16 posts tagged “leadership/management”

Once again, I have put aside enough posts on the topic of bad bosses to make a post about it. These are mostly food for thought. I am sure someone could write some substantial post on bad bosses as they related to libraries and library administration, but I personally don't feel like doing it at the moment. A common theme in some of these posts seems to be what can we learn from those bad bosses.

• Lifehacker asks "How Do You Deal with a Bad Boss?" It is an invitation to their readers to comment, but it is also discussing a bit about entitled Working for You Isn't Working for Me. The book may be something to consider reading at some point. A key point here is knowing what it is about your boss that irks or bothers you, then find a way to cope, or as I say, decompress after work. 
• The Effing Librarian tells us to "Prepare for the Scottish Librarian Invasion." It deals with a story of certain library administrators basically deprofessionalizing their staff and a few other boneheaded things administrators tend to do that demoralize their workers. A must read. Effing Librarian also has a short one on why he is a bad librarian. This was one I could identify with, and it has been something I have been wanting to write about. Maybe it goes back the idea I have seen in some circles where, if a librarian expresses little to no interest in a "leadership" position (read: management) due to having bad experiences with management, then he must have a bad attitude. I have pondered a bit of that before, but not sure what else to do with it.
  
• Bob Sutton, one of my favorites on this topic, asks "Do You Learn More From Working for a Bad Boss than a Good Boss?" He is making the point that bad bosses force you to learn about situations and yourself. After all, when the boss is good and all is well, you are not really as reflective. This may be worth some thought. Mr. Sutton also raises a very good question, which I think would make a nice writing prompt for me one of these days: "What is the most important thing you ever learned NOT TO DO from working for a bad boss?"
  
• I saved this piece not so much for anything deep but because it has a draft memo for when you have to convince your boss to let you go to a conference. (via The Liminal Librarian). Then again, if you have to convince your boss why your professional development is important, how it will better serve the organization, and how it is an investment in you as an asset to the organization, then you may have bigger problems.

And for the random reader who may be interested, here are Part 1 and Part 2 of this rambling series.
 

Being employed means that I work for somebody. Notice I did not say "self-employed." I read someplace that the definition of work is having to do something you would rather not do in some place you would rather not be in the company of people you would rather not be with. Now my current work situation is not that extreme, but as I tell people who ask, some days are better than others. I have recently read a few more items dealing with issues of workplace and management, so I wanted to make some notes here with a bit of quick commentary.

The links:

• Bob Sutton has a great post on "You Better Start Treating Your People Right, or the Best Will Be Leaving Soon." I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Sutton's idea that you have to treat your workers right. It seems horror stories of how corporations treat their workers like cannon fodder abound. The library world is no exception. Just take a peek at the library mofo blog, and you will find a parade of stories of bosses who treat their workers like dirt. Sutton makes a great point, which I would like to quote for my rare reader here: "But if you have treated people like dirt during the tough times (for a horror story, see here), have been inept about how you have implemented tough decisions (see here) or have simply been clueless about your people's perspective during these tough times (see here), you may have been able to keep great people working for you during these tough times and to hire some of the best. You can be sure, however, that they have told their friends about how much your company or you suck.  They are waiting for things to get better, and perhaps encouraged by the signs the labor market is coming back, are probably doing their jobs extra well these days to enhance their reputation for that coming job search.  So you may be fooling yourself into believing all is well when it is not." That last part is something that I can certainly see: your good workers may be just be doing extra well now so you, the boss, can give them a good reference when their time comes to go into the job market. Sure, the economy may be tight, and you can't give raises or financial incentives, but even if you were able to give money, money is not everything if you are treating your employees in a poor manner. Mr. Sutton's post is something every manager, including library administrators, need to read.
  
