Tag: Leadership

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Change – And Communication Required by Change

We’ve all seen it or experienced it: A substantial new change is introduced by a colleague, a boss, or some outside consultants and the people who are expected to actually implement the change stumble and make mistakes. Why does this keep happening? Here are four explanations (which are not necessarily mutually exclusive).

    1. The people making mistakes are dumb. This is a surprisingly common explanation from the people who design and roll out a change. However, because change associated errors are so common, it could only be true if most people are dumb, and that simply is not the case. People only appear dumb because that which is obvious to the designer is not always obvious to the people who have to learn the change, regardless of how bright or dumb they are. In the vast majority of cases, blaming the people who have to carry out the change simply makes no sense. Blame is neither accurate nor productive.
    2. The change is poorly explained. Despite thorough instructions, in many cases people simply may not have understood or remembered their instructions. Here’s why:
      • Not everyone learns the same way. Some people learn well through written instructions. Other people learn well through verbal instructions.   Still others are highly visual and need to see a demonstration of what they are learning before they can remember anything. If instructions are provided in only one form, learning preferences for some portion of the people who need to execution on a change are likely to be missed. When a change is complex, it’s a good idea to provide instruction both in writing and verbally. Also, keep in mind that some people, no matter how well they understand instructions, can’t really master something new until they do it. Surprisingly, this is particularly true of bright people who think in abstractions – like Einstein, Thomas Edison, and Steven Spielberg. It is usually best to allow someone who is learning a change to practice it; showing them is fine, but having them do it is better. Of course, having them do it is slower and requires vastly more patience on the part of the instructor, but the reduced error rate in later actions is well worth the time and tolerance.
      • Sometimes the instructions are not clear or complete. This goes back to the earlier point that what’s obvious to the creator is not always obvious to the users. In the early days of computer programming, first iterations of products were designed by engineers who could not understand why users didn’t automatically understand how to use their products. This phenomenon also appeared in the early days of PC software, again in the early days of the internet, and then again in the early days of mobile devices. The industry’s quite brilliant and imaginative engineers understood how to use their products because they had designed them; the users, however, were flummoxed. The same thing can happen with process changes in any work environment.
    3. People aren’t accustomed to change and habits are hard to break. In some work environments, especially environments in which people are expected to work robotically and follow the same patterns all the time, workers sometimes fall back on old habits and patterns. When tasks are reduced to mindless repetition, people who have been mindlessly following those patterns cannot be expected to quickly and easily abandon them. One way to avoid this problem is to reduce the expectation for robotic function in the workplace. People who routinely experience change and are routinely expected to be flexible find it easier to adopt change. In other words, the more change people experience, the easier it is for them to adapt to it when it happens.
    4. The people who are affected by the change weren’t involved in developing or rolling out the change.  People always find it easier to implement a change that they have had a hand in developing. For one thing, they understand why the change is designed the way it is. For another, they have probably been able to affect the design of the change so it suits them. Perhaps most importantly, however, they have had the opportunity to learn the change over time so, when it comes time to implement the change, the change feels familiar. In the end, if the people who are affected by a change have been involved in the development of the change, even if the change is not exactly as they would have designed it themselves, at least they are prepared to accept it and implement it as it is.

A final point about change and mistakes: sometimes mistakes reveal problems in the change itself, not in the people who are implementing the change. When a change is introduced, if people have trouble implementing it, perhaps the change itself needs further modification. People designing change should be prepared to change their changes as appropriate. Think of change as evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Here a few suggestions for avoiding problems when rolling out a change:

    • Early in the process of planning a change, involve the people who are affected by the change. Help people become familiar with the changes so the changes are already familiar when they are rolled out. Listen to what the people have to say so you can adapt the changes to accommodate their needs.
    • Provide both written and verbal instructions.
    • Ideally, let people practice. At a minimum, provide them with supervision the first time they have to work with the change.
    • Make change routine. A series of small changes may be easier to accommodate than a single big change.
    • Allow for mistakes. As Alexander Pope said, “To err is human.”
    • Learn from the mistakes people make. How can the changes be improved to avoid further mistakes? How can future changes be designed and rolled out such that they result in fewer mistakes?
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In a Team, Two Kinds of Communication are Essential

Do a Google search on “essential components of teamwork” and you’ll get a long list of articles on the subject. Teamwork is complicated and takes effort, but it can be much less complicated and take much less effort if the team communicates well.

There are two kinds of essential communication in teams. The first is vertical communication (top down and bottom up) and the other is horizontal communication (between teammates).

As obvious and intuitive as the above statement may be, poor communication probably causes more team failure than any other factor. Well-led teams are successful communicators in all directions on an ongoing basis.

