Leading Change: Advice on Getting to the Table.
The challenge to lead change is everywhere in our profession. Wireless communication devices, virtual reference desk software innovations, and peer to peer companies present just a few of the latest opportunities for innovation for information professionals. Professionals need to exercise intellectual leadership in their area of expertise in order for their profession to be respected. While most information professionals realize that it is necessary to lead change in their workplace, getting that leadership role is frequently an uphill struggle. While the information revolution has made our profession critical to a wide range of endeavors like knowledge management, the information profession faces stiff competition from other professions that desire this leadership role. Success can depend on the ability to exercise good political skills to ensure that our profession is at the table when decisions in our area of expertise are made. Yet, many in our profession cringe when the ‘p-word" is mentioned.
There is such a thing as good politics, the art of bringing people together to get the right things done for the organization. Both politics and librarianship are art forms. The word art comes from the Latin word artus, which is to join, fit together. The information professional joins people to text and more importantly, people to people, those who have knowledge with those who need it. Politicians join people to people as well, and both require similar skills. Politics is also a process of helping others get to yes for your initiatives. While our jobs would be a lot easier if good ideas were just recognized as such and immediately implemented, it is instead often necessary to convince others with different points of view and different professional concerns of the value of your initiatives and positions and politics is the process by which you achieve that.
Both politics and human information seeking behavior involves trust and trust is based on relationships. Building relationships is natural for our profession; we usually call it networking. The relationships that are formed today are the potential allies of tomorrow. Spending significant amounts of time talking to people outside of meetings helps to identify common interests and goals. Allies with a unified position do much better in negotiations than those who try to go it alone.
Leadership also requires patience. Otto Bon Bismarck said,"Politics is the art of the possible." Leaders often have to remember that not everyone may be ready to make as great a change as fast as the vision would have them do so. Creeping incrementalism will often get a leader farther than trying to go the whole distance at once. Consensus and compromise are helpful tools in getting approval for initiatives. The advisability of any given compromise should be judged on whether it moves the status quo forward.
Leaders must also be team players once a decision is made. Members of an organization, whether it be a committee, a management team etc., need to be able to trust that those in disagreement will respect and support a decision once it is made.
Taking the role of intellectual leader in your organization sounds like a daunting task to some, particularly those who are cautious, but, as has been stated before, the risk of not leading change can be greater. The history of the information revolution is written day by day, hour by hour, by creative individuals in both traditional and innovative settings. To paraphrase the words of Robert F. Kennedy, few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of the information revolution.
Donna Scheeder, SLA President
RSS
Feedback form
