Thursday, What a Day

Thursday, What a Day

I must say that Robert Benson was the BEST speaker we have ever had. This is kind of funny because he really didn’t say that much and certainly didn’t say anything we have not already heard. But, wow, I really enjoyed it and felt like I understood things about empowering my staff and the reasons why I should in a way that I have not before. The information he gave us about the reading materials will be so helpful and the whole Golden Circle thing just made something click in my mind that I think will truly affect the way I do business from now on. 

I also thoroughly enjoyed the relaxation session. I do very well with guided meditation and relaxation sessions and find it so freeing. I am such a hit it hard kind of person that I often have to stop and do a full yoga session and some deep breathing to unblock my mind. I find that when I get stressed I also get mental blocks because my mind is moving too fast and I cannot connect with something inside me that knows the answer or has something profound to say. But, once I can reign my mind in and let loose of some tension, ideas will often flow to me like a river (or at least a creek!). I feel that I live in a perpetual state of stress and since taking this job have had serious issues with high blood pressure and a general sense of crappiness. But, I have made a concerted effort in recent weeks to stop it and to take a deep breath and try to remember that Rome was not built in a day. When I have ideas it’s like I have to do them right now and see fast results or I get bored, lose interest or steam, and become frustrated and therefore stressed. I also have a lot of stressers in my life: graduate school, a toddler who I do not spend enough time with, a husband who travels and is also in grad school, never enough money, looking for our first house, siblings and family that like to put all their worries on me (because, you know, I can take it), and I find that I feel blocked quite often. But, I love yoga and the freedom that deep breathing and concerted movements bring to my being so I am trying to incorporate that into my life more regularly. I have also been talking to my husband while I am here about making some changes at home so that I have some time to release tension. The plan is that he will start taking Eli to daycare so that I can go to yoga class once or twice a week and have time for exercise--which I desperately need. I have also learned that my husband and I are complete opposites and that our change style and communications styles are completely different--which with so much stress lately has caused us to disagree and get angry way more than we should be. I think I have found some tools this week to help with that, which will provide even more much needed relief from stress

Addressing Change with my staff

Addressing Change with my staff

Many things have become evident to me over the course of this week, one of which is my relationship with my staff. While things could be much better, they certainly could be much worse. We absolute are not a team, we are absolutely a group and I have know for some time that I have to do something but I just couldn’t figure out what it was that I should do. While I have two on my staff that are my hires and we get along beautifully, I have four that were inherited from the previous director. I have mostly thought of this as a negative, but perhaps there is a glimmer of hope. I of course have always recognized that each one has their own strengths and weaknesses I have not been able to arrange it very well so that each one can focus on what they are good at. This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately (before coming to PLMI) and yet was another obstacle I could not figure out what to do about. I recognized early on that because the previous director had left under bad terms that there would likely be a good deal of resentment toward me and my new goals and visions. Doing my due diligence I addressed it from the beginning, but now I realize that I did not address it well enough not did I likely have the best attitude about it. I know that despite my best intentions I am not naturally someone who dwells for long on anything. I acknowledged it to some extent and thought we would all just move on and get over and readjust. I now know that I was so dead wrong and that I know I have at least one staffer that is clinging for dear life to the past. The former director was much different from me, and he has issues with change, as well as bouts of depression and severe anxiety. I have seen him as a huge obstacle for so long and we get very frustrated with one another because we just don’t know how to communicate. He is very defensive at times and will just dwell on things, which drives me up the wall. I confess that I often find myself purposely avoiding him or half-ass paying attention to him because I just don’t have an hour to devote to reliving the same things over and over again (whatever it is that he is obsessing over at the moment). I get it now, though.

My new game plan: First, a staff meeting with a presentation entitled “Reasons why I am a Terrible Manager” by Jill Rael. I would like to hit the highlights of exactly what I have learned this week and own up to my shortcomings. I want to be up front and honest in saying that I know what went wrong and trust me, I know how to fix it. I realize now that it must have been awful to them to lose their former manager and have someone like me come in with no warning, no preparation, and no explanation about what was happening except the very jaded reasons offered up by the outgoing director. We need to go back to the start and address any animosity that is still there about that and take a fresh approach to where we are headed. I would like to have each one of the staff take some of the tests and perform some of the activities we have done this week so that I can better understand how I need to communicate effectively with them in their own unique way. Most importantly, I want them to know that while I may get lost in my own lofty ideas and sometimes drown in paperwork, I genuinely care about them and their happiness. I want to help them find their best place in the world and I think I have completely missed that opportunity to tell them that. Don’t get me wrong, I think we have a good foundation and a well-rounded group and I absolutely see the value in each and every one of them. Now, I just need to pull it all together and make us awesome.

