Boot Camp Day 3
November 16th, 2006 by Mindy KittayToday we began by discussing Management Styles. I am sure all of the staff who work with me would have no problem identifying my management style but it was interesting for me to evaluate my strengths and weaknesses and to realize how they affect my ability to achieve goals. I also came to the quick realization that I control NOTHING (unlike what I thought), other than my own actions (such as my attitude and whether I show up at work or not). I DO have the ability at work to Manage some things and the ability to Influence lots of things.
Included in our package was a handout called “Why Managers Succeed”. This is a handout that I am going to try and review at least once per month because I think that sometimes managers get so busy with the day to day stuff that they loose track of the big picture. Here is the list:
THEY UNDERSTAND AND SUPPORT THE LIBRARY’S MISSION AND SERVICE PRIORITIES. THEY COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY WITH THEIR SUPERVISORS, COLLEAGUES, AND/OR SUBORDINATES. THEY ARE FLEXIBLE AND ADAPT EASILY TO CHANGE. THEY ARE CONSISTENT AND TREAT PEOPLE FAIRLY. THEY ARE ABLE TO SET PRIORITIES AND UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IMPORTANT AND URGENT. THEY ARE WILLING TO TAKE RISKS AND DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES. THEY ARE ABLE TO RECOVER FROM SETBACKS. THEY CAN HANDLE CONFRONTATION. THEY LOOK FOR WIN/WIN SOLUTIONS TO CONFLICTS. THEY KNOW HOW TO MANAGE THEIR STRESS. THEY CONTINUE TO GROW AND LEARN. (My favorite)
After lunch we moved on to learning about staff resources. Much of this was familiar to me because I attended “Staffing for Results” in Denver earlier this year. One piece of information that I found fascinating was the analysis of how many actual working hours were available from a full time employee. After you consider breaks, holidays, vacations, sick time, etc., out of 2,080 hours per year there are only approximately 1,654 working hours left. And this is an over-estimate because it does not take into account the personal phone calls, personal e-mail, travel time to meetings, leaving a little early or arriving a little late, etc. When you take this information into account, it makes it much more understandable the levels of work that are accomplished in a given time period.
At the end of the day we had a very interesting discussion about library “sacred cows”. “Sacred cows are activities that have been done in the same way and at the same time for so long that no one even wonders if they are effective anymore.” Here are some examples of sacred cows that the group came up with:
- Backup Reference Books (we already have the information in databases or it is freely available on the Internet. And yeah, if the Internet were to break down we would all be in a lot of trouble and I doubt if anyone will be worrying about how many people live in China.)
- Story Time
- Reference Desk
- Library Fines
- Colored Dots on Books
- No Food or Drink in the Library
- Book Sales
- Adult Programming
- Circulation Restrictions
I am not saying that sacred cows are bad or need to be changed but they are most certainly things that need to be carefully reviewed to find out how effective they are at meeting our goals. The examples that I came up with that were specific to our library were: Stamping Page 101 in our books and Honor Books.
Coming from a rural library where I don’t get the opportunity to meet and speak with librarians outside of our system very often, I am finding the opportunities for networking with librarians from all over the United States quite eye-opening and informative. This has made Boot Camp extra valuable to me.
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