White Wisteria Academy

“Broadly speaking, I want to present assertiveness as one of the underpinning soft skills that significantly impacts the clinical research workforce as well as the quality of its output,”

— Agnieszka Finlayson, MSc, MA, Director and Founder, White Wisteria Academy

Read more in the ACRP Blog > https://bit.ly/3SGmkRl

Agnieszka will focus on this topic during her session in Anaheim > https://bit.ly/3ul5LAp

I hope you had a good year this year, both in your professional and private lives! It most certainly has been the most exceptional year for me. My son came into my life in April and from then on I have been positively all-consumed tending to his needs, cherishing every moment.

If you have joined White Wisteria Academy recently, then I want to extend a very warm welcome!
I hope you find my tips for Clinical Research Professionals useful and worth incorporating in your daily work. If you haven't joined my email list yet but would like to, head over to whitewisteriaacademy.com website to sign up!

As you know since April I have been on maternity leave but I wanted to say a quick hello before this holiday season and as per our tradition, I have prepared a little something for you to look at during your well-deserved break.

I think it’s worth taking some time to summarise this year and look back at exactly what you have done. If you are in the mood for a lessons learned exercise, head to the link below for a free End Of Year Retrospective worksheet:
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The questions in this worksheet should be viewed at a professional level, as a CRP, but you can look at them from a personal level as well. These two spheres are, after all, often intertwined.

I want to also take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful holiday season and a healthy and happy New Year! 🌲🌲🌲

And as always, if you have any questions, you can get in touch with me at [email protected].

First of all I would like to extend a warm welcome to my new followers! I hope you enjoyed my webinar at ACRP and my presentation at the SOCRA conference this September. I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and all the great questions you had for me!

I noticed a few questions were around the PI - CRA relationship. This is very fortuitous because I am in the process of preparing a YouTube interview with a PI precisely to address these points. And as part of this I want to give you all a chance for you to submit your own questions for me to ask.

I have created a where you can enter what you would like to know more about. Feel free to ask anything - it is a safe space and I know that many CRAs wonder how to improve the relationship but don't know where to start. I will be looking at this aspect in particular during the interview.

Here is the link to the survey https://us10.list-manage.com/survey?u=3682bfb0c6d24b9fcd216d393&id=9f24b02017&attribution=false
or you can find it in bio

Being a new mum, I have to organize my time differently than in the past, but I love it. Here is a picture I took immediately before the SOCRA presentation. My boy fell asleep just before me joining the SOCRA platform. Thankfully my mum was on stand-by to take care of him if he woke up, but Anthony slept almost all the time I was talking!

As you have seen, I have always been emphasizing how important work/life balance is in the life of a CRA. I practice what I preach and my family time is the most precious to me. I've recently had a baby boy and let myself get completely immersed in my family life and I am loving it.

Now that my boy started having consistent naps during the day, I thought I would let you know where I am and what has been happening with me.
Firstly, I am going to present at the SOCRA annual conference in September. Secondly, I am organizing a webinar for ACRP later this year. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you would like to say hi, I'd be most grateful. I do love receiving messages from you with your updates about your career or how my courses resonate with you and what you find is important in a successful life of a CRA.

I would like to ask you for a couple of minutes of your time to let me know what kind of content you would like to see from me going forward.
Please click below to complete a very short questionnaire. Thank you so much in advance.

https://us10.list-manage.com/survey?u=3682bfb0c6d24b9fcd216d393&id=4849f69c31

Having a newborn I want to focus on high quality things that are most useful to you and I want to serve our community in the ways that you enjoy and find value in.

Do you usually ignore emails from recruiters?
I used to do that for years. But this was before I realized how much super useful information I can find out from talking to a recruiter.

Have you considered that even if you are not looking for a job currently, it is worth knowing your value on the market at any given moment? It may help you in keeping or establishing your work life balance as knowing you have options helps you be more assertive.

CRAs are always in demand, remember that next time you are burning your midnight oil finalizing that site visit report.
Keep your options open, even if you are happy where you are at present.

