It never fails at a conference or a webinar or on twitter or a blog post someone always says – but I don’t have time for that, IT will never let us do that, administration will never let us do that. Never mind what “that” is. There is always a reason. An excuse. Yes an excuse. I don’t understand these people. I’m not sure what they are looking for, magic beans? fairy dust? There isn’t any.

I read this post Yeah You’ve Got Problems. So Solve Them by Will Richardson during the mad rush between a workshop and ALA in July. It really stuck with me. I think I’m going to borrow his approach.

That is a problem. What are you going to do about that?

I hear ya’. How you gonna fix that?

I love talking with other librarians and library staff.  But there is always a least one person who wants the presenter to take them by the hand, follow them back to work and wave my magic wand over their problem.  Guess what? No one else can solve your problem.  It’s your problem. At your job. No one knows that situation better than you. People can give you tips and suggestions and motivations and links, but no one can fix your problem.  That’s your job.

Maybe this post is harsh, but I think a call for a little responsibility is in order. Sometimes that means doing research on your own time, in the evening (gasp!), fighting for what you believe in, what you need, what your patrons need, even if the person you are fighting is a coworker.Similar Posts:

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CC image courtesy of Robbert van der Steeg on Flickr

The choice you need to make is will it affect it in a good way or a bad way?

We are all busy. My to-do list is so long at this point I keep a master running list and a small list just for today, because looking at the long list inspires panic.

As individuals, managers and organizations it can be easy to keep adding responsibilities, expectations and tasks to our list and to the lists of others. Especially at a time like this, when you may be short staffed, or just busier than normal (library usage goes up during a recession) or both.

Unfortunately this attitude towards time can really hurt you in customer service. How staff feel about their time and the expectation from management affects how they interact with patrons. It’s the difference between handing someone a call number and vaguely gesturing towards the stacks and leaving the desk and walking the patron to the book. It’s the difference between hand the book over and walking away or asking if you can help them find anything else. It shows up in the type of greeting patrons receive in that minutes of extra chit-chat so many love, in determining if the information they are asking for is really the information they are seeking.

Don’t think it’s just front line staff either. It can mean the difference in pulling that raggedy looking book or letting it circulate one more time, in ensuring the door knobs and other areas are properly disinfected, in how fast a phone call is returned. I could go on but I think you get the idea.

Want to get smart about time? Here are some suggestions from How Smart Leaders Talk About Time on Harvard Business.

1) Establish a shared language that distinguishes between the “pressure on time” and “impact on goals” factors.

Team leaders often fail to make this distinction clear. Tasks are transmitted without specifying if the emphasis on such task is due to:

• a combination of the above mentioned two factors
• the fact the task has a remarkable impact on the individual or group’s goals
• the restricted timeframe within which the task must be completed

2) Reduce those activities that, despite being important, must be performed under pressure. (emphasis mine)

A successful leader reduces “urgent and important” activities to a minimum, by monitoring:

• How tasks are planned and delegated.
• How “urgent and important” activities can be reduced.
• How much free-of-distraction time people have for high-impact activities.

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This is a great slideshow from Netflix*  for salaried employees which discusses nine values which should be embraced:

• Judgement
• Communication
• Impact
• Curiosity
• Passion
• Innovation
• Courage
• Honesty
• Selflessness

It’s long and parts may be controversia,l but it makes some great points about what it takes to create the culture you want in your organization and it’s worth the time to go through it all.

Similar Posts:

• The Hazards of Leading Culture Change
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