My most recent class in Grad school, Admin. & Mgmt., required a term paper. We had four choices and I chose "Managing change in the Public library: what are the director’s roles and responsibilities?' While doing the research I learned change has quite a few definitions.
Princeton University’s Wordnet, a lexical database for the English language, defines change as a noun and a verb. If used as a noun it can mean “the result of an alteration or modification.” If used as a verb the definition is to “become different in some particular way, without permanently losing one's or its former characteristics or essence.”
I liked the last definition the most because in making changes in a library we never want to lose our essence we just want something modified. Change is never easy. The director of the public library has internal and external responsibilities that have to be considered when managing change. The director has to know and respond to the community the library serves, the staff and their capabilities, Friends groups, the Library Board, technology trends, the public and the day to day operations of the library. It is all about balance. White wrote in his article “Authority, Responsibility, and Delegation in Public Libraries” that “all managers (directors) make some mistakes, and good managers make more mistakes than poor managers simply because they are more willing to make decisions.”
Leslie James
White, H. (1999, Sept.). Authority, Responsibility, and Delegation in Public Libraries. Library Journal 124, 15 59-60.
2 comments:
I love this quote from White--and have always held that if we're not making mistakes, it means we're not doing much...I think the most important role of the director in a time of change is communicating the vision of the future and the benefits that the proposed change will bring. But it is also important to have someone on staff (often the director in small organizations) who does the hand-holding when needed and shepherds staff through the changes so that they are as painless as possible.
The director is the key person for making change within the organization, but don't forget the role of the trustee as well. If directors don't bring along the board in the communications process, there will be some real surprises!
Because boards don't meet often, it is tempting to circumvent them. A big mistake!
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