the technology I have. And you could just imagine this guy who’s got to go out and fight in the marketplace to win the business, get the contract. His office kind of reinforces that to him that you are a man, a warrior, a man of a mettle, you know, kind of thing. And I don’t think it was conscious on his part. I don’t think he said, oh, I’ve got to set my office up that way. But I think it probably served that function. Another screen she was a script writer, and she, said, I do all my raw writing in my bed. She said, you know, my bed is I feel cosseted and, you know, sort of secure and warm. And, you know, that’s where I do my writing. And then I edit later on the computer. So it’s thinking, being thoughtful about place and what the place where you typically do your work is doing for you and not doing for you. Like, there are many times when I say you just have to take an hour and clean your office because the messiness of your office is beginning to be reproduced in the messiness in your mind. So there’s a lot of different examples. They did it different ways, but it’s really attending to place and recognizing place can make a difference. I think if you honor your place and you’re thoughtful about how you set up your place, you’re honoring you, you’re honoring your importance in the world, you’re honoring the value of what you’re doing, even if nobody yet notices it. My friend, my neighbor went off to do ceramics on dark January mornings. Nobody knew, nobody cared, but she honored it herself, made a difference.

David Mendes:
I really like that idea of of honoring and because one of the dangers, and we talked about identity some a few minutes ago, and, one of the things that you that’s a danger when you’re in this situation of anxiety and trying to reach goals, that you don’t even know where the goalpost is, is that you may forget to honor yourself. You may put yourself on the shelf and and say, okay, I’m going to, focus on this. This is what’s important. And I guess that’s what leads a lot of young researchers, academics, and people in general, but this is the population we’re talking about, to, to exhaustion, to burnout, etcetera.

Sue Ashford:
The third one was, I’ll go with purpose, and I’ll leave the one that I actually think is more important, but I’ll leave it to last because there’s a funny thing about it. So purpose was, why are you doing what you’re doing? Why do you care about the project you care about? And I said there was a long history of this paper getting out. And I’ll use myself as an example, and then I’ll use some of the gig workers. But part of that history was my student left the field. My attention was being drawn off. But also, I didn’t totally know how to do qualitative research, even though I’m pretty experienced in the field. And so I get anxious about that whole anxious productivity, anxious productivity cycle described me pretty well. But I was able to keep going because the people we talked to had such wisdom. They really had such wisdom about living, working, mattering. And so I wanted their words to be out to people. I wanted to get them out. And if I didn’t keep going, they would die with me. And so that would be an example of how a purpose can help with the personalization, the precariousness, the productivity cycle thing, is if you have a purpose, it helps you to keep going, you know? They also talked about a purpose tells you what kind of Like a consultant said, I have a really defined purpose. I didn’t earlier, but now I do. And it tells me what work to say no to, what work to say yes to. It tells me, yeah. So, you know, I think in academia, you know, some people I know have a real purpose, like people who are doing research around, DEIA issues. Like they want to make the world better for those people. People who are doing work around sustainability, recognize that the world’s, you know, the biosphere is declining and they want to get the word out, you know, as fast as they can. So, you know, I think purpose can elevate what you’re doing. One guy, he was a consultant to songwriters.

David Mendes:
Okay.

Sue Ashford:
That was his gig. And he said, I’m participating in America’s song culture. Ronald Reagan says, “America is a song culture”, and I’m playing a part in that. Well, that’s like a very elevated rendition of what he’s actually doing. But I think that portrayal helped him to keep going, that kind of thing. So connection to purpose does matter.

David Mendes:
I think what you mean is not, to be confused with the goals that you have, weekly, monthly goals. It’s something that’s more, you know, 30,000 feet view. Right?

Sue Ashford:
It’s the why that underlies those goals. Why do you care about getting that achieved in a month or a week? And and some of it is getting a job, getting tenure. I I don’t deny those very pragmatic things. I will note that academia has a very long life after those things. And, you know, you need to have something more than that to sustain you. But I think even on your way to tenure, having a purpose, something bigger, the wide beneath all the task goals you have, can really help when times get tough. The fourth, connection. And we called them connections because we wanted to clearly indicate that the agency is in the hands of the gig worker. Nobody’s gonna do this for you. You have to make these connections. Your workspace could be ad hoc or it can be intentional. But it’s gonna depend on you. The fourth one, and I left it for last, not because it’s least important, but because I’m frustrated by how we named it. We called it, remember there’s people, place, purpose, and we called it routines.

David Mendes:
Oh, you need another ‘P’!

Sue Ashford:
We call it practices. Somebody else did later. I saw in a talk and I’m like, Oh, darn it. But routines, I think are really super important. You know, routines are kind of like the warden. One writer said routines are the warden of accomplishment.

David Mendes:
Oh, wow.

Sue Ashford:
That’s a beautiful saying. So routines are everything from how you start your day to how you end your day and everything you do in between. After I wrote this paper, I was talking to someone and they said, you know, there’s a famous writer and I just can’t remember his name, but it was a long time ago writing like after World War II. And he used to get up in the morning, put on a suit and tie, leave his house, walk around the block, come back to his house, walk up to his attic office and start his work day. You know, so that’s a routine that says, I’m no longer in my home life, I’m now in my work life. Another routine might be, how you end the day. You know, we have a second article where we took these ideas and tried to apply them directly to academia. And I can view that one. Please. The link for that one. But so we talked to a lot of academics about, well, what routines do you use? And this one person said that, she always ends with a Post it at the end of her day that she’s gonna attach to her computer. And the Post it tells her where to start the next day. Mhmm. Because morning self wants to, you know, look at the email and maybe there’s a, you know, a link to Facebook. And so you go over there and then you go to LinkedIn and you do but nighttime self knows that morning self really what morning self really wants to do is that. And so she’d write this post it, stick it on her computer. And then in the morning, you know, the directive for the next day would be there. So routines might be, you know, like I have a routine I use in my academic work. And these show up in that second article. These aren’t so much from the gig workers themselves. But I have two desks in my office. I have the one you can see in this picture. And then over there, there’s a round table. And I go to the round table when I’m doing deep thinking. And I do it in part because I’m away from all of the technology and the computer and the distraction. I take a pad of paper, I take my water bottle, and I go over. And I often will set a timer and I make myself stay there until that timer goes off. And I’m thinking about the new research directions or the this or that that I wanna think about, but that is causing me anxiety. And I know it’s causing me anxiety because I have thoughts like, I really ought to get that light bulb changed. The work for it. You know, has been unworking for, you know, five years, but suddenly it seems crazy. So that’s a routine. So routine might be how you tackle your job. A routine might be like this morning, I came in and worked for two hours before I opened email at all. And, you know, I’ve got two hours of good work in before any distractions came. So it’s how you handle that. And it’s all sorts of different things that you do. And you might have a weekly routine, like where you do certain things on Mondays and Fridays, different, you know, that kind of thing as well. But you’re thoughtful about your routines, and your routines support the work you wanna get done.

Thank you, Sue Ashford!

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