Ask a Library Leader

As a part of a minorized population, it’s difficult to get into a management position. What suggestions do you have for white administrators who do not see POC as leaders/managers and continue to hire in their own reflection?

You ask both an incredibly important question and an incredibly difficult question. Although surveys have tried to seek information from a wide range of libraries (1), most surveys have focused on the Association of Research Libraries. By extrapolating from these datasets, we can see that the library profession has a huge challenge placing individuals from underrepresented populations into positions of leadership. Even as more universities and libraries have emphasized diversity and inclusion, the numbers seem to be shifting slowly, if at all. (2)

As humans, we don’t recognize our own biases–whether aimed at a POC or something completely innocuous. (“Hey, this person can quote The Simpsons!”) Those biases are manifest in the hiring recommendations of homogenous search committees. I have served on many search committees, and a committee member can “click” with an applicant over something as trivial as a shared sense of humor or taste in popular culture. I have also seen many library leaders (as well as librarians) who mistake experience for excellence. Unfortunately, people with experience aren’t necessarily good at their job, and people lacking experience aren’t necessarily ineffective. As the old saying goes, the term for the person who graduated last in Medical School is “doctor.” As an individual librarian, you can try to raise these issues if you are fortunate to serve on a search committee. You don’t want to hire someone for their previous job; you want to hire them for their next job. As the library profession evolves, we need to hire people who have exhibited the skills to move and operate and grow in a new space. If you exclusively focus on experience, you might end up with the best card catalog system in the country. As a search committee member, you won’t always be successful, but you can start to shift the conversation, which slowly shifts the entire organizational culture.

For current administrators who recognize hiring for experience instead of talent creates problems, you should seek out POCs who are passionate, and who have strong organizational skills. You can participate in associations and organizations outside your usual circles of academic or public librarian groups that affect our frames of reference and limits exposure. You might participate in the ALA ethnic and multicultural exchange roundtable. My public library friends tell me many cities use tools and resources from the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) for help with this. As an administrator, you can ask your colleagues who are POCs to organize a new library service or activity that is meaningful to them and to your users. Create language in your job postings that confirm your intention to diversify is intentional rather than merely philosophical. Seek out library schools that graduate large numbers of POCs. Write the general contact information for the school and/or to the Dean/Director, and ask them to “please alert your students to this opportunity.” Include the posting in the body of the message as well as a pdf attachment. You can also create post-graduate residencies, and even more importantly, give them something to do and accomplish. Have them review interview questions, or participate on a steering committee that investigates hiring practices. Stating all this, you shouldn’t assume anything. What are people’s career goals? What interests do they have? Yet don’t demand anything beyond their position. You aren’t looking for a role model for a race or ethnicity. Instead, you want to provide POCs with an opportunity to improve the library and to strengthen their resume or CV.

But how does this above help the original writer, as a member of a minorized population? What can you control within the current environment? Of course, you want to gain that experience that allows you to be seen as a natural leader. Review announcements for that next job you want, and identify the gaps with your current skills. Ask your current supervisor for permission to gain experience within your area of responsibilities where you can fill those gaps. Seek different professional organizations that might speak to your background, such as the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, groups within LLAMA, or state library associations. In addition to finding opportunities to assume leadership roles on local initiatives, you might find mentors outside your current library. You can try to create time in your busy life for personal professional development on theories of management. Ask yourself, what is your favorite book or author on leadership, management, or change management, and why? Even if you lack experience, you can sound like a leader in your next interview. Finally, you should encourage others to do likewise in order to create a wider bench of talent, and improve the odds of getting into a management position.

(1) Mellon/Ithaka S+R targeted 1,500 libraries, but only 7% of non-ARL institutions responded. Even the larger pool focused on four year degree granting institutions–which fails to capture the breakdown at community colleges, school libraries, public libraries, well, you get the point. See https://bit.ly/2TL1SgR
(2) In 1998, ALA reported that 87-90 percent of all librarians were white. The 2017 Mellon/Ithaka S+R survey reported that 71 percent of all ARL staff are white, while 87 percent of senior leaders are white. See https://bit.ly/2tlK5kU

Tim Gritten, Executive Director of the Libraries Texas A&M University-San Antonio

Dealing with different levels of staff: How can I deal with staff who are performing the same duties, but are differently classified?

