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2007 ALA Annual Conference Session

Kathryn Deiss: Find the shimmer and shine in your organization and promote it!

Ms. Deiss, Content Strategist at the Association of College and Research Libraries, began with an analogy that points to the difficulty of addressing change. Identifying trends and patterns [and then adjusting staff to meet these changes] is a bit like picking out patterns in a flock of starlings in flight, a near impossible task.

Use creative strategies to identify trends from fads

When is something new and just a fad and when is it a trend and an emerging pattern? Sometimes, Ms. Deiss suggested, identifying what isn't changing helps develop the context in which to identify what is changing.

Test your mental models and test them "insistently," she advised. Change your perspective frequently. How do others view your service? Mission? Task? Ask why we believe what we believe? One leadership guru suggests that we ask why we're doing five times and that this can lead to a deeper understanding of one's assumptions. Sustain the old and new only as long as they support your institution's intentions.

Encourage divergent opinions and ideas

Dissent is valuable and helps lead to creative decisions. Staff that have alternate views are important to honing shared values. Allow the disapproving position. Create a space in which ideas are shared openly and not judged. You can test all ideas through whatever filters are necessary for the institution later.

Share the leadership

Ms. Deiss argued that shared leadership can maximize a library's capacity to respond to change, to create and adapt. Ask how staffing reflects the library's goals? How should a library organize itself to achieve its goals? Try out new organizational identities. Try it out in conversations first to help get the creative thinking going. Ask what the library would look like if we were NATO? A school library? An academic library?

Ms. Deiss concluded with a quote by Robert E. Quinn, Professor at the University of Michigan School of Business, "We have two choices, slow death, deep change" and recommended Deep Change: Discovering the Leader (1996) by Quinn.

Tara Lynn Fulton spoke of leading in an environment of rapid growth.

Dean of Library and Information Services and Associate Provost at Lock Haven University, Stevenson Library, Ms. Fulton described the challenges of the library as the college rapidly grew from 3,500 to 5,000 students over a period of several years. Library staffing, however, did not change, with 14 staff, 50% professional and 50% support, struggling to meet the increased demands for services.

Outside consultant hired

The library hired Marilyn Hamilton to develop a program for the reorganization of staffing that was non-threatening and in which opportunities for change were viewed as benefiting both the library and the staff.

Change made comfortable

Staff were engaged in personal dialog and small group discussions as plans were made to reorganize staffing. Staff were given non-threatening opportunities to adopt new organizational identities and to train for new jobs.

Teams replace departments

Reorganization of the staff was viewed important to organizational outcomes. Over a period of two years, library staff was reorganized. Teams replaced departments. Both professional and support staff served on these teams. Ad hoc teams were formed for specific projects. Staff can annually choose different roles and serve on different teams. Staff can have multiple organizational identities.

Irene Herold: Addressing dysfunction

As a new director of the Mason Library at Keene State College, New Hampshire, Ms. Herold a described a library where departments had become dysfunctional and breakdowns in communication between key components of the library were the order of the day. There was a recognition among staff and others that change was needed.

Kotter's eight-step framework

Ms. Herold adopted the eight-step framework for change that was developed by Harvard Business School professor John P. Kotter (Leading Change, 1996) as her guide.

The eight steps are:

• Establish a sense of urgency
• Create the guiding coalition
• Develop a vision and strategy
• Communicate the change vision
• Empower broad-based action
• Generate short-term wins
• Consolidate gains and produce more change
• Anchor new approaches in the culture.Kotter's 8-stage process

Ms. Herold acknowledged that Kotter's approach has been criticized as being manipulative. But she argued that Kotter's approach does create an atmosphere of crisis and that can help motivate staff to participate in a process of change.

Administrative Team Retreat and Strategic Plan

Ms. Herold also spoke of forming a new administrative team as part of her approach to directing needed changes. The team first met with her in a two-day leadership retreat and used Patrick M. Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (2002) as a focus for the retreat. The team then developed a strategic plan that provided the framework for the change needed in the library.

Susan M. Cambell: Leading facility-driven change

Susan M. Campbell, Director of York College of Pennsylvania library, shared her experience in leading a reorganization of staff during a major building renovation.

The library hired an outside consultant to develop staff training and reorganization.

A leadership group was formed to consider facility and staff reorganization. A retreat was scheduled for the group that focused on building trust. A leadership inventory to help staff self-identify their leadership style was used.

Opportunities for staff development were provided regionally and nationally. In-house training was also provided.

Ms. Campbell finished with a quote from Abraham Lincoln, "The good thing about the future, is that it comes one day a time."

Suggested Reading:

Robert E. Quinn. Deep Change: Discovering the Leader, 1996.

John P. Kotter. Leading Change, 1996.

Patrick M. Lencioni. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, 2002.