Top down communication has to do with setting direction. Defining the goal. Everyone on the team must be working towards the same objective and each member of the team must prioritize that goal above self-interest. Top down communication is also how task assignments are determined, although this can, in good teams, be delegated to the team members to work out for themselves.

Bottom up communication is how team leaders get all kinds of information.

      • How well do team members understand the objectives and how committed is the team to achieving them? How efficiently is the team working? Are problems brewing?
      • How could the team work better? What improvements can be made so the team has a greater likelihood of success? What changes would result in less effort or lower costs?
      • What are customers saying about the product or service? What ideas do they have? How are their needs or interests evolving?
      • What could the team leader do better to ensure success of the team?

Horizontal communication may be the most important form of communication. This is the communication that allows team members to coordinate their actions in furtherance of their shared objectives.

When I was setting up a small US startup/subsidiary for a large Japanese company, we had a very aggressive time frame for achieving a set of goals. My VPs (software development, creative, operations, finance, and sales/marketing) and I would meet regularly to go over priorities and near term action items. Budget, labor resources, and skill sets in their respective departments had to be juggled to meet a series of milestones required to obtain further funding. Every time we encountered a problem or a change, we worked through those changes and the ways a change in one group’s output or activities would affect the other groups and their contributions.

Of course, each of the department heads had needs. Everyone was working against a tight schedule with limited resources, but by the time we ended each meeting, each team leader (and management team member) understood why resources were being allocated they way they were. Each VP understood what tradeoffs had been made and why. My role was not to make all the decisions, although imposing a decision was necessary from time to time. I talked as little as I could. My role was principally to guide the process, keep things moving (push for decisions), periodically remind everyone of the larger objective, and trust them to listen to and work with each other. We rarely achieved universal happiness over decisions, but everyone came away understanding why each decision was made and committed to executing with it. Working with that team was among the more enjoyable and rewarding experiences of my life.

Libraries rarely operate under the time crunches that early stage companies face, but, like early stage companies, libraries have to achieve objectives with limited resources. Building teams that communicate well so everyone understands what is being done by whom and how their work affects everyone else is essential in any organization that aspires to efficiency and effectiveness in achieving goals. Including libraries. Building a culture of open, complete, and ongoing communication at all levels of the organization is essential to building a winning team.

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Use Library “After Action Reviews” for Successes as Well as for Challenges

I grew up calling them “post-mortems.” You know, those horrible one-off meetings that are often held after something goes badly (eg: a grant application is denied or turnout for an event is abysmal). The objective is to figure out what went wrong and fix the mistakes. No one likes post-mortems because they mean facing failure and everyone comes away discouraged. The very name (“after-death”) is a turn-off. And libraries rarely have them.

And yet, I have always believed that constantly reviewing actions is essential to a healthy, productive organization. Such reviews are important both when something goes badly and when something goes very well indeed, thank you. I also believe they should be held for all sorts of events, large and small.

So let’s start with a name change. After Action Review (AAR) sounds more neutral and is a widely used term.

And let’s stop thinking of them as long, boring, discouraging meetings. Quick surveys and short, two paragraph reports posted on groupware for discussion are usually more useful forms of AAR than sit-down meetings.

I was pleased to hear a discussion of AARs as a core element of strategy on a recent episode of The Library Leadership Podcast. When learning becomes a core element of ongoing strategy, After Action Reviews can be seen as positive rather than negative exercises. Through them, the organization can learn from the community and from each other. Instead of resisting, staff and management embrace the practice and incorporate assessments into the organization’s culture. In addition to encouraging an outward looking orientation, AARs stimulate communication and idea sharing that is not merely reactive to negative circumstances but rather positive and forward looking.

Perhaps most importantly, AARs encourage constant change. Instead of doing things the same way every time year after year even as technology, community needs / interests, and staff skills change, AARs facilitate steady evolution from mediocre to good to excellent. They also make it possible to face failure when that happens (and it will) because staff will have the sense that positive outcomes outnumber the failures and failures are merely additional opportunities to learn, change and improve.

After an event, ask participants to quickly fill out a short survey. What did they like; what didn’t they like; what could be better? Get specific where you need to (speaker quality, etc), but make it easy for people to reply. After an event, ask staff to submit a short report on what went well and what could have gone better. Ask everyone for suggested improvements. Staff reports and summaries of surveys should be posted publicly on groupware so others can see, learn, and discuss as well.

For example, an AAR for response to a power outage might look something like this:

Management should make a point of reading AARs (another reason for keeping them concise) and responding. This way staff realize that the reports matter and can make a difference. We have all worked in environments in which suggestions and reports are requested or even required but no action is taken. Management sets the tone, so step up and interact.

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Podcasts on Library Leadership and Community Engagement

What are your favorite podcasts for staying current on library news and trends? I look for podcasts that focus on Community Engagement or Transformative Leadership in libraries. Here are a few that consistently include material relevant to one or the other (or both) of those subjects. If you know of another great podcast that addresses these issues, let me know using the “Contact me” link on the right.

