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silveradeptProfessional ponderings, but in the general sense of "professional" and not specifically-related to my own chosen profession. The touchstone for this particular thinky is Advice For a Slightly Less-Experienced Geek Librarian, a piece that aims to help the hip new librarian get over the natural frustration of being in a new locale and people not doing things the way they're used to doing it in their old place. (Written in 2007, but I get the feeling people still think it applies...)
The article itself is basically telling the new librarian "You can't fight City Hall head-on". And that's a very depressing and discouraging message to give, even though it tries to provide an avenue of hope and escape from the pit of depression that things will never change.
Anyway, the article starts with the idea that when it comes to the adoption of new technology, just because new librarians see the potential in gadgetry and have seen it work in your old spot doesn't translate to anything because their co-workers and supervisors do not have that same experience. Thus, attempting to convince them of the new and shiny is pretty well doomed to failure unless you go about it in a particular way.
The way to make it happen is basically to figure out how to fit the change to the system. It starts with the requirement to get to know the system, the politics, and the people who have the institutional power, authority, and good will to get things done. Figure out if your Fancy Wismo will actually make contextual sense for the system you're in and the work you do. Admittedly, this seems like a "Duh." thing to me - if you didn't see the potential that the Fancy Wismo could do, you wouldn't be advocating for the Fancy Wismo. Yes, there's glitz and hype and people talking about things, but librarians and professionals (and managers, although they may be a bit more hit-and-miss on that) are usually pretty good at deciding whether some New Thing is going to help or hurt them, and whether their community will want that New Thing.
After that, he says, do the research on why things are the way they are. Find the policies, the practices, and the reasons why things are set up in this bizarre and non-adoptive way. They may have very good reasons for it, he says. Figure out how to make your advocacy fit into this framework, to show people how the work they do now will be better or shinier because of adopting the new thing. And then - find the person that everyone actually listens to, the power broker, the person who can make stuff get done because they have the contacts, the ability to frame, and the ear of the right people to get stuff done, and make them an ally, it says. Know your stuff backwards and forwards so you can answer questions and demonstrate how you've used it to great success on small things, and trust that your colleagues are pointing out things because they're well-meaning and looking for shortcomings, not because they want to torpedo new ideas out of spite or laziness.
Thus, so far, the only way to change the system is to become properly integrated into it, and then to hope that you find an ally somewhere who has actual pull and convince them of your idea. Then you have to hope that they can walk the idea up the chain and around so that other people with pull are convinced of your idea's merit. You can't fight City Hall.
As his avenue of escape, the author offers a few ideas. His big one is to keep multiple irons in the fire, so that when you have an opportunity, instead of having to build a whole New Shiny Thing, you can graft it or forge it on to something else already in use, or combine it with some other Shiny Thing to produce a useful Fancy Wismo.
He also offers advice on how not to get cynical or burnt out at your failures. First, you have to learn to take rejection gracefully, and instead of just blaming the people who are standing in your way, learn from it and make your next proposal better. Oh, and to be prepared for the time when some young punk is going to tell you that your New Hotness is now Old and Busted. Because it will happen.
That's seriously cold comfort for those brimming with ways to try and make things better. Anyone want to take a stab at why the "consulting" business booms? Because sometimes, an outsider's perspective is exactly what you need. Who's more of an outsider to the way your system works than a new employee (and at a fraction of the cost of organizational consultants)? Why not harness that dynamo and have them document and explain every time they run into something that doesn't make sense for them? Even if they only have a 10% hit rate on "Hey, we never thought of that", that's still pretty good for making changes.
As for that other 90%, there's a very small window of time between being the outsider and being another part of the system. Being the heretic who suggests stuff and is promptly ignored because "it won't work" or "that's not how we do things" is a part of any system, too. It would be nice if even the entrenched things were evaluated if someone makes mention that they don't make sense. Cruft and chains and bureaucracy grow like vines on things, and you need to weed more than just your collections in any organization.