It sounds like it’s time for a compensation and classification study! These are studies that are regularly done in some sectors, sometimes by outside auditors and sometimes by the Human Resources department, that analyze an organization’s structure and determine what job classifications and titles are necessary. There are many reasons why job titles and compensations can get out of alignment with current business practices and market rates. A compensation and classification study, when carried out, will eliminate outdated job titles, identify what core job duties belong in what positions and how they should be compensated, and make sure that people are being compensated equitably.

That said, compensation and classification studies can take a not-insignificant amount of time and resources to complete. If those are in short supply in your library, you should still work with your Human Resources department to take a careful look at the “librarian” and “researcher” job descriptions, as well as what the core activities of your unit are. It sometimes happens that the weekly or daily reference desk shift is thought of as the most intellectual part of library work, and therefore the more highly compensated, when in reality there is a great deal of intellectual work that goes on behind the scenes when developing public services and programs. What does each job title actually do? Is it that the “librarians” are also in charge of developing bibliographic instruction curricula and public programming, and that the “researchers” are in charge of surveys and data analysis? Or something else? And is the distinction still relevant for the library and its parent organization?

If there are distinct duties attached to the different job descriptions, then you might then start reframing the narrative about what working a shift on the reference desk actually means in the grand scheme of your library’s mission. In many libraries these days it’s not uncommon for all professional staff, regardless of classification, to take a turn at the reference desk. This is a point that you can start making in your staff meetings, while also highlighting all the different kinds of work that your staff do in order to support the work that everyone does at the reference desk. It’s important for all stakeholders, both library staff and those in the HR department, to have a crystal-clear understanding of how the two different roles serve the organization. You should also consider updating your position descriptions if you’re able to do so.

Whatever your process is, the most important part should involve asking your staff about their work, and listening. It may be that there is no real difference between the duties of the different pay grades, or there was a difference once but nobody was held accountable for delivering on all areas of their job, or that people with longer tenures have the “higher” job classification, and that people are doing the same job for different pay. If so, it’s perfectly understandable that people would be upset at the different job titles and rate of pay–I would be too. Thank you for your commitment to workplace equity!

Sarah Quimby, Head of Acquisitions and Resource Management, St. Olaf

What are the best practices to change organizational culture? What success have other libraries had in changing the culture?

There are many pathways to organizational change. Some organizations choose a problem-based approach while others choose appreciative inquiry. Before getting into the heart of approaches and resources, it’s important to know that culture is essentially how organizations do things; it is its values. I like to consider Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” philosophy with regard to the organization. Does the organization (library) and its leadership know why it exists, the purpose it serves and where it wants to go? The realization that there is a need for a change in culture may occur when there is not a shared or cohesive purpose, ideal or understanding about what leadership or executive management and staff are doing. When there is a disconnect, it may stem from the divergence of philosophies. Leadership may have one vision and the staff may feel and observe something completely different. In times of change and transformation in what an organization is doing, some staff may feel left behind and the entire organization finds itself at a crossroads. With all that being said, it’s important to acknowledge the proverbial elephant in the room with regard to culture. The saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” is attributed to management guru Peter Drucker and popularized by by Mark Fields of the Ford Motor Corporation. Organizational change is not easy and there is much written about what works, what doesn’t and why.

To begin to think about changing organizational culture, it’s helpful to consider both the problem solving process and the appreciative inquiry process and then a combination of approaches. The problem solving process essentially consists of 6 steps: problem definition, brainstorming, selection, development, action planning and assessment. (https://instituteod.com/six-steps-effective-problem-solving-within-organizations/). It can also be referred to as deficit-based problem solving.Appreciative inquiry is centered around a positive core which can approach change from all levels of a system. One way to view appreciative inquiry is through a cycle where teams define, discover, dream, design and deliver. Teams look at the topic of inquiry, appreciate what is working, imagine what is possible, determine what should be, and then create what will be:

“At its heart, AI is about the search for the best in people, their organizations, and the strengths-filled, opportunity-rich world around them. AI is not so much a shift in the methods and models of organizational change, but AI is a fundamental shift in the overall perspective taken throughout the entire change process to ‘see’ the wholeness of the human system and to “inquire” into that system’s strengths, possibilities, and successes.” (Stavros et al., 2015).

A combination approach begins with assessing your culture, engaging in a dialogue about the assessment, creating behavior promises and a metric for measuring values and behaviors, ensuring your behavior and metrics are aligned with your performance management practices, and regularly communicating and assessing. Beyond the basic problem solving and the appreciative inquiry approaches, there are other methods (https://www.process.st/change-management-models/) which range from Lewin’s three stages of change management to the ADKAR model’s bottom up approach and Bridge’s model which focuses on transition rather than change. Finally, there are tools (https://www.smartsheet.com/which-numerous-change-management-models-and-methodologies-right-your-organization) available which can be helpful in identifying which change management models (https://www.process.st/change-management-models/), methodologies and philosophies could be a right fit for your organization.

