PLA Blog

OK, I’ll admit it, I skipped the first session slot on Saturday. It wasn’t because I was out partying or anything, but rather because I wanted to hang out with the friends I was staying with in the morning and have plenty of time to grab a leisurely breakfast (which I did at Gigi’s Cafe). Also, none of the 8:30 sessions looked particularly compelling. But here I am ready for one last session on “Changing Cultures: Experiences in Fostering Innovations from Within.”

My wife is a public-sector (ie. government) change management consultant for a little company called IBM, so this is a topic I know a little bit about, and I was interested to hear how people went about it in the public library world. A lot of what I heard was pretty basic stuff about empowerment, encouraging risk-taking, removing the fear of failure, and soforth. Nothing that amazing, although there were two little bits I thought I’d share.

The Director of the St. Louis system emphasized the need to give people the tools and chance to be a part of the change, but then if they didn’t buy into it, the necessity to get rid of them. That’s a huge problem in my own system, where unionization makes it very difficult to get rid of the “dead wood.” I guess the solution is that managers and administrators have to be willing to face the hassle of documentation and endless procedure required to dismiss unionized staff.

The other thing I liked was the idea that if you raise a problem or an issue in your branch or system, you should also offer three solutions at the same time. This isn’t to say that one of your solutions will be used, but demonstrate that you’re thinking about the complete cycle of change needed, rather than just pointing out a problem for someone else to solve.

So that’s it. My conference is done. I’m using the last little bit to blog then I’m off to dim sum with friends — no Paula Poundstone for me!

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions/comments that fall outside the realm of this forum, feel free to email me at !

– Tony

Tags: change management, PLA2008

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