It's depressing and idea-killing when it looks like the culture doesn't react well, doesn't listen, or moves too slowly on ideas that could be good. I think more people would be satisfied if the company/organization at least made an effort to show that they do listen to suggestions, and then evaluate them, and come back with a final decision on them, with reasoning and explanation attached. What usually happens, though, is that there's a suggestion made, and there might be a little bit of follow-up to make sure that the idea expressed is clear, and then nothing happen. there's no status update on where the idea is, who might have seen it, who approved/disapproved and why. No feedback makes it sound like the organization isn't listening and doesn't care about suggestions from anyone. After enough times of hearing nothing, the employee stops making big suggestions and starts focusing on what little domain they can control or influence, which might make for some nice incremental change, or finding a great way to do things in their department that nobody else ever finds out about. The employee never makes the suggestion that it might have a wider impact, because they know that's a black hole, nor does the supervisor take the idea and start seeding it in elsewhere to get other people thinking about whether or not it works best for them, possibly for the same reason. Because of all this, all the good ideas generated get swallowed up, and then expensive consultants get hired to revamp, and they make suggestions that sound suspiciously like what the employees were saying, but because the consultant said it, it gets implemented almost immediately. It cements the idea in an employee's mind that the management doesn't care about whether they have ideas to improve them, they just want them to obey and do the work they're assigned to do. For a place like a library, that has to stay nimble, up near the cutting edge, and reinvents itself to stay relevant, cutting off what may be your best line of suggestion and improvement (your front-line staff) is asking for trouble.
So I feel that while the article may be right, in terms of "this is the highest-probability way of getting your ideas to the people that will like them and any on them", it is also wrong because it assumes that office politics is the right way to get things done, the status quo deserves priority over innovation by virtue of having tradition and many years of experience behind it, and that if your idea doesn't get traction, it's because you couldn't relate it to the system, not that the system might be broken or wrong.
The article itself is basically telling the new librarian "You can't fight City Hall head-on". And that's a very depressing and discouraging message to give, even though it tries to provide an avenue of hope and escape from the pit of depression that things will never change.
Anyway, the article starts with the idea that when it comes to the adoption of new technology, just because new librarians see the potential in gadgetry and have seen it work in your old spot doesn't translate to anything because their co-workers and supervisors do not have that same experience. Thus, attempting to convince them of the new and shiny is pretty well doomed to failure unless you go about it in a particular way.
The way to make it happen is basically to figure out how to fit the change to the system. It starts with the requirement to get to know the system, the politics, and the people who have the institutional power, authority, and good will to get things done. Figure out if your Fancy Wismo will actually make contextual sense for the system you're in and the work you do. Admittedly, this seems like a "Duh." thing to me - if you didn't see the potential that the Fancy Wismo could do, you wouldn't be advocating for the Fancy Wismo. Yes, there's glitz and hype and people talking about things, but librarians and professionals (and managers, although they may be a bit more hit-and-miss on that) are usually pretty good at deciding whether some New Thing is going to help or hurt them, and whether their community will want that New Thing.
After that, he says, do the research on why things are the way they are. Find the policies, the practices, and the reasons why things are set up in this bizarre and non-adoptive way. They may have very good reasons for it, he says. Figure out how to make your advocacy fit into this framework, to show people how the work they do now will be better or shinier because of adopting the new thing. And then - find the person that everyone actually listens to, the power broker, the person who can make stuff get done because they have the contacts, the ability to frame, and the ear of the right people to get stuff done, and make them an ally, it says. Know your stuff backwards and forwards so you can answer questions and demonstrate how you've used it to great success on small things, and trust that your colleagues are pointing out things because they're well-meaning and looking for shortcomings, not because they want to torpedo new ideas out of spite or laziness.
Thus, so far, the only way to change the system is to become properly integrated into it, and then to hope that you find an ally somewhere who has actual pull and convince them of your idea. Then you have to hope that they can walk the idea up the chain and around so that other people with pull are convinced of your idea's merit. You can't fight City Hall.
