Greetings SEMLS leaders!
Vickie and I are really excited about beginning these leadership roundtables. I am hoping this will be the encouragement that gets me reading all those exciting leadership materials I've seen on bibliographies for years and meant to read, but put off for more pressing tasks. I'm hoping this roundtable will be an opportunity for all of us to reinforce each other to "sharpen the saw" as Stephen Covey puts it, or as I think of it replenish the well so we can provide leadership and encouragement to the people we work with.
We choose the Jim Collins article for our first discussion because we really like his ideas; and we thought beginning with an article, rather than a whole book, would be less challenging for time stressed people to participate. We have chosen some books we would like to use for future sessions. but we also think this should be a member driven group. So we will make our suggestions, but we will all consider your suggestions too. We will post the title we will be discussing in two months after each session of the roundtable for those of you participating online.
I was very impressed with Jim Collins when I first discovered him a few years ago. I like the importance he places on the right people for the job, and sustained effort. I also think the fact that his research showed greatness wasn't the result of high salaries and bonuses is very encouraging to libraries where we see very little of either high salaries or bonuses. I think the images he uses of moving a huge flywheel getting easier with sustained effort and the hedgehog analogy for understanding our root issues help make them memorable.
So what did you think?
Vickie and I are really excited about beginning these leadership roundtables. I am hoping this will be the encouragement that gets me reading all those exciting leadership materials I've seen on bibliographies for years and meant to read, but put off for more pressing tasks. I'm hoping this roundtable will be an opportunity for all of us to reinforce each other to "sharpen the saw" as Stephen Covey puts it, or as I think of it replenish the well so we can provide leadership and encouragement to the people we work with.
We choose the Jim Collins article for our first discussion because we really like his ideas; and we thought beginning with an article, rather than a whole book, would be less challenging for time stressed people to participate. We have chosen some books we would like to use for future sessions. but we also think this should be a member driven group. So we will make our suggestions, but we will all consider your suggestions too. We will post the title we will be discussing in two months after each session of the roundtable for those of you participating online.
I was very impressed with Jim Collins when I first discovered him a few years ago. I like the importance he places on the right people for the job, and sustained effort. I also think the fact that his research showed greatness wasn't the result of high salaries and bonuses is very encouraging to libraries where we see very little of either high salaries or bonuses. I think the images he uses of moving a huge flywheel getting easier with sustained effort and the hedgehog analogy for understanding our root issues help make them memorable.
So what did you think?
2 Comments:
At our first roundtable we had an interesting discussion first getting to know each other, then talking about what particularly struck us about the Jim Collins article Good to Great. We had a long discussion about getting the right people on board, and the point he makes about compensaton not being a critical factor in self motivated employees. We talked about how we have motivated employees in the past and what had been most effective.
Then we turned our discussion to the three circles of inquiry Jim Collins talks about that successful companies use to set their course. His three questions were:
What can we be best in the world at?
What is the economic denominator that best drives our economic engine?
What are our core people passionate about?
This was a pretty extensive discussion the key points under what we do best were: customer service, interaction w/patrons, helping people find community, in person service delivery
Technology both updating own own for services, and teaching others how to use it
Information and materials when needed
We next talked about our funding drivers: town meeting support generated through happy patrons, demonstrating results to oversight committees and using graphic presentations to make our points quickly. We also talked about the suport of state regulations,and alternative funding sources.
Next we looked at the motivators of our key people: staff and trustees. We agreed on the importance of community involvement, the important effect of books in people's lives, a community knowledge base, a cultural and entertainment outlet, libraries as equalizer, and patron service, particularly to children.
We didn't really have time to examine where these circles intersect.
By Cheryl Bryan, at 10:31 AM
I was very interested in the discussion and how it related to the field of Librarianship. I am enjoying the book Primal Leadership and look forward to the next discussion.
By K. Gabriel, at 6:00 AM
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