• There will be times when you could get blamed for something your colleague did. So, here are some things to do "when a colleague's mistakes affect you." Sometimes you may need to help out, but other times you may have to confront, and always remember to protect yourself. This was an old lesson I learned when I first became a public school teacher: document everything, and cover your ass. In essence, no one is going to protect you, so you have to protect yourself. You don't need to brag, but you do need to make your contributions known and clear to the organization. That reality has not changed. (h/t to Lifehacker.) 
• There may also be times when you will be in charge of a team. Or you may have just moved into management. Here is "Motivating Your Team--What to Do (and What to Avoid)." (via Dumb Little Man). 
• When you have a day off, it means a day off. It does not mean you check your e-mail or call the workplace. It is your day, take it off. Period. If you need a reminder of how to take a day off or what to do, here is "How to Really Take a Day Off From the Madness of Life." This is a reminder to take some "me time" now and then. I will admit that I am not as good about taking time off as I should, but when I do, I do unplug completely from work. And when I leave the library at the end of the day, the library stays behind. After all, I do need to keep my sanity. (via Dumb Little Man). 
• Here is more advice to workers: "How to Make Yourself Indispensable at Work." I think that some of the advice in that post is common sense. Unfortunately, for some people, you do have to tell them basic things like minding their manners and acting in a civil manner towards others. The first item on the list is very important: do your job and do it well. Personally, I think that is basically the goal in my life. Thus I hate the classic interview question of "where do you see yourself five years from now?" or some similar question. My answer, the honest answer, is that I want to do be doing my job and doing it well. And before anyone questions me about saying it is my "honest answer," take an honest look at the job interview process. You know both sides will use little white lies now and then during the process. At least, for that question, I tend to be honest because if I get negative feedback on it (namely, I did not lie to them and tell them I want to be a manager or other), I probably don't want to work for them. By the way, I think reading this post goes along nicely with Sutton's post above. (via Dumb Little Man; man, they do put out some good stuff, huh?). 
• Here is another one from Bob Sutton. He is pointing to a Forbes magazine column on getting rid of jackass clients. Up front, I will say that this is not always an option in librarianship. Whether you are in a public library that has to let everyone in (and it usually takes some extreme incident before some jackass gets banned) or an academic library where either some students or certain faculty can display jackass behavior (and you can't really ban them unless the behavior is so egregious it borders on dangerous), you will have to keep a good face and march ahead. This is probably why I will never be a library administrator or manager. I have no tolerance for jackasses or assholes. If I run the library, and you behave like a jackass, you are gone, even if it means I have to call the cops to get you out. Life is too short to deal with jackasses, as Shaun Rein, author of the Forbes piece, points out. Jackasses do damage to your organization. This is very applicable to libraries. If your library develops a reputation of being the place where rude people hang out, where disruptive and loud people are regularly present, and so on, rest assured your best clients will take their business elsewhere. Stop coddling misbehavior in the name of being welcoming or open to all.
  
• I have not had the chance to watch this yet. Dan Pink on "Overcoming the 'Candle Problem' and Rethinking Motivation." (via Lifehacker). 
• And more advice for workers: "9 Qualities That Will Rock Your Career." (via Dumb Little Man). There is some very good advice here on traits that good workers should possess and cultivate.
  
• And as if things were not bad enough, it can be harder to get hired during a recession (but not due to the reasons you may think). The post, via Crooks and Liars, discusses a Wall Street Journal article that says "Only the Employed Need Apply, Companies Say." This caught my eye because some of what is discussed is pretty rampant in the librarian profession. When it comes to hiring, especially as of late, libraries will prefer the most experience possible (even if the job is actually advertised as entry level), and in particular, a lot of libraries will try to cram two or even three job descriptions into one job. As Susie Madrak, writing for Crooks and Liars, says, "the other annoying thing that happens during a recession is that employers start demanding all sorts of unrelated skill sets in one person (figuring they'll get them to do two jobs for the price of one)." Just take a look at some of the library job postings out there. When you see something like desire for cataloger who is fluent in Persian and Farsi, can do library instruction, and supervise student workers, you know they either have an internal candidate already lined up (but they have to advertise the job anyways due to some bureaucratic rule), or they are trying to get one candidate to do three different jobs. In such a case, I think Madrak's advice is good, even if you think turning down the job in this economy is a bad idea: "I'd advise you against taking a job like that even if it's offered - no matter how bad the economy is, it's not worth the heart attack you'll probably get." Or, don't take a library job that sucks, to borrow the term coined by the Annoyed Librarian. 
• A couple more tips from Bob Sutton. First, he points to a cool quiz on "Does Your Work Matter to You?" (link to the quiz itself). Second, he points to the blog Unemploymentality blog. I have to take another look at that blog, maybe add it to my feed reader. 
• From the Anecdote blog, here is "Building a Collaborative Workplace with Stories." It is a presentation you have to view online. 
• The folks from Anecdote also remind us that "Saying Thanks is Important for Collaboration." I say that saying thank you any time it is needed should be a given.
  
