The Peak Performing Professor: A Practical Guide to Productivity and Happiness

A faculty job can be a very satisfying life-long career IF it is handled well. This practical interactive workshop, based on the evidence-based Peak Performing Professor model, will explore the challenge of the tripartite professor job description (teaching, research, and service) and how to balance those responsibilities with a great personal life. Long-term work-life balance requires a combination of two things: a vision of what is needed for professional and personal success and the work habits used by successful academics to achieve long-term work and life satisfaction. Hint: Doing everything well all of the time is not the answer.

You will learn how to PACE yourself with these practices:

• Power and motivate yourself with a vision of meaning and purpose in your career and life.
• Align time and tasks to your Power producing high impact results with high job satisfaction.
• Connect with those at home and at work for mutual support.
• Energize yourself through wellness and well-being practices for better work-life balance, a long productive career, and a long satisfying life.

The benefits of applying the PACE practices will allow you to:

• Create a life management system that aligns your strengths, time, and energy with your personal priorities and your diverse faculty responsibilities.
• Discern what activities and opportunities will move your vision forward so that you can say strong "yes's" and graceful "no’s" to the competing priorities of the college professor.
• Take charge of those overwhelming to-do lists by envisioning and managing projects, goals, and daily to-do lists that are realistic and achievable.
• (Optional). Minimize time management distracters such as email, grading, and interruptions.

Success in any profession requires two components: engaging in high yield activities and connecting with like-minded colleagues for mutual success. Faculty joke that their jobs would be easy if it weren’t for people, politics, and personalities. What they don’t realize is that while their degrees qualify them for their jobs, success in their jobs depends on their ability to work with people. The first half of the Peak Performing Professor workshop will encourage you to work from strength to discern the high-yield activities that lead to high productivity, life balance, and satisfaction. The second half of this day long workshops will apply social neuroscience research findings to the skills faculty need to engage colleagues and students quickly and without anxiety, collaborate for success with ease instead of intimidation, and create mutually beneficial relationships. It will also give you some tips for managing stress and staying energized for the long haul of this interesting and rewarding career.

You will learn how to Connect and Energize yourself through these practices:

• Develop social intelligence skills, such empathy and compassion, and apply these skills to relationships.
• Use networking to move conversations beyond “small talk” into “big talk” that lead to collaborations and mutual support.
• Apply communication skills to clear boundaries, collaboration, and conflict in collegial relationships.
• Develop work-life balance skills to handle the many roles and tasks that are part of your personal and professional lives.

The benefits of applying the Connect and Energize practices will allow you to:

• Build social capital, relationships with colleagues that pay off in mutual productivity and satisfaction.
• Create and maintain energy so that you can work productively without burnout.
• (Optional, if time). Stay calm in tough situations.

Audiences: All teaching faculty but particularly early career faculty

Suggested Time Frames:

• 1 1/2 hour- the first Practice: Power;
• 3 hours - the first and second Practices: Power and Align;
• 6 hours – all four practices;

Suggested Formats:

• One day program: Part I and Part II form a one day (6 hour) program that can be done either all in one day or in a two day format (3 hours each day)
• Half day program: Part I or Part II can be stand alone half-day programs (3 hours); each of the sections of Part II (Connect and Energize) can be expanded for a half or full day program. A stand alone Connect workshop has similar content to the program “Plays Well with Others.” A stand alone Energize workshop can be expanded to include more material on work-life balance.
• Keynote or short breakout session: the first half of Part I (Power) can be a 1 ˝ hour stand-alone presentation/workshop; the two halves of Part II (Connect and Energize) can each be a stand-alone keynote or short workshop. The second half of Part I (Align) does not stand alone apart from the first half (Power).