Coaching Your Employees

I have a new, wonderful Instruction Coordinator. We work very well together. She, however, has a very difficult time making decisions and often turns to me to make the final decision on an issue. How do I coach her through the decision making process while not making the decision for her? What if I have an opinion on the final decision to be made?

Thank you for leading with the positive in this scenario—it shows that you are approaching this question from a place of trying to shape and nurture talent that is perhaps a bit raw or undeveloped, which is some of the most important work a manager can do! And it also places you in the necessary mental mindset: yes, this will take a bit of work and patience between the two of you, but it can absolutely be done.

First, I would encourage you to be empathetic to your Instruction Coordinator’s role as a middle manager–if she does, in fact, have any formal managerial responsibility. If she doesn’t have any formal managerial responsibilities but is nonetheless expected to be responsible for the overall direction of your library’s instruction program, that is an incredibly difficult position to be in and a line which she will need your help and guidance to walk. If you haven’t already had extensive conversations about these boundaries and your expectations for her as a coordinator, I would actually walk it back a bit and start here. Together, review her job description and look for anything that needs to be clarified, either in her eyes or yours. For which decisions and areas of responsibility is she the primary point of contact? What are the areas that are a bit out of her purview and require her to bring you in? These types of professional boundaries can be incredibly difficult for anybody to navigate, but particularly someone who is new to a role and new to your organizational culture and history. This is some of the most critical work you can do as a manager: help your direct report understand what is expected of her, what autonomy she has, and when something is “a bit above her pay grade,” as they. I am going on 13 years as a professional librarian and I still need help with navigating these boundaries! Do you have regular weekly or biweekly meetings with her? If not, get those on your calendars ASAP. These types of conversations and check-ins are essential for manager/direct report relationships, whether or not any issues exist.

Second, once you feel like you both are on the same page in terms of her expectations and responsibilities (you’re both documenting everything you discuss in these standing meetings, right?), you can move on to the more specific skill of decision making. To approach this issue, I would start with one or two of the most recent decisions that you would have preferred she made more independently. Begin by asking her questions: “I noticed you asked for my help in deciding [XYZ]. Can you tell me a little bit about your thought process? What were you unsure about in this situation?” These questions are not supposed to put her on the spot but are intended to help YOU see a bit more about what’s going on behind the scenes. Is she dealing with recalcitrant team members and is reluctant to have an unpopular decision be seen as coming from her? (If that’s the case, that’s a whole separate blog post!) Is she nervous about asserting her authority or leadership, especially if she does not have previous coordinator or managerial experience? In that case, she may need more positive feedback and reassurance from you that you believe she is talented and you trust her instincts. Is she nervous about the repercussions if a decision she makes doesn’t turn out well? If that’s the case, then ask yourself what you can do to build her trust that you will have her back even when things go wrong? (And when they do go wrong, that you will help her figure out where they went wrong and figure out how to not have that happen in the future.)

Some of the best advice I got as a manager is that feedback to my direct reports should be FAST: Frequent, Accurate, Specific, and Timely. In other words, address each of these issues that arise in the moment (or as close to it as possible), rather than saving them all up and blindsiding someone on an annual review. Use specific examples to coach someone through a time when they could have done something differently (or to praise them when they did something really well). Another piece of advice that has served me well: always start these types of guiding conversations with questions—questions that come from a genuine place of you trying to learn more, rather than questions that serve to put someone on the spot or make them feel like they’re under a microscope. Some of the questions on this list could serve you well as you coach her through her decisions, and here is some further guidance about coaching employees from the Harvard Business Review blog. (You might also want to look at the FUEL Coaching Model and at the book The Extraordinary Coach: How the Best Leaders Help Others Grow by Zenger and Stinnett.)

A lot of this, to me, has to do with trust, and the best place to build that trust is in regular meetings. When you have regular meetings with your direct reports, you are (hopefully) leading regular, frank conversations in which you’re both bringing to the table things that happened, decisions that were made (by either one of you), and issues that have arisen. You and your direct report get to work together to take these issues apart and put them back together as a team. This type of work is not immediate, but it’s the type of work that, when you put in the effort now, pays off dividends in the long run.

