Time off can make you a better researcher

Onsite near Harlan Kentucky. We replaced a rotting beam, cinderblock foundation with new supports

As we head into the busy holiday season, don’t forget to be kind to yourself and consider giving back. You not only undoubtedly deserve a break from work, it may help sharpen your skills as a researcher.

A year ago, I left a leadership role in research to become an individual contributor.

Part of the reason why I left a rewarding management role was a chance to work on complicated research projects and for a company known for service.

I didn’t realize then that giving back could actually make me a stronger researcher and more importantly, a better person.

I was pretty confident I made the right decision, but quickly felt insecure surrounded by brilliant researchers and overwhelmed with the complexities of serving a big, diverse group of stakeholders. A year in, I’m still onboarding and not moving as quickly as I would want.

But my summer break crystallized why taking a “risk” and moving to a new company, Salesforce, was what I needed to propel my career.

Salesforce encourages its employees to log 56 hours of volunteer time off (VTO) every year.

I took advantage of this with my family. The divisiveness of our country inspired us to get outside our comfort zone and travel from our privileged bubble in Northern California to Eastern Kentucky to do a service project together.

I took almost four weeks off this summer and I’m better for it.

We spent a week working with the Appalachia Service Project (ASP). ASP connected us to a family in Harlan, Kentucky who needed help with significant house repairs. ASP had never had volunteers like us, a non-church going family from California. ASP took pains in finding the right match for us.

My husband, teen boys and I were teamed up with volunteers from Ohio to build girders or beams to serve as foundational support for a house that was close to collapsing. The work was back achingly tough: digging, lifting, sawing, hammering and lots of problem solving.

In many ways, our country has turned its back on places like Harlan. Historically dependent on coal mines, the town has few good paying jobs these days. We saw firsthand the toll of poor health care in this community.

I always thought of myself as empathetic and a believer in diversity, but this experience made me realize how much work I still have to do to shed judgment and bias I have against people who aren’t like me and don’t think like me. I’ve been a manager for many years and worked in supportive, polite corporate environments. I wasn’t used to being forcefully challenged to consider other points of views.

Only after a couple days, we realized how much we had in common with our host family and the Ohio volunteers we worked with. My family became very close with the other five volunteers in our group. Parents enjoyed swapping stories about our children, the teens joked and poked fun at one another and after working in heat and humidity and under a crawl space for hours, we bonded over some of the best shakes we’ve ever had at the local Dairy Hut.

Working with people I wouldn’t normally intersect with highlights the importance of building trust. Here are a few key things I was able to practice during this service week that will hopefully help me build a reputation as a trustworthy researcher:

1. Provide clear, unemotional feedback to diverse stakeholders and collaborators
2. Listen with openness to direct feedback, even if I don’t agree with it
3. Fight unconscious bias and be careful not to jump to conclusions

A month later, my family traveled to a place that feels as far away from Appalachia as you can get. We flew over the Arctic to Iceland.

And while it’s different from Appalachia in many ways, I couldn’t help but think about Kentucky. Iceland was among the hardest hit countries during the economic meltdown in 2008. Today, its economy is growing at a faster pace than much of Europe and the US. And they’ve found paths to growth that are both sustainable and ethical. Not that long ago, the country was dependent on imported fossil fuels. Today, Iceland is powered with geothermal energy. It has some of the cleanest air and water in the world.

And while the environmental and economic wins are obvious in Iceland, staying just a few days in Kópavogur showed me how this relatively quick turnaround was made possible.

Iceland invests in its people: it’s a human-centered place. We were there during milder temperatures, but the Icelandic people endure brutal weather conditions for much of the year. Yet, we saw signs of wellness and human centered design everywhere. Public pools and hot springs are part of the culture. Trails run alongside the main roadway. Indoor gyms are prolific, but outdoor exercise equipment was plentiful as well. I appreciated how things made sense for its people.

During our Icelandic vacation, the flood devastation in Eastern Kentucky was big news. Because of the vulnerabilities we witnessed while there, this was unfortunately not surprising. Thankfully, our host family was spared. Iceland is a hostile environment as well. A volcano erupted while we were there and yet I didn’t fear or panic because the country has a successful record dealing with volatility.

Spotting patterns and interpreting data as a qualitative researcher comes naturally to me. It takes another level of examination to tie this to bigger, systematic opportunities.

Getting a chance to focus in on a service project and then look up and out as we did in Iceland taught me that while things don’t seem connected, they can be. It’s a gift to be given the time and space to wonder and imagine.

The practice of giving and receiving feedback with people unlike yourself and working to fight against unconscious bias in non-work makes me a stronger researcher. And the time away from research plans and spreadsheets helped me understand the strength in zooming in and out.

Taking time away is not just good for yourself, but also for your research and well-being practice.