• Bob Sutton also has some thoughts on business language that makes him squirm. It makes me squirm too, and the sad thing is I am seeing a lot of that language sneaking up in librarianship. In some cases, it is no longer sneaking up; it is becoming part of the landscape, and no, it is not a good thing. This reminds me a book I read a while ago, that I need to look over again: The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit by Lois Beckwith. 

Roy Tennant wrote a list of "The Top Ten Things Library Administrators Should Know About Technology." What caught my eye on this were the items dealing more with people. Maybe it is because I am not a "techie" librarian like a lot of the celebrity libloggers are. Or maybe because I tend to think that your technology is only as good as the people you have running it. The idea of good people managing your library's technology has been on my mind lately, and if I was passing this on to my boss, I would especially highlight the following items from the list:

• "Maximize the effectiveness of your most costly technology investment -- your people." Mr. Tennant makes a good point about making sure you have good resources for your people. Don't bog them down with cheap or less than the best equipment. But I will also say to turn that equation around. Don't go around skimping on good people either. You need to hire good people to manage your technology. Just like library administrators have a specific skill set, which may or not include technological prowess, tech people also have a unique skill set, and it is one not all librarians or library staff have or desire to have (and I say this in terms of temperament, not unwillingness to learn). If you know you are going to need a good systems analyst or similar, hire one. Don't try to skimp by tossing the responsibility to another overworked professional in your library who may not have the full range of skills or the temperament to do it. And don't say "they can learn it" when you define "learning it" as just hand them a folder and hop to it. That's not right.
  
• "A major part of good technology implementation is good project management." Indeed. Again, this goes to the idea that everyone has different skills. It also goes back to the idea that you need good planning, and that you need to be proactive, not reactive. In other words, plan ahead and don't wait for the crisis to happen.
  
• "The single biggest threat to any technology project is political in nature." I think what Mr. Tennant wrote here pretty much speaks for itself. To administrators, he asks: "Are you willing to throw your political support behind it? Are you willing to invest the resources required to make it a success? Will you marshall the entire organization to support, promote, and use this new site or service? If not, simply don't bother." As I always say, put your money where your mouth is, otherwise, shut up. 

Anyhow, my quick two cents. I may add to this later, or probably just add it along to another post with a few other things about library managers.

A couple of things have been buzzing in my mind lately. One issues about bad bosses. The other a recent post I read that librarians who do not want to be managers, let alone appreciate bad ones, and complain about it somehow have a "bad attitude." I have been wanting to reply to that for a while, but as usual, time has been tight. But I hope to get to it eventually. Bottom line: I happen to be one of those librarians, and if it's a problem to you up in your ivory tower, tough.

In the meantime, these are a few things I have been reading and picking up on my feed reader. I hope I can draw on some of this to write something more thoughtful later.

• From the blog Dumb Little Man, here is "How to be a great boss." The third item on his list, "delegate--then stay hands off" is one of my favorites. Nothing annoys me more than a boss who thinks they are "helping" with "suggestions" after they assign you a task. Tell me what you want, then stay the hell out of my way. When I am done, I will let you know. Micromanaging is not going to get it done any faster unless you want to do it yourself.
• This is not so much about bad bosses, but it is something for bosses to consider nonetheless. From Mashable, "Friending your employees: What are the rules?" The rules are pretty basic. I think overall, the best answer may well be no. And if you are an employee, and your boss asks to friend you, you may want to decline. At any rate, people should know by now to be careful what they post online given the potential someone you don't want to see it may see it anyways.
  
