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Moving into Management

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Title: Moving into Management


1
Moving into Management
  • Instructor
  • Nancy Bolt
  • nancybolt_at_earthlink.net
  • An Infopeople Workshop
  • Winter 2007-2008

2
This Workshop Is Brought to You by the Infopeople
Project
Infopeople is a federally-funded grant project
supported by the California State Library. It
provides a wide variety of training to California
libraries. Infopeople workshops are offered
around the state and are open registration on a
first-come, first-served basis. For a complete
list of workshops, and for other information
about the project, go to the Infopeople website
at infopeople.org.
3
Introductions
  • Name
  • Library
  • Position
  • What was the last leadership position you held in
    any context library, church, community group,
    family trip planner, etc?

4
Workshop Overview
  • What is management?
  • Six key roles of effective management
  • Tips for a successful transition
  • Personal planning for management

5
Myths and Reality
  • Myth
  • You can get things done
  • People will do what you tell them
  • You just have to know the subject area
  • Reality
  • You are dependent on others
  • Compliance is based on respect
  • You have to know the subject and the people and
    the organization and the policies...

6
  • Myth
  • You have to be the expert
  • You learn to be a manager through formal training
  • Reality
  • Your staff and peers have valuable knowledge
  • You learn on the job from experience

7
What Is Management?
  • Dichotomy between leadership and management
  • management is doing things right
  • leadership is doing the right thing
  • Is this true???

8
  • Why are people chosen to be managers?

9
  • Apart from the relationships, the hardest thing
    for me was learning the business of management.
    I had to go from task-oriented to
    concept-oriented work I wasn't ordering books
    for patrons anymore, I was creating policies for
    how to deliver services. I wasn't dealing with
    patrons face-to-face as much as I was advising
    staff on how to do customer services. Wise
    hiring, effective training, fair and reasonable
    discipline, well-planned mentoring and coaching,
    negotiating between staff and upper management,
    planning new services, justifying expenditures,
    running good meetings, effective and appropriate
    delegation...I didn't learn ANY of this in
    library school. And the ongoing needs of a
    department don't go away just because the
    supervisor is learning. I didn't think I would
    EVER catch up that first year.
  • From a Colorado librarian in an email

10
Move from Individual Contributor to Manager
  • You were chosen because you do your job well
  • BUT
  • You dont do your old job as manager
  • Need to learn new skills

11
An Effective Manager
  • Has competence
  • Has confidence
  • Takes risks
  • Makes a commitment

12
Competence
  • Competence means you have the skills and
    expertise to be successful in your environment.
  • Competence comes when you
  • complete assignments successfully
  • overcome adversity or failures
  • learn from past mistakes
  • continuously learn both formally and informally

13
Confidence
  • Confidence comes from increased feelings of
    competence
  • successfully complete assignments
  • learn from mistakes
  • self-reflection
  • recognition by others
  • stretch yourself

14
Taking Risks
  • Builds on
  • competence
  • confidence
  • Happens when you
  • volunteer for stretch assignments
  • are willing to make mistakes
  • reflect on what worked and didnt
  • As virtually every leader I talked with said,
    there can be no growth without risks and no
    progress without mistakes.
  • Warren Bemis, On Becoming a Leader

15
Why Do People Want to Become Managers?
  • Power to accomplish something
  • Better pay
  • Bored in current job
  • Make a difference in the organization
  • Recognition

16
What Is Expected of a Manager?
  • By subordinates
  • By supervisors
  • By peers
  • By library users

17
Subordinates Want Managers to
  • Meet their individual needs and take care of
    their worries
  • Deal successfully with outsiders
  • Bring back resources
  • Protect them from demands from above
  • Provide feedback on their work
  • Be fair and equitable

18
Supervisors Want Managers to
  • Be accountable
  • Integrate with the larger organization
  • Handle problems
  • Follow policies and procedures
  • Keep the supervisor informed
  • Provide good customer service
  • Be a team leader and a team player

19
Peers Want Other Managers to
  • Represent their unit
  • Cooperate
  • Share resources
  • Negotiate conflicts
  • Be a team player

20
Users Want the Library to
  • Provide what they came for
  • Serve pleasantly
  • Offer modern services
  • Be a safe and welcoming place
  • Be run cost-efficiently

21
Managing your supervisor
Managing your staff
Managing yourself
Managing your peers
Managing outside
22
In Summary
  • In some ways its an impossible job. A manager
    is a jack of all trades, a chameleon, who has to
    please everybody.
  • Anonymous quote from Hill, page 41