As his avenue of escape, the author offers a few ideas. His big one is to keep multiple irons in the fire, so that when you have an opportunity, instead of having to build a whole New Shiny Thing, you can graft it or forge it on to something else already in use, or combine it with some other Shiny Thing to produce a useful Fancy Wismo.
He also offers advice on how not to get cynical or burnt out at your failures. First, you have to learn to take rejection gracefully, and instead of just blaming the people who are standing in your way, learn from it and make your next proposal better. Oh, and to be prepared for the time when some young punk is going to tell you that your New Hotness is now Old and Busted. Because it will happen.
That's seriously cold comfort for those brimming with ways to try and make things better. Anyone want to take a stab at why the "consulting" business booms? Because sometimes, an outsider's perspective is exactly what you need. Who's more of an outsider to the way your system works than a new employee (and at a fraction of the cost of organizational consultants)? Why not harness that dynamo and have them document and explain every time they run into something that doesn't make sense for them? Even if they only have a 10% hit rate on "Hey, we never thought of that", that's still pretty good for making changes.
As for that other 90%, there's a very small window of time between being the outsider and being another part of the system. Being the heretic who suggests stuff and is promptly ignored because "it won't work" or "that's not how we do things" is a part of any system, too. It would be nice if even the entrenched things were evaluated if someone makes mention that they don't make sense. Cruft and chains and bureaucracy grow like vines on things, and you need to weed more than just your collections in any organization.
It's depressing and idea-killing when it looks like the culture doesn't react well, doesn't listen, or moves too slowly on ideas that could be good. I think more people would be satisfied if the company/organization at least made an effort to show that they do listen to suggestions, and then evaluate them, and come back with a final decision on them, with reasoning and explanation attached. What usually happens, though, is that there's a suggestion made, and there might be a little bit of follow-up to make sure that the idea expressed is clear, and then nothing happen. there's no status update on where the idea is, who might have seen it, who approved/disapproved and why. No feedback makes it sound like the organization isn't listening and doesn't care about suggestions from anyone. After enough times of hearing nothing, the employee stops making big suggestions and starts focusing on what little domain they can control or influence, which might make for some nice incremental change, or finding a great way to do things in their department that nobody else ever finds out about. The employee never makes the suggestion that it might have a wider impact, because they know that's a black hole, nor does the supervisor take the idea and start seeding it in elsewhere to get other people thinking about whether or not it works best for them, possibly for the same reason. Because of all this, all the good ideas generated get swallowed up, and then expensive consultants get hired to revamp, and they make suggestions that sound suspiciously like what the employees were saying, but because the consultant said it, it gets implemented almost immediately. It cements the idea in an employee's mind that the management doesn't care about whether they have ideas to improve them, they just want them to obey and do the work they're assigned to do. For a place like a library, that has to stay nimble, up near the cutting edge, and reinvents itself to stay relevant, cutting off what may be your best line of suggestion and improvement (your front-line staff) is asking for trouble.
So I feel that while the article may be right, in terms of "this is the highest-probability way of getting your ideas to the people that will like them and any on them", it is also wrong because it assumes that office politics is the right way to get things done, the status quo deserves priority over innovation by virtue of having tradition and many years of experience behind it, and that if your idea doesn't get traction, it's because you couldn't relate it to the system, not that the system might be broken or wrong.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 01:32 am (UTC)SO TRUE!
I haven't read the article (though I'm bookmarking it for a future read), but I so sympathize with this feeling. I have SO MANY ideas that I think would make a difference for our students, but I don't suggest them for two reasons. One, as an assistant I don't feel like my ideas would be respected or taken seriously, and two, the "system" very much feels like a black hole that does not listen (or does not listen fully and then twists the idea into a strange shape).
And it is so irritating when the "system" makes sudden changes based on an outsiders suggestion when I know it should have happened months ago or be slowly introduced so as to acclimate the kids, etc. Maybe the article will give me some suggestions, otherwise all my great ideas will be forever limited to my one classroom. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 06:41 am (UTC)