It will help you know where you can be next.

If you want to find out more about how to talk to recruiters, check out my interview with Dan Norris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgd6ecViS_o&t=10s

When given a task to do, do you simply accept it without question, or do you prefer to know why you’re doing it? Does knowing the reason behind the work help you to stay motivated to do the job, and do it well?
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For most people the answer is yes. Keep that in mind when you are wondering how to communicate with your site staff in order to keep them motivated. Not only tell them what needs to be done but also the why behind it.
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If you want to find out more about how to motivate your site staff, check out my online course called At Site: https://whitewisteriaacademy.com/at-site/
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What a year it's been for everyone! Remote working, remote monitoring, back to offices and on-site visits, and now perhaps back to being remote. Our work, much like real life, is full of challenges and White Wisteria Academy has been proud and honoured in being able to assist and uplift CRAs to not only accept these challenges, but thrive with them.

White Wisteria Academy has helped CRAs to develop their soft skills so that they can lead a balanced so they become the best in class. We’ve been working on a new series of videos called Interview With An Expert that is available on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl34PNbI8y7bkwGnWx1RsSA.
The idea is that in each episode I interview someone who is an expert in their field, whether that’s in or elsewhere, and we get their thoughts, tips and insights into their particular field with a focus on soft skills.

This is what makes our Beyond The Site Visit courses https://whitewisteriaacademy.com/courses/ for CRAs so unique and valuable. Not only do we look at what is the best from our industry, but we also look at what is the best in other industries and cherry pick their best practices to be applied to the role of a CRA.

Next year is already shaping up to be just as interesting and dynamic as the past two, and White Wisteria Academy is ready, willing and able to join and help you on that journey.

From all of us at White Wisteria to all of you, we wish you the best holiday season and a healthy, happily balanced and successful New Year!

A productive day starts the day before.
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This year, I’ve taken a conscious effort to really make sure that I make a note of three actions I want to achieve on the following day before I finish up my current day.
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Coming up with actions at the end of the day makes it super quick and simple. I just make a note of the things I deem the most important and perhaps what I would do now if I could go on.
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This really saves so much time on the following day. I have instant direction on what I need to do and I don’t need to retrace my steps from the previous day, or the last couple of days if it’s a Monday. Instead, I can focus right away on the actions on my to do list.
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Now I find the start of each day is very efficient. I feel motivated already and after the first action is completed, I feel motivated to complete another one and so on for the rest of the day.
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Interestingly, when I have those three actions on my list from the day before, I usually knock off many more action items throughout the day than if I have no actions, or forget to do the list.
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Will you start making your list for tomorrow this evening?
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☃️❄️Hello December! ❄️☃️Are you as amazed as me that we are already here??

My wish for you this December is that:
⛄️ It will be a month that your days on site and travel are reasonable, so that you can properly prepare for Xmas break
⛄️ You have time and energy to really think about your goals for the next year
⛄️You finalize all your reports and things that are due before Xmas break, so that you can truly take the upcoming holiday season off and recharge your batteries
⛄️ Last but not least, that you have some exciting Advent Calendar that you will be opening every day in December, starting today!

❄️Check out mine in the second pic❄️

What is your wish for this December?

Black Friday is here and White Wisteria Academy are offering discounts on all of our courses! Get 20% off all single courses AND the bundle (discounts on discounts!) simply by using the code BLACKFRIDAY20 at checkout. Offer valid until the end of November. Link in bio
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🍁The November issue of Clinical Researcher offers expert advice on “Fine-Tuning Your Organization’s Research Dynamics” in such areas as training for soft skills and protocol compliance, adapting to decentralized trial conduct, overcoming challenges in recruitment, funding, logistics, and more.
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💫My contribution 💫 to it is the article "How the Pandemic Has Magnified the Importance of Soft Skills for Clinical Research Associates" - don't miss it,
💥link in bio💥
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While clinical research associates are intensively trained in hard skills, soft skills are usually ignored. The November Clinical Researcher explores why that tact isn't sustainable >> https://bit.ly/3oy2eb5