PLMI Day 4

I have to admit that I began to lose some steam today. By Day 4 I, like I am sure most of us, am really beginning to feel the effects of being away from home: my husband, my kid, my dog, my routine, and my bed! Nonetheless, Day 4 proved no less useful and educational.

One of our assigned group activities was to teach class for a while, and our group (the overachievers) was assigned the topic of Directing. In the process of researching, planning and creating our presentation one very important notion became clear. Although we were attempting to break the topic down and tackle it in components, we had to realize the under the umbrella of Directing pretty much all of those areas close related to one another. More importantly, as directors, we need to understand them all and know how to synthesize those skills and tools in order to be most effective. I think most enlightening was the area that I spent the most time on, which was empowerment and its closely related cousin, motivation. I definitely have not spent time and energy understanding empowerment and sadly have not devoted the time to actually doing it with my staff.

Lani gave a fabulous presentation about organization. I have longed prided myself on my organizational skills. But, I have recently begun to question just how good I am at it. Because I began at my library under somewhat hectic and odd circumstances I have not taken the time to be truly organized and the results have begun to bother me. Lani gave some great tips and made some wonderful analogies. I realized that I am quite organized when it comes to "stuff" but am not all that great at actually organizing people and tasks...a result of not having adequate plans and structure.