I am still grappling with how much I need to learn and do!! Also, at times I am feeling frustrated that I have very interesting data to analyze but cannot proceed. The reality is that I have completed overestimated my quantitative skill-set and now am well into the journey of building up my quantitative “muscle” but have no idea how long the trip is!! The more I read, the more I recognize that I have so much more to understand. I feel like I am back at the “unconscious incompetence” stage to a large extent. Sigh…
Today is a great example. I have spent the past 2.5 hours re-reading 1 paper that I had summarized early this year. The upside is that I understand the methodology on a much deeper level now, can add to my notes in my summary spreadsheet AND now actually understand about 80% of what I had written previously. The downside is that it has taken 2.5 hours and I had hoped to have accomplished a lot more today.
I just had an “aha”. Becoming a DBA is really hard for me because I need to value and plan for “going deep” versus my preference for breadth and connections. It is also highlighting the tension between what I do as a leader during the week and what I need to do as a researcher. As a leader, I need to create strategy; effectively acquire, performance manage, and engage talented people; and provide oversight on execution by asking the right high level questions, effectively delegating tasks etc. Of course, I also need to know enough to be able to assess the quality and validity of the findings and results but it would be perilous, given the scope of my role, to spend this much time “in the weeds”. As a researcher I need to manage ALL aspects. For example, conceptual AND analytical thinking, high level planning AND all levels of execution. Just writing this is helping me to understand how tough it is for me to not only “switch hats” but also from a skill-set perspective the size of the gap that needs to be closed because I don’t use some of these muscles in my corporate role.
OK, enough “navel gazing” for one day! I am going to go outside and eat my packed lunch and then read another paper. I need to depart early today to do some errands and then prepare to head out to a dinner party with my partner which should be fun.