23
Six Key Roles of a Library Manager
  • Supervisor
  • Direction setter
  • Team builder
  • Networker
  • Team player
  • Administrator

24
Manager as Supervisor
  • What challenges will you face as a supervisor of
    other people?

25
A New Role and Responsibility
  • New role in relation to past peers
  • Dealing with the new and older staff
  • Individual vs. team supervision
  • Dealing with diversity
  • Delegation

26
  • My biggest pitfalls Trying to be friends with
    everyone. Since I had been one of them I wanted
    to prove that I wouldn't "turn into management."
    Big mistake. I undermined my own authority. I
    didn't have to turn into a stuck-up tyrant, but I
    also couldn't be the same person I was when I was
    shelving or working the front desk. I had
    different and more responsibilities.
  • From a Colorado librarian in a personal email

27
Dependency
  • As in individual contributor you could do your
    job
  • As a manager, you do your job through others
  • Formal authority is rarely productive and
    successful over time

28
Manager as Direction Setter
  • Set direction for your unit
  • Develop goals and objectives for projects
  • Participate in setting direction for the library
  • Involve staff
  • Accountability

29
Manager as Team Builder
  • Show value of team
  • Make a team assignment
  • Select a team and its leader
  • Coach a team
  • Evaluate a team
  • And oddly enough, the more willing you seem to
    be to let people participate, the less need they
    have to force participation. Its the threat of
    being left out that exacerbates their ego
    problems and creates clashes. Bennis on
    Becoming a Leader, p 134

30
Successful Teams Have
  • A leader
  • An innovator
  • A detail person
  • A people person
  • How much of each are you?

31
Manager as Networker
  • Networking a major key to success
  • Must be purposeful and constant
  • Network with people
  • you can learn from
  • you need
  • who need you
  • who would oppose you

32
Manager as Team Player
  • Look at the big picture
  • Find A Place at the Table
  • If you want to be part of the decision-making
    process, you have to have a place at the table.
    Kathleen de la Peña McCook, A Place at the Table
  • Never miss an opportunity
  • Volunteer
  • Seek recognition and visibility

33
Communicating with Your Supervisor
  • Emphasize
  • impact on larger unit
  • networking
  • never present a problem without a proposed
    solution

34
Hold Regular Meetings with Your Supervisor
  • I just wanted to bring you up to date on what the
    library (department, unit) has been doing
  • Our plans for the last six months were
  • We accomplished most (all) of this (give data)
  • Our plans for the next six months are
  • Major issues we are facing
  • We need

35
Manager as Administrator(Enforcing Library
Policy)
  • Expected by subordinates, supervisors, and peers
  • Eats up time
  • Must know policies and procedures and when you
    can ignore them
  • Often frustrates

36
What Kind of Manager Might These People Be?
  • Cataloger?
  • Reference librarian?
  • Childrens Librarian?
  • IT ?

37
Tips for a Successful Transition
  • Listening skills
  • Decision-making
  • Art of asking questions
  • Meeting management
  • Mentoring

38
Why Listen?
  • Listen to learn
  • Listen to care
  • Listen to impress
  • Listen to communicate

39
Five decision-making options
  • Decide and announce
  • Gather input from individuals and decide
  • Gather input from group and decide
  • Consensus between you and a group
  • be sure you are willing to compromise
  • Delegate with parameters
  • Make sure the decision-making step is clear to
    all!

40
When to Use Each Option
  • Impacted by time available
  • Input almost always produces better decisions
  • Input almost always produces happier subordinates

41
BUT Need to Be Adaptable
  • Never have enough information
  • Analysis paralysis
  • Ready, Fire, Aim

42
The Art of Asking Questions
  • Can you give me some examples?
  • Why do you think that happened?
  • How do you know that?
  • What do you think?
  • Why do you believe that?
  • Whats next?

43
  • Can you clarify what you mean? Im not sure I
    understand.
  • What will you do?
  • Who is in charge of this project and when is
    something due?
  • Whos the final decision-maker on this project?
  • What are we trying to accomplish?
  • And be prepared to answer
  • these questions yourself!!

44
Listen to Learn
  • Find a partner.
  • The first person picks a topic on which they have
    a very strong opinion and share this with their
    partner.
  • The partner asks clarifying question to better
    understand. Do not share your own opinion.
  • Switch roles.