2007 ALA Annual Conference Session

Joyce Ogburn: What leadership gurus (thought) think.

Ms. Ogburn, Director of the Mariott Library at the University of Utah, provided a precis of recent management and leadership theory. She argued that having a sound understanding of leadership in a time of change is crucial to a leader's success. She warned that past strengths can limit a leader's effectiveness in a changing environment unless she or he is reflective, curious, and open to new ideas.

The classic view of a manager is that of an administrator, a good soldier, someone who takes the short view. The classic view of leadership is that of someone who takes the long view and is an innovator. But times of change require a focus on multiple constituencies and skills that bring into question such a sharp dichotomy between these two roles.

For further examination of management and leadership theory, Ms. Ogburn recommended the following.

Warren G. Bennis. On Becoming A Leader: The Leadership Classic, (Revised edition) 2003.

Joseph C. Rost. Leadership for the Twenty-First Century, 1993. Describes the role of leadership as a relationship of influence and the role of management as an authority relationship.

John P. Kotter. Leading Change, 1996. Provides a framework within which a sense of urgency is created, one that empowers others to act to create short-term improvements and then build on these improvements.

Daniel Goleman. Working with Emotional Intelligence, 2000. Explores the importance of emotional intelligence to leadership in business. Self awareness, confidence and a self-deprecating sense of humor are important characteristics.

Barbara C. Crosby and John M. Bryson. Leadership for the Common Good: Tackling Public Problems in a Shared-Power World, 2005. The authors explore multiple types of leadership, particularly collaborative leadership.

Thomas Felton: Leading in times of change and resistence.

Mr. Felton, Regional Branch Services Director for Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, observed that for some, the library profession is slow to respond to change and quoted David Seaman "We’re moving the profession one funeral at a time."

The pressure on Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, however, to change was irresistible. The population of Las Vegas doubled in 10 years from 1.1 million to 1.9 million. And although library circulation doubled, staffing did not.

The Library District looked to establish efficiencies where it could and use emerging technologies to help meet its challenges. The library introduced RFIDs, retail-friendly services, and self-check technology.

There was considerable staff and patron resistance to these innovations. The resistance was overcome by careful planning and engaging the staff and public. The district established the planning process MEET: Model efficiencies & emerging technologies. It strove to use the "power of full engagement" and focus on the individual growth of staff.

Mr. Felton advised that libraries facing change

• Face the truth and take action.
• Define your purpose and clarify your values.
• Develop mission statements that reflect your values values.
• Develop a strategic plan that create services and programs that reflects your values.

Mr. Felton argued that it's useful to employ scenario planning, a type of planning that helps to anticipate the future. Create stories to help anticipate what can go right and what can go wrong in your scenarios and anticipate how you will respond. Identify key forces - staff, local politics, etc., when developing your scenarios.

Kathryn Deiss: Rewrite your library narrative

Ms. Deiss, Content Strategist at the Association of College and Research Libraries, cautioned that creating order and responding to disorder reflect powerful and innate drives in people. Grouping and categorizing are habits of mind. They are inescapable and everyday activities. Establishing order is a hedge against chaos. (See String Too Short To Be Saved by Donald Hall.) Leaders need to recognize this when responding to change.

What happens, Ms. Deiss asked, when our order is up-ended, particularly when assumptions behind collections in libraries are impacted and where instead of everything having its place, anything can be anywhere like it is on the web? (See Everything is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger.)

Even as order is exploding there's an explosion of organizing tools. And although research shows that too many choices can lead to paralysis, there are emerging technologies that will support as well as direct change.

Libraries need to embrace new tools and technologies. Libraries need to prototype and forget about waiting until it gets everything right before rolling out new services. Libraries need to become comfortable living with "Beta."

And changes in perception need to follow changes in reality. Libraries need to test their mental models against changing realities. For example, How will the emergence of social networking impact library services?

She quoted Betty Sue Flowers, Director LBJ Library, "We may not be able to predict the future but we can shape the narrative." She argued that story shapes culture and that story determines confidence. Libraries need to be in control, are in control, of their own narratives.

Ms. Deiss ended with a quote from the European business guru Luc de Brabandere, "we don’t see the world as it is; rather we see it as we are." It takes creative and collaborative leadership to overcome this.

Suggested reading:

David Weinberger. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, 2007.

Barbara C. Crosby and John M. Bryson. Leadership for the Common Good: Tackling Public Problems in a Shared-Power World, 2005.

Warren G. Bennis. On Becoming A Leader: The Leadership Classic, (Revised edition) 2003.

Daniel Goleman. Working with Emotional Intelligence, 2000.

John P. Kotter. Leading Change, 1996.

Joseph C. Rost. Leadership for the Twenty-First Century, 1993.

Donald Hall. String Too Short To Be Saved, 1979.