Call Number with American Libraries presents “conversations with librarians, authors, thinkers, and scholars about topics from the library world and beyond.” Host Phil Morehart, communications manager for the American Library Association, is professional and focused on the topics, which he and his guests explore systematically and in depth. The length of each episode varies dramatically from 15 minutes to 45 minutes, though you should expect just over 30 minutes. The range in length seems to be a function of subject matter, the number of guests, and whether or not it’s a sponsored podcast. Many podcasts are not only purposeful but also fun, such as the late 2021 podcasts on Zombies (in October) and food (in November). Call Number is a great general-subject podcast for librarians and occasionally touches on topics related to community engagement, management, and transformational leadership.

Libraries Lead in the New Normal addresses strategic library leadership issues. It’s a little irregular, disorganized, and long-winded, but it is also highly relevant and insightful for library leaders. Many discussions look at how libraries fit in their communities and the role libraries play in society. Each podcast is 45 minutes to an hour long and includes one or more practicing librarians as guests. The hosts (R. David Lankes and Mike Eisenberg) ramble a bit, but the casualness also makes the podcasts entertaining and, again, the topics are fundamental to librarianship and the guests are interesting.

Library Leadership Podcast tends to adhere to important, day-to-day concerns about library management such as “Beating Burnout” and “Talking So Your Boss Will Listen”. It is tightly organized and professionally presented – it comes out regularly, the topics and the questions are  prepared in advance, and the host (Adriane Herrick Juarez) does a good job of staying focused. Each podcast is about 15 minutes long and consists of an interview with one librarian.

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Communication: Leadership’s Binding Agent

You’ve hired people with all the right skills, talent, and experience and you’ve given them the tools they need to perform their functions. And yet, patron services just aren’t clicking. Project pieces don’t fit together. And unresolved friction is the norm. Maybe patrons aren’t complaining, but the library’s image isn’t exactly shining either. In the end, some of those valuable people on your team-that’s-not-a-team leave, and you discover they aren’t necessarily leaving for better positions. They just want to work someplace else.

Where do you begin looking for the root cause behind the disfunction on a library team (or any team)? How do you know what to fix?

A good place to begin is communication, and look to yourself for figuring out what to fix. Let’s face it, survey after survey shows that librarians completing the Myers-Briggs personality profile (or almost any other personality profile) score high on introversion. That’s neither good nor bad. That’s just a fact, and as a library leader it’s something that you need to be aware of and work on, especially in your own communication.

Good leaders need to be good communicators in three ways:

      1. Outbound communication: Enlightening and listening to higher level management, the board, or the larger community, including patrons.
      2. Direction oriented communication: Talking to peers and staff about what your team’s overall objective is and how success will be recognized.
      3. Day-to-day communication: Staying on top of progress on tasks and coordinating problem solving.

These are interrelated communications, of course. Problem solving, for example, will always be conducted in the context of objectives. Weakness in any of these levels of communication, however, could spell failure.

A library team that does not listen to the larger community (especially listening to people who do not currently use the library) cannot possibly expect to meet the needs and interests of the community at a high level of satisfaction because it simply will not know what those needs and interests are. Library leaders are responsible for making sure that the community is heard and understood. Otherwise, the library will miss opportunities or produce services that few in the community want or need.

Similarly, library leaders need to coordinate library or department activities with their peers within and outside the library. They also need to make sure that the people who work with them understand what the goals are and why they are important. Workers who are disconnected from the finished product are not likely to care whether they do their work well or efficiently, but team members who know why they are working on a project will derive greater satisfaction from doing the job well. People are far more likely to care about how well they do their jobs if they understand the consequences of both doing well and doing poorly.

Finally, operations can quickly get bogged down in minor unresolved issues. Leaders need to empower team members to quickly make decisions by communicating and coordinating with each other, but leaders also need to make sure that team members are resolving the problems. Without at least some oversight, some problems may simply be ignored because each person thinks it’s someone else’s problem – or at least that it’s not their responsibility. It’s a basic management skill required of leaders at all levels to stay attuned to the emergence of issues within their team and the need to resolve them. How they are resolved (within the context of the team’s objective) is less important than that they are resolved and that everyone affected by the resolution is aware of it and why it worked out the way it did.

Ultimately, I would argue that having a team with a perfect balance of skills or having a team on which everyone is friendly and gets along is less important than having a team that communicates well. It is possible to fill most skill gaps and to get past many personal awkwardnesses, if the team can communicate well professionally. Communication is the tool that binds teams together and makes them strong. Assuring the team can and does communicate is your responsibility as the team leader. If communication is a problem on the team you lead, address this first and many other problems will take care of themselves.