Leading Change Institute, OCUL, October 27-28, 2009

Attached are the slides used during the Leading Change Institute, sponsored by the Ontario Council of University Libraries, hosted by Queen's University Library, and facilitated by DeEtta Jones and Associates.

Leading Change Institute, OCUL, October 27-28, 2009

View more presentations from DeEtta Jones and Associates.

I conducted a Library Management Skills Institute (LMSI) in Waterloo, Ontario a couple of weeks ago. The Institute was sponsored by the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) and hosted by the University of Waterloo. The group consisted of people who work in Ontario's academic libraries: some of whom have official managerial roles; some who don't have official "authority" but plenty of responsibility for leading projects to success; some of whom are librarians; some who have industry backgrounds that they are now bringing to libraries; and some who are coming from public libraries and now working in an academic setting. The group demographic was younger than I typically experience in the same workshop over the years I've facilitated it. This is an interesting and telling observation given Canada's commitment over the past ten years to invest in building a new leadership base in academic libraries, in response to a large anticipated wave of retirements now and into the near future. And most importantly about this group, they were smart, engaging and emotionally intelligent. They gave me great hope and excitement for the future of academic libraries.

Library Management Skills Institute is a 3-day workshop that blends presentation of tested managerial theories and models with application to scenarios and experiences relevant to the participants. Some of the workshop segments include: understanding and working with personal behavioral preferences, motivating others (and self), power dynamics and influence strategies for managers, facilitating participatory decision making process, and coaching. For most of the participants, the content either introduced new concepts and ideas about management techniques or affirmed the helpful practices that are already part of their management toolkit. One of the most important learning elements, though, has always been the ability to learn with and from colleagues. They shared stories from their various libraries, explored alternatives for solving problems with people in similar situations as their own, and built a professional network that will stay with them for years.

In general, these types of learning events have been unevenly resourced and encouraged, especially over the past several years. As a consultant, I've been leery of the future viability of these experiences. I'm now making this blog entry from Kingston, Ontario, where I'm conducting a Leading Change Institute--the second institute offered by OCUL in three weeks. While OCUL's always been particularly committed to professional development, I am now shifting in my position--from suspicion to hopefulness--for the rest of the profession. I am feeling a new sense of hope that the library profession is now clearing it's figurative head and is re-focusing on those things that have always been core values--namely, learning and staff excellence.

Group, I look forward to seeing all of you in the future as you continue to contribute to the profession. I'm honored to be part of your network.

Catherine, thanks for the picture!

Service Excellence Symposium interview with Paco Underhill

Service Excellence Symposium

Thank you to all who attended the Service Excellence: Positioning Library Staffs for the Future Symposium co-sponsored by The New York Public Library and DeEtta Jones and Associates. We are compiling a short survey for registrants and will send it out in the next couple of days. We'll also include the url's referenced during the Symposium, and post that complete list to this blog.

Special thanks to our speakers: Danny Meyer, Megan Perez, Gary Wasdin, Michael Lascarides, Paco Underhill, Christopher Russell and Basha Starr. And extra special thanks to the entire staff of NYPL!

Generational Differences

A few months ago I was on a panel at the Edison Electric Institute National Conference in Denver, CO. I accompanied my client team member, a senior human resources representative from Duke Energy, headquartered in Charlotte, NC. The purpose of the panel was to share with the audience successful and innovative initiatives being undertaken by utilities in collaboration with consultants. All of the panelists spoke about human resources, leadership, change management and diversity and inclusion efforts.

My client and I have been working together for nearly a year at this point, consolidating Employee Resource Groups as the result of a merger and re-launching a corporate Diversity Council. My major ongoing role with Duke Energy is to facilitate the Diversity Council meetings, each of which begins with an educational segment. Our last education session was on generational differences in the workplace. I've noticed that over the past two years, this has come to be one of the most requested topics for my presentations; as a matter of fact, I'm preparing a presentation for a community college in Ohio right now.

To share with you a taste of the types of questions I'm typically asked, I've attached an interview (http://www.mediafire.com/?dn9xlp4cyne) recently published in a trade magazine, Electric Light and Power, as an outgrowth of that panel presentation in Denver. It's on page 8 of the publication. I hope you enjoy it. And please contact me if you have questions or would like to explore this topic in more depth.

Recent

• Conference presentation, “Real Talk: Leadership and Communication”, Duke Energy, African American Network Leadership Symposium, May 17, 2007.
  
  
• Conference presentation: “Multiculturalism and Diversity in Libraries”, Texas Library Association, San Antonio, TX, April 13, 2007.
  
  
• Keynote Presentation: “Cultural Inclusion at Campus: Lessons I’m Learning Along the Way,” Learning Conversations Conference, Orlando, FL, April 1-4, 2007.
  
  
• Video clip, “Creating and Nurturing a Climate that Supports Diversity” Valencia Community College, speaking to predominantly minority, traditionally-aged, first-generation community college students.
  
  
• Interview: “Moving from Margin to Center”, interview in Information Link, vol. 9 issue 5, May 2005.