45
Managing Meetings
  • Why do we hate meetings?

46
How to Make Meetings Successful
  • Engage in active listening
  • Look for ways to participate meaningfully
  • Follow-up on opportunities

47
  • Ask clarifying questions
  • What are the goals of a project?
  • Whos working on this?
  • Whos in charge (or wants to be)?
  • Can my unit be involved (who wants to be
    involved)?
  • When is something due?
  • Have we decided to proceed?

48
Power of the Pen in Meetings
  • Volunteer to take minutes
  • on a computer in the meeting
  • Take notes and study them
  • Use notes to refresh your memory
  • and others
  • Highlight actions and answers

49
And If You Hold Meetings
  • Make sure you need one
  • Have an agenda
  • Ask for input
  • Make decisions using the options
  • to proceed
  • whos in charge
  • when is something due

50
Mentoring For You
  • New managers often are
  • afraid to ask for help.
  • Why?

51
Finding Your Mentors
  • You dont need just one mentor
  • Talk to your boss
  • Find peers
  • Find an outsider
  • Join a professional peer group

52
  • My biggest pitfalls Not admitting when I needed
    help. I was afraid, especially after I got my
    MLS, that people would think I wasn't qualified
    to do the job if I asked too many questions.
    Even though others did look at me that way
    (generally long-time "non-MLS' employees), I
    needed to have the confidence that I was
    qualified. That truly learning my job correctly
    and delegating appropriately were what I needed
    to do and that those who were criticizing me were
    going to do it no matter how well I did my job.
  • From a Colorado librarian in a personal email

53
Mentoring by You
  • Help staff be their best even if they might
    leave
  • Increases your network
  • Improves the units success
  • Makes for more productive and happy staff

54
Some Realities of Moving into Management
  • Those First Months
  • must transform from an individual contributor to
    a manager
  • less control over time and work
  • trivial competes with consequential for attention

55
Stress(The Dirty Little Secret)
  • Almost everyone is terrified at first
  • There is often emotional upheaval
  • Find someone to talk to
  • Dont take things personally everyone fears
    change

56
  • They expect me to hit the ground running. I
    want to do the job well, but Im so afraid that
    Ill fail. Its the biggest fear Ive ever had
    and I know I wont be graceful about it if I do.
    It is important to me to be good at what I do. I
    have to feel that Im making a difference. These
    days sometimes I feel like I shouldnt accept my
    paycheck.
  • Hill, p 177

57
What to Do in the First 90 Days
  • Learn
  • Observe
  • Interact
  • Trust
  • Evaluate
  • Reflect

58
Factors that Make the Transition Work. Be
Willing to
  • Accept the new role and move from an individual
    contributor to a manager point of view
  • Sort through conflicting demands from staff,
    peers, and supervisors
  • Engage in personal introspection and learning

59
  • So,
  • What are the benefits of being a manager???

60
Benefits of Being a Manager
  • Personal growth
  • Opportunity to contribute to a unit and thus the
    librarys success
  • Opportunity to make a difference
  • Variety of learning experiences

61
  • Public recognition for accomplishments
  • Ability to train and mentor other people
  • See staff develop and improve because you
    challenged them to do more
  • Thrill of risk taking

62
Your Personal Plan
  • How can you prepare NOW to be a manager?

63
Prepare Now for Management
  • Build a wide and powerful network
  • Volunteer for more responsibility now
  • Never miss an opportunity to show what you can do
    as a leader/manager
  • Show interest in the entire library, not just
    your job/unit
  • Offer solutions, not problems

64
Preparing (2)
  • Find a mentor
  • Be visible
  • Observe managers at work
  • Dress the part
  • Watch out for second-in-command syndrome

65
Commitment
  • Commit the time
  • Commit the energy
  • Do not be dissuaded
  • Fire in the belly
  • Reap the results
  • The essence of leadership is the communication
    of commitment
  • Charlie Robinson, Former Director of the
    Baltimore County Public Library

66
In Summary
  • Confidence
  • Competence Risk Taking
  • Commitment
  • SELF AWARENESS AND SUCCESS
  • The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is
    his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do
    what he does well, and having done it well, he
    loves to do it better.
  • Jacob Bronowski in The Ascent of Man quoted in
    Bennis, On Becoming a Leader p. 135

67
  • Thanks for coming.
  • Be sure and complete the evaluation form.
  • Good luck in your management position!
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