Mary Moser, Engagement and Advancement Librarian, UMass Boston

Dysfunctional Teams

How do you build a trusting team when the team you inherited is dysfunctional and staff feel they are not valued?

Thank you for asking this question – by asking, I know you want to change the culture of your team.

When I first started as a manager, I found myself in a similar situation. Coming from teams where I was used to working informally and closely, this new team was a big change to my work environment. Depending on how long you’ve been in your current role, and what steps you’ve already taken, you can pick and choose from the ideas below.

I would first begin by making sure you’ve taken time to observe your location and the way in which this team interacts. Because you feel that the dynamic is currently dysfunctional and that morale is low, it sounds like you’ve had the chance to do some observing. Can you set aside any further time to look for patterns and talk to your team, both individually and as a group? Balancing what you say and see with what your team tells you can be an integral part in championing morale, efficiency, and bonding.

Once you feel that you’ve spent enough time observing the way in which this team is currently working, begin to refine different processes or set new standards for how communication, working together, and so on, should proceed. This change will start with you: make sure you’re actively modeling the behavior you expect from your team so that they both see what it looks like and are confident that you’re committed to this new shift in culture. You should also find opportunities to visibly include any ideas for communication and collaboration that they bring to the table, and give them credit for suggesting such fabulous ideas in the first place.

When it comes to feeling valued, feedback is key! This is true regardless of the form in which it manifests. I’m a big believer in a hand-written thank you note, and many great leaders have mentioned notes as a key component to their culture shift. I’ve also tried to change the way I offer verbal thanks or requested feedback. If something is helpful, don’t just say thank you: talk about the impact. If you think something is great, don’t just say that, talk about what makes it great!

For example, one of my staff members wrote a draft email to send to publishers and asked me to proofread it because she thinks she’s not a good writer. I read it, and it was wonderful! She succinctly mentions her personal connection to the work and reasoning for the request, which I thought made it compelling. So rather than saying, “This is great!”, I said, “This is great! You mentioned your personal connection and the reason for this request, which makes a very good case.” It recognizes her request for feedback, but gets into the specifics. You can use this framing for thank you notes too!

Keep reminding staff of the bigger picture, and take opportunities to celebrate them as not only staff members, but people. My team and I love to go to karaoke after work and we make a point to go about every other month. This type of big-scale event is a chance for everyone to bond and for you to show that you can have fun, too.

Culture change and increased morale isn’t something that you’ll see overnight: it takes time! Even when you do start to see changes, your job isn’t done. Continue to check in with your staff, take the temperature of unfolding situations, and do your best to keep pushing them to grow and develop into the cohesive, passionate team everyone will be dying to be a part of.

Lex Abenshon, Library Manager, New York Public Library

Motivating employees through professional development

How do we support employee growth and development to combat disengagement with the day to day work and the overall direction of the organization?

Professional development has become increasingly important in libraries as new skills and expectations shape jobs and initiatives.

In a recent article, Dena Schwartz argues that organizations should not only look at performance reviews, but talent reviews. Whereas performance reviews are retroactive and focus on what could be improved, talent reviews focus on the future, and address career aspirations and strengths, and can form the basis of a career development plan. While there is no one specific way libraries can go about doing this, it is important to think about the entire picture of an employee’s journey, and establish a strong base for recruitment, onboarding, and retention which often gets left up to the individual supervisor and is not done on a consistent basis. Start with an employee satisfaction survey, with the understanding that these tools are not perfect and may raise additional issues that are peripheral to what the administration really wants to know. Your human resources department should be able to provide some guidance on how to structure a survey or discussions of this type so that they are effective and useful.

The University of British Columbia offers a great template for getting started on this type of planning and there are other areas such as job crafting that may also be beneficial to consider. These are more individual approaches so that each supervisor would have to decide if these are useful tools in helping those who are interested to gain a more structured perspective than simply saying they want to move into administration or something similar. If these approaches work, they can be integrated into a larger and more formalized mentoring program either within the library or in collaboration with other units on campus or within a system so that the entire organization can benefit.

Even if you are not a top-level administrator, doing something for a specific unit or division within the library would help you work through the details and iron out any issues before asking the dean or director to consider scaling the program up to the library. Another alternative might also entail working through some of these methods with a colleague to help generate some ideas that can be brought to a department or in another venue such as visiting other branches/library/divisions, or building in opportunity for highlighting personal skills through programming or project management.

Cinthya Ippoliti, Director, Auraria Library