When I was much younger, I was chatting with a senior person. I had my first hot streak at a journal & proudly relayed that my last three submissions had been accepted.
They commented, 'if all of my papers were accepted, I needed to aim higher or take more risks!’
While I had learned to aim high, I had never thought about the importance of taking risks.
Their words have followed me since 2002.
The senior person was right, I was doing interesting & not very risky work.
Doing incremental work is not in & of itself a bad thing - many tenure cases are built on a foundation of not terribly innovative papers - in fact, most disciplines only occasionally have a great scholar then up who upends their paradigms - so taking a safe path to tenure, maintaining your mental health, & securing your family’s future should not be looked down upon.
However, doing incremental work in & of itself can be a bit boring - it can lead to gaming the review system - where you make deep investments in papers that you know you can publish, earn accolades for productivity, and yet never create the opportunity to be the one to upend your discipline’s paradigm.
Moreover, I’ve noticed that faculty who stick to incremental work seem to develop a sense of ennui, sometimes express skepticism about the importance of scholarly work, & express greater career dissatisfaction.
In contrast, risk takers seem happier and more intrinsically engaged with academic life.
So what to do?
My feeling is that every scholar, early or late career, should have projects that they find risky, possibly unpublishable, & that stokes this engagement.
So what would I call risky research?
First, it should be interesting to you.
Divorce your responsibility to publish from your obligation to conduct pure science.
Ask yourself what question you really want to know the answer to!
Second. Use a new method.
I have used critical approaches (once), econometrics, structural equation modeling, factor analysis, mixed methods, built systems, & more in my career.
Using a new method opens up your mind.
There is always risk in a new method - you may not have a knack for it.
Third. Integrates a new perspective.
It pushes you to read papers that you might not otherwise read - lately - I’ve read a lot about stigma and stigmatized behavior - something distant from my core work on innovation and systems.
Learning a new perspective & literature challenges your assumptions!
Fourth. It does not demand publication.
You should do the work for fun - not for accolades - this takes the pressure off.
If it results in a pub, that is great, but not necessary.
Finally, it should add to your intellectual life, & by doing so, should make your core work more enjoyable.
Taking risks has improved my life - I’ve stayed engaged for over a 20-year arch - and learned things I never thought possible.
So consider taking a risk; you won’t regret it!
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