• I keep finding over time that a lot of bosses simply do not know how to manage a meeting. This is something that interests me, maybe because I have been victimized by one bad meeting too many. I could tell you all sorts of horror stories, and they usually due to some manager who just does not know how to control or run a meeting. From Dumb Little Man, here is "How to get more from Live Meetings." 
• Lifehacker has an interesting post on "Why the manager's schedule blows creative productivity." I have had bosses guilty of this: have no understanding of what us creative types do and the kind of time we need to do it in. For instance, "when managers schedule makers into midday meetings, they kill creative productivity in real but not-obvious ways." I know at least one manager who does this consistently. It's a miracle I get anything done.
  
• Bob Sutton speaks a bit more on "You know your boss is a certified asshole when. . . ." He is expanding a bit on the issue of asshole bosses and collateral damage that he wrote about previously. Sutton also highlights an article he had published in Harvard Business Review (June 2009) on "How to be a good boss in a bad economy." I have to look it up sometime and have a look.
  
• Via Copyblogger, here are "7 types of people everyone wishes would just shut the **** up." I include this here to go with the post about meetings noted above. This is because you often see these asshats during meetings, and they tend to be people that the boss fails to control or manage. And speaking of certain people, Sutton discusses the "Sir, we don't actually do what we propose. We just propose it" syndrome. And I know just that type of person.
  
• Bob Sutton recommends a book called I Hate People. The post is here. I have added it to my TBR list. Not just about bad bosses but also about those not so nice coworkers.
  
• This sounds like some meetings I have attended. For bosses, maybe decision by committee, or trying to please everyone to get the precious consensus, is not the best way to go. Here is "what would happen if the Stop sign was invented in 2008" via Public Sector Marketing 2.0 blog. 

I have an interest in leadership as a subject. I also have an interest in topics about bosses and managers, in large part because I am "managed" by others, so to speak. I am not my own boss. I always make the distinction between management and leadership. Leaders can be managers, but not all managers can be leaders. In fact, a lot of managers are lousy both at managing and in leadership.

These are some items I have come across recently in relation to bosses that have caught my eye:

From Bob Sutton's blog:

• Sutton comments on a post by Scott Berkun that discusses "Top ten reasons managers become assholes."
  
• Sutton asks "Do  you end meetings on time?" Another big peeve of mine. It is not just bosses who do not know  how to allot time efficiently for meetings, but bosses that simply do not know how to run a meeting at all. The second item on the post's list--boss not dealing with blabbermouths-- is something I encounter continuously. Sometimes, you have to have the guts to tell some self-important blabbermouth to shut the fuck up. If you are the boss, that is your job. Do it.
  
• Sutton gives an interview on the topic of "Good boss, bad times."
  
• "The effects of asshole bosses on victim's families, friends and partners." Sutton looks at the collateral damage that an asshole boss can have on those close to the victim. When the victim brings the pain and effects of an asshole boss home, it throws the rest of the household into turmoil. Your relationship with your spouse can suffer, and so on. This is something worth thinking about, and yet it is not often considered.
  
• "How to avoid being a nasty, clueless, and idiotic boss during the downturn." He cites advice telling bosses to really listen. This often has been the case in my experience where a boss pretends to listen, but you already know that they will pretty much do whatever they want anyways. In other words, the boss's mind is already made up before they even asked for your view or opinion. It is basically an exercise in futility and pretense, and personally, I do find it a lack of respect on the part of the boss when they do that. 

From Inside Higher Ed:

• Dean Dad looks at "When the Boss is Awful." I think at times the dean does defend bosses a bit much. In my opinion, there are times when a boss is an asshat pure and simple. No amount of searching for a "reasonable explanation" will do in such cases. And such assholes, to use Sutton's term, should not be tolerated in academia or elsewhere. 

From CIO:

• "How to deal with jerks at work." They are interviewing Bob Sutton about his book, The No Asshole Rule. When it comes to the book, it should be required reading as far as I am concerned; see my review of the book here. As for this particular interview, there are some gems worth reviewing, and not just for bosses.
  

