Data Analysis Planning

Posted on February 26, 2012 by alexk

This is a very quick post.  I have had a full work week and addressed several “odds and sods” on the research front.  For example, I completed some final thank-you notes, sought advice on bibliographic searching, and followed up on my grant application.

Today was an especially short stint at the library, 90 minutes!!  I wasn’t sure that it was worth it, but I am glad that I came.  I managed to complete a high level data analysis
plan and captured key learnings from my data collection experiences to date.  I also updated my project plan and now have a clear understanding of what I need to complete over the next few weeks.

I am departing now to complete some errands.  I have a fair bit of socializing
planned for tomorrow and need to pack for vacation.  Sun and fun in two days –woohoo!

 

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Data Collection Fatigue…

Posted on February 19, 2012 by alexk

I am leaving the library very shortly because I am connecting with a girlfriend for coffee.  I feel a tad guilty because I had a late start to my stint at the library and am now departing early!!  That said, I am going to “cut myself some slack” because I have been quite fatigued of late.  I completely underestimated how much effort has been required to juggle data collection, work, and recent family issues.  It goes without saying that I am very excited about an upcoming week of vacation in the sun.  I will bring my iPad just in case I need to find out the best bar for cocktails on the beach, but there are definitely no plans to do any research or work!

Over the past week I completed a significant home office clean up and have enjoyed reading Marshall Goldsmith’s “What got you here, won’t get you there!”  I hope that I have written the title correctly.  I recently received the book as a gift and it has been interesting reflecting on my own leadership style as I read it.  I think that I definitely suffer from “Adding too much value”, but I plan to check with my team to see what they think. 

I started the day by reading an interesting paper on Women and Leadership that my supervisor forwarded to me.  I then updated my Master Spreadsheet so that the survey completion data is accurate.  Additional tasks included updating my existing project plan and creating a plan for the week ahead.  I hope to create a more detailed plan for the next 3 months before I depart for my vacation.

This will sound cheesy,  or perhaps appropriate for a researcher, but I am really excited about digging into the data.  I scanned the responses to some of the open ended questions and already see some interesting themes around time management,a topic not often addressed in leadership development programs that I have seen, as well as an interest in both delivering and receiving more coaching.  I think that I may add a “journal component” to my data analysis to capture what I am thinking/feeling/learning as I complete the analysis.  This may be especially useful because I am curious to see how the data compares with my knowledge and experiences as a practitioner.

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93% Response Rate!

Posted on February 11, 2012 by alexk

This is going to be a very short post.  I have 484 completed leadership surveys which represents a 93% response rate!  I am thrilled with this outcome.  I think that the key success factor in this outcome was the team approach that was used.  CEO sponsorship, HR Delegates and researcher (myself) provided the right level of information and accountability through targeted communication and customized follow-up directed at leaders.  This follow-up communication let them know the percentage complete for their organization, and reiterated the expectation of a 100% response rate.  I also provided a fair amount of 1-off support with leaders who were experiencing technology issues or who repeatedly deleted the survey link!   

It has been a very busy week between final follow-up with leaders, work travel, and then sending out thank-you notes to my key partners in collected this data.  I am going to do some errands now and then CHILLAX!!

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88% Response Rate!

Posted on February 5, 2012 by alexk

It is late and I am zonked.  I have had a very topsy turvy week between research, work, and my personal life.  I am thrilled  to say that I have received 461 completed leader surveys.  I have dedicated a good part of today reviewing the outstanding list of leaders and determining, based on my independent variables, if I need to do a third round of  follow-up.  It turns out that there are 4 organizations that warrant additional follow-up so I have just completed customized follow-up emails to the respective delegates.  Hopefully by this time next week I the response rate will be north of 90% and I can officially conclude my quantitative data collection.

The week ahead is busy.  I have 4 days of business travel and am also juggling many balls on the personal front.  I must remember to breathe and maintain gratitude!!

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Survey Completion 68%!

Posted on January 28, 2012 by alexk

It has been another full week that has yielded good results.  To date, 357 leaders have completed the leadership survey.  This is a terrific outcome and means that I have a 68% response rate.  As planned, I have extended the deadline for another week.  I am hoping to get to an 80% response rate. 

Today I have focused on three things.  First, creating follow-up emails for each company delegate.  Second, calculating response rates for each organization.  Third, tabulating a list of leaders who have not completed the study for each company.  As usual, this approach has required far more time than I anticipated.  That said, I think the company specific information will be useful so that the follow-up can be targeted to the outstanding leaders from their respective CEO.

I am taking a break now to do some errands and then look forward to watching some Australian Open Tennis.  I returned home last night from a 3 day business trip and tomorrow depart for another 3 day work trip.  What a month!!

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46% Completion Rate!

Posted on January 21, 2012 by alexk

It is 3pm and I sitting at a new coffee shop.  I feel exhausted but happy.  After one week 241 leaders have completed the leadership questionnaire, which makes the response rate 46%.  I am very pleased with these results.  On Monday, I am going to resend the survey to the remaining leaders and hope that most of them complete it before next Friday.  I have generated a follow-up plan to be implemented in the organizations that are not at an 80% response rate by the end of next week.

Throughout the week I had to do some troubleshooting with company delegates and leaders who had difficulty accessing the link.  Although access to the survey link was tested at each company before launching the survey, some leaders still had challenges.  Most often the issue was that the leader had inadvertently deleted the email or it had been diverted automatically to their Junk File folder.  A few leaders had challenges with the consent section so I had to work with them directly to resolve these issues.  Overall, I think there were about 15 leaders who required some form of  support and it took about 2 hours in total.

