Getting Tenure in Accounting: A Personal Account of Learning to Dance with the Mountain.

What are the skills and behaviors that help assistant professors get tenure in an accountancy department? Using the metaphor of learning to dance with the tenure "mountain," I describe my experiences with the tenure process. Based on these experiences, I offer eleven suggestions to Ph.D. students and assistant professors for managing their tenure process. These are: (1) make a substantive research contribution to accountancy, (2) do research you love, (3) acknowledge, accept and manage the nausea that accompanies writing, (4) do a lot of whatever works, (5) learn the craft of publishing in academe, (6) learn which aspects of teaching matter and to whom, (7) work with and benefit from one's colleagues, (8) work hard and hope that you are lucky, (9) manage "paradigmatic clash," (10) reduce stress by cultivating "free attention," and (11) learn to skillfully adapt to circumstances rather than carefully plan.