Results Boot Camp II: We get an R & R pass
November 15th, 2006 by Kim KietzmanToday was a slightly shorter day. I sense that we’ll all take good advantage of our time “off post”.
Some of today looked at management styles. As a manager for most of my career, and as a recent participant in another immersion workshop on leadership a few months ago, much of this was a review. I did note a few things that stuck out for me.
False Involvement - used by June Garcia - is when we put together a committee just to say we put together a “team”, but we had a clear decision all along. The committee members, or team, really have no input into the decision, or they shouldn’t have input. A good manager knows when a team approach is necessary and when it’s a waste of everybody’s time.
Both June Garcia and Sandra Nelson talked about control. It turns out, control freak though I may be, I don’t have a whole lot of it. The good news is, there’s not a lot over which I have no control, either. We work and live in the manage or influence zones instead, providing everyone with the means to have impact on decisions are made below, at, or above their peer group.
Finally, my favorite “not on the agenda, not part of the curriculum, but generated by small group discussion” moment was this one: Management by Muffin, delightfully coined by Carrie Haverman of the Capital Area District Library (and previously a director in one of the smaller libraries in my service area, oddly enough) in Pennsylvania. Food is one of those things at meetings that makes everybody happy, even when they probably won’t be happy at a later point in the agenda. I couldn’t help think - are we simply practicing the ancient laws of hospitality? Do we exchange the muffin for civility from our guests? Hmmm, I need to buy more muffins…
Tags: conferences, PLA, PLA Blog, PLA Boot Camp 2006
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