This week I also had a very productive conversation with a Compensation Manager.  We were discussing the merits of adding ROE as a financial measure of leader effectiveness.  He also provided some useful papers to review.  There is a lot more to do here.

Things have been extremely busy on the work front and I am also providing some support to others on personal issues so I am pretty taxed.  I have decided to limit my research to two hours today.  I am signing off shortly and heading home for a well-deserved nap!

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Final Data Collection Preparation

Posted on January 14, 2012 by alexk

Completing final preparation for my launch of the leadership survey on Monday has been far more time consuming than anticipated!!  I spent a good part of the week following up with a few organizations on missing information and then testing some administrative functionality on the leadership tool.

Today I encountered several issues with version control of spreadsheets and also just discovered that the leadership tool does not import the leader information in the way that I have formatted it.  This is despite the fact that I am following the instructions that I have been given and it worked earlier this week when I did a small sample test –argh!!  So now I am heading home for some dinner and reformatting!!  Hopefully it will not take too long.

I had a good chat with my supervisor this week.  Our focus was to walk through my immediate next steps and plans for preliminary data analysis.  As always, there was the immediate benefit that arises from articulating what you are planning to someone else –I find it makes me more clear and ware of gaps in my thinking and process!  She also provided good advice on my data analysis plans and recommended  simplifying  my initial plans.  For example, instead of worrying about how I am going to learn PLS, focusing on conducting simple regressions first and see what the results are.  This sound pretty obvious now, but I have been thinking about the more sophisticated analysis that I think is coming and stressing myself out! It is good to be able to hold off on these concerns for awhile.

I am heading home now.  Hopefully I will have a positive update on leader response rate by this time next week.

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Great Week and Sad Day

Posted on January 7, 2012 by alexk

It has been a very busy week preparing for my data collection.  The conference call with the HR Delegates was a good idea and was well attended.  I simply walked through all of the next steps and responded to questions.  Throughout the week I have been working with some of them to refine their list of leaders, essentially culling managers, and also ensuring that the MLQ link works.  I am currently awaiting 3 sets of leaders lists and testing of the MLQ Link with 4 organizations.  Hopefully this will be completed by Tuesday, well ahead of the actual survey launch day.

Great value was delivered from both my supervisors this week.  My Rotman supervisor was helpful in providing final feedback on my leadership questionnaire and my Henley supervisor provided lots of insight and strategies for navigating the path to doctorate.  I still have to type up the notes.  A key take-away was I still need to NARROW my research question and possibly nix the qualitative piece.  It is all about depth not breadth!!  Also, one suggestion that I have put into practice is making more time to reflect and think.  I have purchased a new journal just for this purpose and enjoyed writing down my current ideas about my research.

Today is a sad day though because I am departing shortly for a funeral for an ex-colleague.  We worked together for 2 years and she was a truly wonderful person.   She was very pleasant, collaborative, talented, and authentic.  I cannot believe that she has died, it was so sudden.  I feel so sad for her family, particularly her husband and toddler son.  I am going to pay my respects and hopefully provide support.  Life is so precious.  This reinforces my commitment to live life to the fullest everyday and be grateful.

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2011 Wrap Up

Posted on December 31, 2011 by alexk

I am fully in the mix with data collection preparation!!   I now have over 400 leaders confirmed for my study which is terrific.  Additional leader information should be coming from 5 more companies, so I should land close to 500.  Note to self –starting data collection before Christmas holidays is not ideal!!  That said, the HR Delegates have been wonderful and the timing was necessary to ensure that the quantitative data was collected before the February 2012 RRSP season begins.

It has been a crazy few weeks.  Lots of year end activity at work, thankfully I managed to complete the essential tasks.  Christmas was lovely, very busy with preparation, but highly enjoyable throughout.   Looking forward to fun and frolic tonight as we ring in 2012!

I have just completed my plan for next week.  I have a Skype call with my Henley supervisor on Wednesday morning and then with the HR Delegates in the afternoon.  There will be a great deal of final preparation to complete on Tuesday.  That said, I am looking forward to 2 FULL days of no work and no research!!  I am also hoping to take a SUN vacation in February after I have completed my first round of data collection.  I am enjoying both work and research but definitely need a break to rejuvenate.   

On a final note, I just reviewed my high level project milestones and am generally tracking well.  My biggest gap is writing.  By the end of December I should have written 50 pages and I have only 18!!  I have been inserting bullets and ideas into my dissertation but need to establish a better system to ensure that I WRITE.  This is essential advice that I have been given repeatedly but have not yet operationalized it in a way that works for me.  More to come on this in 2012!

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Emotional Day

Posted on December 17, 2011 by alexk

I am just finishing up a productive, but somewhat emotional, stint at the Second Cup.  Feelings of insecurity emerged after reading feedback from my second supervisor.  Upon later reflection, I recognize that the feedback did not raise any new issues.  However, I think that I felt overwhelmed reading it because it highlighted issues that I am still grappling with.  I think that I may need to be bit more patient with myself.  That said, it was good to be reminded of the issues because I devoted some time today to reflect on them and then documented some new thoughts and related questions/next steps.  I then resumed my scheduled tasks for today which were centered on preparing for data collection which begins in mid-January. 

I am really happy with the responses from prospective study participants.  So far 22 organizations have agreed to participate and I may get a few more.  Today, I finalized all of the communication to the HR Delegates which I will send out on Monday morning.  Earlier this week I began the questionnaire customization process with the survey administrator so I am hoping that by this time next week, I will have all of the names of the leaders participating in the study,  and a “close to final” leadership questionnaire.

The week ahead looks full.  One more business trip, year-end meetings, and performance reviews.  I am looking forward to feeling more relaxed by Thursday and then will be fully focused on Christmas.  We are hosting our family so should be a great deal of fun.

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