Kerrie Unsworth

Learning to juggle multiple goals – An example of how research & intervention innovations can emerge together

Abstract: Everybody is trying to manage multiple goals – whether you are an academic trying to juggle your teaching, research and administrative roles; a parent trying to juggle work and home roles; or a student trying to juggle their own expectations with university requirements. My colleagues and I started our research into this area by trying to help ourselves deal with our own motivation and well-being; it then developed into a professional development intervention which was tested and evaluated with research. The research then fed back into the interventions which we now use as a professional development tool across a variety of organisations and participants. In this talk, I will cover some of the key recommendations coming out of the research into managing multiple goals as well as how the research and intervention were intertwined.

Bio: Kerrie Unsworth is a Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Leeds University Business School. She is also Director of the Workplace Behaviour Research Centre, a research group dedicated to improving the world through better organisational behaviour. She is interested in understanding and helping people at work, including their motivation, pro-environmental behaviours, creativity, well-being and productivity. At the moment, her specific research interests focus on how people juggle their different goals and identities and the effect that has on their motivation and behaviours. She has published in a range of top academic journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology and Academy of Management Review and her work has received nearly 3000 citations. She is currently Head of the Management Division in Leeds University Business School.