I get the KM World Magazine in print at work. I am not sure who started the subscription, but I am the one getting it now. Most of the time I scan it, but once in a while I come across something that catches my eye. This small article in the April 2009 issue by Art Murray seemed a bit too idealistic, but it had a nugget or two that I think is worth a thought. Then again, librarians are not the demographic of this publication, but in our line of work I think we should be reading stuff like this every once in a while.

The nuggets then:

• First: "Even after the network sees itself, nothing happens until knowledge flows freely across the connections. It’s ironic that resistance is greatest at the very time when knowledge sharing is needed the most. The common objection is, 'Why should I share what I know when I may not be around tomorrow?' The answer is that in many ways a lack of sharing is what got us here, and it only continues to make a bad situation worse. The problems we are facing are complex and demand collective brainpower coupled with strong leadership."
  
• We do need the collective brainpower. I just worry when you are lacking the strong leadership. Or worse, when the leadership simply does not see the value of your unit and chooses to ignore it. Better coordination to get that collective brainpower is helpful as well.
  
• Second: "The success stories of after-action reviews and other lessons-learned techniques have become mainstream. Yet, except for the U.S. Army and a few other organizations, the knowing-doing gap remains wide. The excuses run the gamut: not enough time, little or no incentives, etc. But one reason you might have to cut costs and lay off people is because you’ve been spending 30 percent or more of your project dollars correcting repeated errors. Developing a culture of making mistakes once would go a long way toward addressing budget concerns." 
• We have got to stop reinventing the wheel, and usually for the worse. Sure, in library land we have plenty of bloggers who do some reflective writing outside of the usual "we did this cool thing" post. But often they may be blogging it. But do their organizations actually see it? I have always been advocate of learning from our experiences, of getting out the best ideas from what we do after we do it. But in this constant rush, finding the actual time to do it is difficult when most everyone cares about simply keeping their heads above water. For some librarians, their blogs are what helps them do some of the learning after an activity.
  
• The author's solution: "Formalize and habituate learning before, during and after a task or project."
  
• This should be a basic operating philosophy.
  

One of the candidates for the Assistant Director for Research and Instructional Services position gave a small presentation as part of the campus visit process. The candidate declined the job offer, and I will not go into why because it is the kind of conversation better had in a bar late at night after a few beers (preferably with the local politicos out of sight). Anyhow, I did like some of what he had to say, and I took down some notes. The topic was on balancing library services for undergraduate and graduate students. This is mostly going to be bullet points for me to recall what was presented. Comments in parenthesis are mine:

• Undergraduates.
  
• Difference between 1st year students and upper division. Skill sets and desires differ (this is something that very often is not discussed or considered in discussing services for undergraduates. And I don't recall seeing a lot of it in the literature either.)
• Concentration on required courses. Ex. the ENG 101.
  
• Attitude of "for the grade" and "give 'em what they want--not what they need."
  
• Graduates:
  
• Have advanced research needs.
  
• Emphasis on projects and scholarship. Trying to emulate their faculty. More rigorous expectations and concern with publishing.
  
• They place high demands on ILL and Document Delivery.
• Grad students often have dual roles: as instructor and student.
  
• "Give them what they need, not what they want."
  
• Balancing the issues:
  
• Alignment of library services with the [campus] academic plan. There has to be services' suitability to objectives and achievements of undergraduate programs.
  
• Utilization of resources (referring to human, physical, and financial).
  
• Appropriateness of program's structure (a curriculum for educational objectives).
• Appropriateness of delivery mode and assessment practices.
  
• Possible solutions:
  
• Complete an assessment. Figure out what's going on. Where are the students going? This gives a grounding for program building. (I am glad he did speak on assessment. For one, assessment seems to be the big trend now, but it is an important tool. One thing we do need to be finding out here is where the students are going. Recently I took a walk to the new Student Center complex. I saw lots of soft seating and gathering areas, good for study groups, and I thought to myself, "here is our competition, and serious competition it is." Now if I could get some others to listen, but that is a separate deal).
  
