Big careers without tears:
Hybrid group coaching program about taking charge of your working life and start thriving in academia
What is the program all about?
Do you know the feeling that your work is in charge of you rather than the other way around? Feeling spread too thin, spending time putting out fires and helping others? Life has become so rushed that there is no time to breathe – let alone time to do the things that move the needle towards your ambition of making a change in the world that extends beyond academia. Academia lacks role models, support, and resources to help women be in charge of their careers and make important contributions to research, students, and society. I want to change that – and this online program is the first step on our woman-centered journey toward a more empowered academic work/life.
​
Who is it for?
This program is ideal for female academics at the crossroads of their career. In particular, those who no longer want to feel like they are spreading themselves thin on unrecognized tasks and instead wish to begin focusing on defining and advancing their research, so they can achieve the joy, impact, and recognition they deserve.
​
Course description
This group coaching program provides you with practical shortcut instructions, coaching questions, and exercises on how to take control of your work/life and career in academia. You’ll learn to define your unique research profile and “zone of genius,” so that you can work with what you do best in the way that works best for you. You’ll also to envision your ideal career and dream research project and get tips on how to plan to make it a reality .You’ll learn to take charge of your time so that you work smarter – not harder. And finally, a lot of beautiful dreams, visions, and plans have been killed by the inner critic and lack of confidence. Therefore, importantly, you will also learn to quiet the inner critic enough to be able to pursue your academic aspirations with more confidence.
How it works
The hybrid group coaching program means that you have access for 4 months to:
​
🧡 Four modules: Each module consists of a 20-40 minute lesson and three different assignments related to the module.
🧡 Four drop-in coaching sessions: Every month I host a LIVE drop-in coaching session. Here you can ask me anything and I will answer - or guide you to the right answer for you. The sessions are recorded so if you can't make them live, you can always watch the replay. The drop-in coaching session is every first Friday of the month at 12.00 CET/11 am UK TIME
🧡 Recorded live sessions: You also get access to previous drop-in coaching sessions for each module (from the latest live round of the course).
🧡 Community website: You will gain access to the modules, resources, drop-in coaching, chats, and everything via our community website.
🧡 Ask me questions anytime: You have the opportunity to post questions to me at any time, get them answered , and share your experiences with other participants. ​
​
​
​
Estibaliz, Senior Postdoc
Sanne's course has been inspiring and eye-opening in so many ways. It really makes you think about who you are and who you would like to become. It has really changed something inside me, I am more aware of my inner critics and I understand why they are there. Totally recommended!
Mette, Senior Scientist
I really like the course since it puts focus on the challenges that women face in academia, which we mostly are struggling with all on our own. It was a big relief to realize that many other women face similar problems, and it was helpful to get good tools and feedback from Sanne on how to work with overcoming the challenges to obtain a more fruitful and cheerful career.
Nana, Senior Lecturer
The course provides a safe space to explore your own motivations, thought processes, problems and place as a woman in academia. Sanne Frandsen guides and supports brilliantly during the different exercises and provides practical advice as well as suggestions for future reading. I really enjoyed this course and it has provided a useful platform for discussions with my female colleagues.
Who Am I?
I'm an associate professor in organization and management studies and an academic coach who has guided many women in academia to clarify their academic profiles, replacing self-doubt and setbacks with excitement, purpose, and productivity. My coaching approach is enriched by the principles of Women-Centered Coaching developed by Dr. Claire Zammit.
​
What am I all about?
I focus less on traditional masculine approaches such as goal setting and pushing through, and more on nurturing female values like community, connection, process, and creativity. I believe that to enact change in our lives, we must work with intention, shift our mindsets, and enhance our practices. From my own experience – having navigated through near-burnout twice as a post-tenure academic – I am passionate about helping others craft the academic careers they've dreamed of. I've successfully secured over 1 million euros in research funding, served as head of a section, been involved in professorial recruitment, published consistently, and still found joy and time with my family, friends, and hobbies outside academia, such as yoga, nature walks, arts and crafts, writing poetry, and yes, indulging in the guilty pleasure of Netflix!
Q&A
Q1: Who is this program for? This program was originally designed for mid-career, female academics - but I have found that also post-docs, lecturers and other more junior scholars looking to take charge of their work and career as found it helpful to sharpen their research profile and step confidently towards their career goals. It is not for early Ph.D. students, who typically work on their own projects.
​
Q3: How does it work? You can do the program as fast or as slow as you prefer. You have access to the modules, drop-in coaching, and support for four months. For each module, there is a recorded video with my instructions for the module. It takes 30-45 minutes to watch and you can watch it in your own time. Each month you can join the live drop-in coaching session to get all your questions answers. You also receive the recordings of a previous live “Community, coaching and conversation” in which you get insight into the ways previous participants have worked with the module. You can watch the recordings at your convenience. You will be invited to a community website, where you can find all recordings and engage with the other amazing female academics doing the course.
​
Q4: What is the focus of the program? You'll learn to define your unique research identity, create a vision/plan for your work, manage your time effectively, tackle the inner critic, and much more. Each module focuses on practical strategies to take charge of your academic journey and coaching conversations in the group to help you thrive in academia.
​
Q5: When are the live drop-in coaching sessions? Every first Friday of the month at 12.00 CET/11 AM UK time.
2024 dates are: 6 h of September, 4th of October, 1st of November and 6th of December.
Q6: I don't have time, what do I do? I know you have a busy schedule! The course is designed to be impactful yet manageable. It was originally 4 weeks long but many found it too stressful to complete amidst their busy academic lives. Now you have access for four months and monthly drop-in coaching sessions to get support and help in taking charge of your working life.
​
Q7: What does hybrid coaching program mean? The program is a hybrid of a self-study online course and a group coaching program. This means that there is recorded content that you can learn from at you own time AND there is support from me during drop-in group coaching sessions every months and the possiblity to interact with other members on our community website. This ensures accountability and help to get you through the different modules and make substantial changes to your academic working life.
​
Q8: Can I share this with colleagues? Yes, please do! The more, the merrier.
Q9: How do I sign up? Sign up below to register.
​
​
Eva, Associate Professor
Many courses and initiatives focus on early career academics- but many women struggle in their mid career, post-tenure academic life - e.g. to reach full professor positions, to create time for our own publishing work or to do other things we find important. And still face a number of structural and cultural barriers which often work behind our backs and therefore also often stay as individualised problems. This course fills very effectfully into that void. The mix of literature based, hands on tools and methods on one hand and building a community of female mid career academics on the other works very well to create a supporting environment for female carreers to take off. Sanne's warm and honest approach makes it a pleasant journey too!
Fiona, Associate Professor
I appreciated that the course covered a variety of relevant topics from the abstract/big picture to the concrete/detail-oriented. The practical exercises that Sanne designed for each module really helped me to put the ideas into practice and gave me the confidence to start exploring new ways of shaping my career.
Marianne, Associ Professor
Great tools to define myself as a researcher, improve my focus, and optimize my time; help to start thinking about and answering some of the career-defining questions you typically have as a mid-career researcher; and a sense of community - I am not alone in this, in thinking the thoughts about my career and academia that I do, in having imposter syndrome, in finding it difficult to juggle all the academic balls, in finding my own way, etc. (Marianne, Associate Professor)