Month: April 2016

General, Leadership, Management, Uncategorized

50 Shades of Change

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I have never been change-averse.  Over the course of my career, I have taken the Change Style Indicator several times.  It’s an assessment tool that measures a person’s preferred style in approaching, addressing, and managing change.  Your score puts you somewhere on the change style spectrum of Conserver, Pragmatist, or Originator:

Conservers are cautious, deliberate, and prefer incremental change that does not significantly disrupt the existing structure or system.  They may appear resistant to change but they are also thoughtful about all the details and consequences.

Pragmatists are open to necessary, functional change and help facilitate it  by listening, mediating, planning, and carefully considering all of the issues as they seek common ground.  They are the practical project managers who actually make the change happen.

Originators are the disruptors with big ideas and a high tolerance for risk.  They prefer change that is fast and radical and paradigm-shifting.  They may appear to be unfocused, unorganized, and undisciplined, but they are more focused on the big, unconventional ideas than the details that surround them.

Seemingly unfocused, unorganized, and undisciplined?  Check, check, and check.  I have taken the assessment three times over the past 8-10 years and each time, I move even further along the Originator end of the spectrum.  Last summer, as part of a Leadership Institute, I took it again and actually maxed out my score.  Does that make me better or worse than others who are more conservative or pragmatic about change?  Nope.   Continue reading “50 Shades of Change” →

Big Ideas, General, Management, Uncategorized

Rethinking the Rules of Behavior: Part 2

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“A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes.”

– Wikipedia 

Last week, I wrote about how we ditched the rules and came up with a set of Expectations for Behavior at Chapel Hill Public Library.  This approach represented a pretty radical departure – both in the wording of the policy and the mindset at its foundation – so we knew that engaging staff on this approach would be critical to success.  Here are some of the ways we did that:

We made it easy.

We created a three question test to use when faced with a situation:

Is the situation at hand illegal?

Is it unsafe?

Is it making others uncomfortable?

If the answer is yes, then staff should act.  They don’t have to remember all the words of the policy, just these three measures to apply.   Continue reading “Rethinking the Rules of Behavior: Part 2” →

General, Uncategorized

Rethinking the Rules of Behavior: Part 1

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“We’ll work it out as we go along. Let our practice form our doctrine, thus assuring precise theoretical coherence.”                       

 – Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang

No running.  No stealing. No smoking. No staring at staff.  No rearranging furniture.  No interfering with the free movement of any person.  These were just a few of the 21 specific, line-itemed behaviors prohibited in the old Rules of Behavior at Chapel Hill Public Library.  You can hop in the Wayback Machine to see the full list and the old policy here.

It might look familiar, as lots of libraries approach patron behavior in this manner.  The policy may have started out with just a few things called out, but over the years, as someone did something that wasn’t on the list, it got added to the list – that’s the Monkey Wrench Gang approach mentioned above.

That’s also how things like “Harassing staff or patrons, including but not limited to staring at or following individuals around the building.” ended up on the list.  That’s also how the default staff response became “What’s our policy on staring?” instead of a response that deals with the person and the situation first and responds accordingly.  This policy approach isn’t necessarily bad, but it wasn’t working for us.   Continue reading “Rethinking the Rules of Behavior: Part 1” →