This last chapter will consider a number of practical ways in which scholars who are interested in researching and writing differently can engage with it from the very beginning of their research journey. First, the chapter provides some reflection on the meaning of failure in the context of academia, researching and writing differently. Caring spaces and collective practices around writing differently will be presented as ways to foster growth and community building. I will also outline a number of practical aspects that are especially relevant for doctoral students and early-career researchers, starting with reflections on writing a doctoral study differently and publishing (journal articles, chapters and books). Finally, I address the impact that researching and writing differently can have on scholars themselves, before offering some concluding thoughts on the key points discussed in the book.

Embracing failure and creating caring spaces

Failure is an inevitability of academia, and one that I feel we are not prepared enough for as doctoral students or early-career researchers. I do not mean to be unnecessarily negative, but failure is something that needs to be accepted as an integral part of the process of working in today’s academia. What is deemed to be ‘failure’ in contemporary neoliberal academia, and from whose perspective? Failure to get published, to get our texts accepted; failure to attract funding, or to get promoted; failure to be able to truly experience academic freedom; failure to enable ourselves and others to break away from unhealthy workplace dynamics; failure to find the time to read and think among a myriad of administrative tasks. The management and leadership literature itself, together with practitioner training and motivational speakers, have thrived on lessons based on the rejection of failure, strategies to avoid it and ways to mask it. Even in academia, somehow failure seems to only be embraced when it turns into a heroic narrative – like an academic entrepreneur who failed but never gave up on her idea and finally became a billionaire; a scientist who dedicated her whole life to finding a cure, failed innumerable times but then succeeded; the novel writer who approached a hundred publishers and got rejected by every one before finding a way to release her beautiful stories into the world and become internationally acclaimed. However, very often in real life there is no redemption to failure. And that’s OK.