The Art of Academic Improvisation
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Vulnerability
“The thing about improvisation is that it’s not about what you say. It’s listening to what other people say. It’s about what you hear.” — Paul Merton
When my father passed away in October 2015, I didn’t know how I would honor his legacy. But over time, I found myself turning to writing.
During quiet moment, I would craft stories and poems that captured the essence of my experiences with him growing up. Some of these have made their way online, others are still waiting for the right moment to be shared in future books.
My uncle, a professional saxophonist, chose a different path: he poured his grief and memory of his older brother into music. A couple of years later, in 2022, he released Brother Raymond, a jazz album dedicated to my father.
The music was full of passion, excitement, pain, and surprise. It told my father’s story in ways words never could. I felt the complexity of his life as a Caribbean American working-class immigrant who drove the New York City bus each day, all while paving pathways for his children to reach as far as their imaginations could take them. I felt his smile, his jokes, his laughter, and his stoicism—a man who could quietly sit for hours at the porch table assembling a model car or playing solitaire.
As I listened to each of my uncle’s notes, I couldn’t help but wonder how difficult it must be for a composer to orchestrate a musical journey that conveys raw emotion with every performance.
It dawned on me that what makes jazz so special, aside from the genius of the musicians, is the improvisational element. The ability to compose innovative musical arrangements in real-time—creating melodies that embody the emotions in the room and resonate with the audience in a unique way.
Each musical experience, while guided by the composer’s strategic direction, is shaped by the unpredictable emotions and insights that emerge through improvisation. The beauty of every composition unfolds during the musical journey itself, not at the conclusion of the performance.
Academia—and the pursuit of tenure—can be beautiful in the same way.
Orchestrating a Meaningful Career
Academia can be an emergent experience.
But it may require letting go of that rigid five-year plan. Many of us wrestle with the same traditional career development questions:
Where do you see your research program in five years? Ten years?
What is your tenure timeline?
Which journals will you target? Who is your audience?
But let’s be honest:
No one can predict the future of scholarship or teaching.
Especially in this day and age. Especially when it comes to law or politics.
Embracing a vision for your scholarly contribution that aligns with your intellectual purpose is important. Setting meaningful research goals that are measurable and specific is essential.
However, we often adopt rigid research agendas not because they align with our passions but because they bring comfort and allow us to avoid the uncertainty and vulnerability of unexpected research directions. When that happens, predetermined publication plans can do more harm than good.
I’ve chosen to throw away the concept of a five- or ten-year plan, for better or worse. Instead, I focus on one overarching professional goal: to discover and pursue opportunities that will help me become a scholar of integrity and value.
Before we explore how improvisation shapes creativity, I want to remind you:
If this resonates with you, you’re not alone. Unlocking your potential through improvisation in academia can feel daunting, but like jazz, it’s about being present, listening, and trusting the unexpected to guide you to new insights.
In The Tenure Track, we explore how embracing the improvisational nature of research—letting go of rigid plans and responding to what emerges—can push boundaries and spark breakthroughs.
Ready to take risks and improvise your way to success? Subscribe for strategies, inspiration, and insights to navigate your academic journey with the adaptability of an improvisational artist.
1. The destination is often less important than the journey.
Traditional academic career planning provides an illusion of security.
In an uncertain academic landscape, it’s comforting to believe that we have control over our research trajectory. We focus on publication counts and impact factors because they help us feel in control of a scholarly world that’s constantly shifting.
But the truth is, our academic future is evolving rapidly as both technology and epistemology change. Innovation is disrupting entire disciplines and theoretical frameworks each year.
As our global academic community becomes more interconnected, new paradigms are continually being challenged and reconstructed. For many scholars, the prospect of a traditional tenure-track position with a clear path to full professor is no longer a certainty.
I’ve learned that intellectual growth comes from embracing the uncertainty and vulnerability of now. Focus on the research questions that truly matter in your scholarly life today—your theoretical contributions, your methodological innovations, your pedagogical development—and make the most of the opportunities available to enrich those elements of your scholarship.
Allowing yourself to reassess your research objectives every few months can create opportunities to iterate on your approach and capitalize on emerging directions.
2. Setting a direction allows you to start contributing now.
Sometimes, we get so fixated on planning our research agendas that we convince ourselves we’re not yet ready to begin our scholarly journey. This leads to analysis paralysis, where we focus on methodological details that may not matter in the long run.
We spend weeks or months planning our research design, reading literature, and outlining comprehensive reviews, instead of simply writing a few paragraphs each day. We talk to senior scholars or attend methodology workshops, instead of committing to a regular writing schedule. We live for the academic future we envision, rather than engaging with the uncertainty of current scholarly inquiry.
In his book How Will You Measure Your Life?, Clayton Christensen suggests that some people think they need a concrete vision of their life’s path, only deviating from that vision if things go wrong. But Christensen argues that this approach only works if you already have a clear plan and path that you know with certainty will meaningfully help you become the person you want to be.
Most of us don’t know for sure.
Instead of trying to plan your entire academic career, set a direction that guides you toward research opportunities, helping you learn more about your scholarly identity and discover your intellectual purpose. Success in academia often comes from the intersection of serendipity and methodological rigor.
3. An emergent research strategy is more powerful than a deliberate one.
We’ve all been conditioned to create long-term publication plans.
But as the academic landscape changes rapidly, an emergent research strategy might be more powerful in the long run.
Management theorist Henry Mintzberg draws a distinction between deliberate and emergent strategies in business. In academia, a deliberate strategy is based on predetermined research agendas and publication targets, while an emergent strategy is organic—allowing researchers to learn and develop new theoretical insights over time through an ongoing culture of inquiry and experimentation.
More and more, scholars are embracing adaptive approaches to research. Experimentation is the new planning. Academics are developing theoretical hypotheses, crafting pilot studies, and iterating their way toward meaningful contributions to knowledge.
This adaptive approach can also be applied to career planning.
The Takeaway?
Instead of creating a rigid tenure plan, simply set a direction and experiment your way toward becoming the kind of scholar you aspire to be.
Explore new research questions, build methodological skills, and engage in theoretical growth while testing hypotheses about your scholarly identity.
Ask yourself:
What kind of intellectual contribution do I want to make?
Who do I want to become as a scholar, and why?
Use your time, funding, and talent in ways that test your scholarly hypothesis. Embrace discovery-driven research—constantly exploring and discovering new opportunities that will help shape your research agenda and ultimately guide you toward making a difference in your field.
That is what I plan to do.
Be open to surprising findings and unexpected theoretical insights.
Because, as Mike Tyson once said:
“Everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth.”
Becoming Full,
P.S. As always, thank you for reading this week’s issue of The Tenure Track. If you found this article helpful, I encourage you to share it with a colleague or friend who might benefit from these insights. Together, let’s continue to build a supportive and creative academic community.