Managing Performance

What I do now:

With such a small staff and with my office located just behind the circ counter, I have a good deal of interaction with staff and can offer daily feedback on situations, etc. Now, how effectively I do this has been called into question after Maggie's presentation today. I think I often see myself as communicating much more clearly than I actually do. I was told when I became Director that I was to conduct employee evaluations once a year. Turned out that the staff had never been evaluated (even though this was a policy the Director was supposed to follow). So, my first attempt at evaluations was not effective at all. Some of my employees had never been through the process and others had been so rigorously evaluated in previous careers that they wished to overboard it. I was overwhelmed to say the least.

What I will do differently:

It had never thought to have frequent evaluations, and I love this idea. I have been looking at rewriting and updating job descriptions and changing the way we are organized as a staff and I think this will help me be much more effective in creating training plans, setting specific goals for employees and the team as a whole, and actually tracking where we are. I think I would like to ask individual staff how they would like to be evaluated and try to adapt my style to communicate most effectively with each person. I would like to do relatively quick quarterly performance evaluations/status updates to see where a person is on reaching their goals, problems or questions they are having, and so on. Of course I will have to continue the formal annual evaluation but I will be reworking the forms and having the staff evaluate themselves not only in the traditional sense but also having them tell me their proudest moments, worst experience and how they think I can help them more.

I would also like to have the board evaluate me differently and provide more comments and specific details rather than some providing a comment or two and others only giving me a numerical rating. Nobody really sits and discusses the evaluations with me. Things have been running so well I think that they have become complacent. That worries me a little, and I would like to know more about what they think of how I am doing.

Staff Days...or the lack thereof

I can honestly say that I have never worked at a place that had staff days or staff development days. It has not been something that has occurred to me to do, but after today’s discussion I can absolutely see the need for it. While I have not been given permission to close or hold these development events on holidays, I have always seen the need for regular staff meetings to ensure that everyone is kept abreast of what is happening in the library and to help troubleshoot and/or solve problems and so on. Lately, in keeping with some of the new standards, I have sent staff members to trainings (TEL most recently) and asked them to return and teach their peers about what they have learned. I also appointed someone to head up the Geek campaign and attend the webinars and develop new ideas. We recently held an early morning staff session where she gave everyone the skinny on ideas I have approved and what she has learned about the campaign. I had another one recently where a staff member presented on READS. I have tried to pin point some of the bigger things that everyone should know about and use those as opportunities for them to teach one another (and me). It seems to work well. 

Yet, I have a staff that has worked together for a long while and I am the new guy essentially. I think it will be a challenge to sway some of them to buy into recognizing the value in some of the other employees. But, I definitely think we need to try something new and find a way to work better as a team and to recognize not only our own strengths but also those of the rest of the group. I intend to ask permission at the September board meeting for us to hold a staff day on an upcoming holiday--I think this will go over better with the board than closing would. One thing I have recognized is that I have several staff members who intend to stay at the library very long term and I need to develop some of their skills and help them work better as a team so that we can move forward at the rate we need to move. 

Cultivating Employee Work Passion

Today I spent an hour watching one of the assigned webinars entitled, "Cultivating Employee Work Passion" that originally took place on November 16, 2011 and was hosted by Ken Blanchard. In all honesty, I do not feel I learned anything about cultivating work passion, except that I need to recognize that I have to encourage positive feelings in my employees. Now, I'm not saying that I don't care about people's feelings, but I cannot help but to feel that if I actually spent as much time as these people say I should worrying about all my employee's feelings, I'd never get anything else done. Yes, I agree with the webinar in that having a safe working environment where people know they are valued is very important. But, he seems to suggest that I should micromanage how everyone interacts together and how that affects all their feelings so that I can be sure that everyone is totally happy at all times----who has time for that? I think in theory all these things sound like great ideas, but in reality (in our business) there just isn't time for all that. I tend to think that people who choose to work in libraries know they are working in a particular kind of public service that has its own rewards and difficulties and I am not sure it should be my job to constantly make them feel better about themselves. I did find his theories about the types of employees found in all businesses: engaged, disengaged, and actively disengaged to be useful and I think he is right about these emotional states are heavily reliant on employee relationships with management. But, I have always felt that at least some disconnect should exist between management and employees. If we all become best friends and too heavily involved in one another's feelings and lives, many people will take advantage of that relationship and it makes it all the harder when we as managers have to enact disciplinary measures.