• Use the ACRL Best Practices for Information Literacy (this is kind of a given). 
• Importance of the library liaison/subject specialist. This is where the advocates are. This is very important, but it is difficult at times to explain and support. There is a need to get faculty to see past their agendas (tell me about it).
  
• Virtual reference and additional reference resources (we recently started providing virtual reference, with mixed results, but we may need to give it more time).
  
• Additional staffing (we are in the middle of trying to remedy this. Results are mixed so far). 

Presentation took place on February 6.
 

We are in the process of hiring what is called an "Assistant Director for Research and Learning Services." I am not quite sure what that all entails, but I do know it means me getting a new boss (or rather "sub-boss," a layer between me and the library director). At any rate, we recently had a candidate on campus for that position. I had made some notes of possible questions I would have wanted to ask. I did not get them all answered, mostly due to time restraints. Anyhow, I figured I would post the questions here. They may be useful to someone out there in a similar position.

The questions (with some brief comments):

• How do you--as a manager, administrator, or concerned professional--encourage, recruit, assist, and retain (younger) staff? (I added the "younger" mostly because I was reading something about generations and attracting young librarians to the profession. What I really would want to know are the views as applicable to all staff. Maybe should have left "younger" out.)
  
• Management style/philosophy.
  
• Communication style/preferences. (I am more of a face to face person. I hate using the phone, and I prefer using e-mail when it means I can't see someone in person. Other people have different preferences, thus the question.)
  
• Views on the purposes of instruction, reference, and outreach. (This person is mostly to supervise and coordinate the reference, outreach, and instruction operations. This is my job, reference and outreach, and one other librarian, our instruction librarian. Thus knowing this answer would be crucial to us.)
• Views and position on backing up library employees. (We get enough situations here where we have to enforce rules, and we need to know we will have someone watching our backs. Personally, I have been in situations where a supervisor did not have my back when it came to an unruly patron with an inflated sense of entitlement.)
• What is the most difficult situation you've faced? How did you handle it?
  

I am doing some tidying up of my desk at work, and I came across some notes I made. Unfortunately, I did not date the little scrap of paper nor jot down where I got these questions from. My guess is it was some book I was reading at the time, and I had to drop it at the moment, forgetting about the notes. Anyhow, this seems useful enough that I am jotting the questions down here.

On risk assessment, questions employees should consider:

• What business are you in?
  
• Who are your customers?
  
• What do they need and want?
  
• What does that say about what you are trying to accomplish?
  
• How will you know you have been successful?
  

As I look these over again, it looks like I was probably doing some reading on library services and marketing them. At least, that seems to be what I was thinking at the time since I am starting to think of some possible answers for my current workplace.

This is pretty much another link dump of items I have seen on leadership and management, some of which can relate to librarianship. They are mostly items I want to remember, maybe reflect about later.

• Mary Carmen of Circ and Serve posts about "Doing What You Say and the Personal." I don't know about the rest of you, but if there is anything I hate are people who don't do what they say. I live by the simple mantra of "say what you do and do what you say."
  
• From Anecdote, "Starting a Community of Practice." This has some activities to foster collaboration in the workplace. The concept of community of practice is one I find interesting, and I wonder if we could make it more applicable or relevant to libraries.
  
• Helene B of Library Bytes talks about the "L Formula." This draws on something Stephen Covey wrote, and Helene links to it so you can see the complete item. I am not quite sure leadership is something anyone can choose as Covey suggests, but it is food for thought.
  
• Peter Bromberg of Library Garden talks about "Five Questions That Will Improve Your Effectiveness." He is drawing from the book Leadership Simple: Leading People to Lead Themselves.
• Meredith Farkas asks "How Healthy is Your Organization?" This one should be required reading for a good number of library managers. 
• Stephen Covey in his blog comments on "Becoming the Leader of Your Boss." I don't always agree with Covey, but I may consider adding his blog to my feed reader.
  
• Tyler Rosseau of Library Garden writes another post that I think should be mandatory reading for library managers: "Do We Encourage Our Employees to Leave?" I know I have given thought to that once or twice myself, places that encourage you to move on. And I always felt uncomfortable when a manager says, "they started here before they moved on" or something like it.