Leading a team - suggestions from author Nataly Kogan

 As a leader, you’re not managing people. You’re managing energy, emotions, and attention.

And you can help your team focus their energy and attention in ways that fuel their thriving (and reduce struggle).

These 3 questions are a great place to begin:

1. What would it take to make today great vs just OK?

2. What is draining your energy and how could you do it less (and how could I help?)

3. How does the work you are doing help others?

A word about motivation from author Nataly Kogan

 From Nataly Kogan, author of happier now and The Awesome Human Project:

Don't try to motivate your team.  Instead, do things that fuel motivation:

• express gratitude consistently
• ensure that the workload is reasonable
• regularly talk about the purpose in the work
• brainstorm how to add joy to work
• make fueling energy and taking breaks a priority

Motivation is an outcome, a result of other things.  Trying to motivate someone is like trying to get someone to go to sleep.

Instead, focus on the inputs that fuel motivation - sense of purpose, joy, having enough energy, feeling appreciated - and motivation will naturally follow.

PCI webinar archives for the Maryland public library staff

 We now have statewide access to the PCI webinar archives for the Maryland public library staff. All content should be available without needing to be assigned. These webinars are approved for CEU hours using the recorded webinars format.

To register you will need to create an account using your public library employee email, as access will authenticate using the email domain just as the Ryan Dowd Homelessness Training Academy currently does. 

So if you already have an account with Niche (that uses your work email), you should be fine.  Otherwise you will need to register but it just takes a minute.

To access Maryland Libraries PCI Academy please click on the following link: Click To Access Maryland Libraries PCI Academy

Here are a few of the available programs:

 

NicheAcademy webinars

Looking for ways to develop your skills while working from home?  There are a lot of interesting recorded webinars on NicheAcademy that can be accessed from their website without having to create an account.  

These range from Diversity/Inclusive topics like "Cultivating Strong Girls" and "Serving Individuals with Autism,"  to general library topics like "Practicing Intellectual Freedom," and even some topics for managers like "Best Practices for Developing Employees' Soft Skills."

Not everything is CEU worthy, so be sure you are selecting topics that are appropriate to your work at the library, and that you are accessing webinars and not just informative articles.  Remember, the webinar has to be at least 60 minutes long to count for credit.

These are recorded webinars, so you'll need to include a review/discussion of the program with your CEU form when you submit it.  I'll attach the information about recorded webinars, which can also be found on the blog.

https://www.nicheacademy.com/blog  

MLA 2019 - Two Favorite Programs

Two workshops at this year’s MLA Conference really stood out to me: What If … You Could Make Sense of Management and What If … Equality Is A Reality.

The What If … You Could Make Sense of Management Workshop was extremely helpful to me as a first time supervisor. This workshop was led by Professor Brian Butler from University of Maryland’s iSchool. The focus of the workshop was on how to navigate the creation of your personal leadership toolbox in order to make dealing with the myriad of issues and personalities that you are responsible for less stressful and more effective. We discussed the various stakeholders that are involved in the operations of a public library and the many demands that they make on our resources. It was really helpful to hear from peers from different types of library environments and with different levels of management experience on how they deal with these, often conflicting, demands on their resources. Some of the issues discussed were ones that I have already had to deal with as a new supervisor and some of the issues were ones that I had not considered. The end conclusion of this workshop was that management is hard and if you think that it’s easy or that you have a one-size-fit-all solution, then you are doing it wrong.

The other workshop that I found particularly compelling was What If .. Equality Is A Reality. This workshop was led by Dr. Michael Edge from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the College of Education at Wilmington University, and his ability to combine his life experience with the topic matter was compelling. He spoke about implicit biases and how they impact our relationships with one another. While I’ve been to several trainings that have discussed implicit biases in some form or another, Dr. Edge spoke on this sensitive topic in a way that was both highly impactful and not at all blaming or shaming of the participants. One of the things that he brought up over and over again was that you can not blame someone for having implicit biases, they are something that are formed in your childhood by circumstances that you have no control over because you were a child.

This was a welcome approach to the topic since many such trainings on implicit biases have a tone that seems intended to instill a sense of guilt in participants. This approach led to a more open and, in my opinion, honest discussion of the participants’ experiences with implicit biases. The workshop discussed how these biases impact our interactions with customers, both internal and external, and our ability to give excellent customer service. The only downside of the workshop was that it was too short to cover the breadth of the topic.

Kalyn Shields

Pennsylvania Avenue Branch

Review: Motivate, Engage, and Energize Your Team

Motivate, Engage, and Energize Your Team

Che’ Evans, instructor

Baltimore City HR Department

July 20, 2017

The instructor, was enthusiastic and brought a great energy to the discussion.  She was happy to answer specific questions and adapt the course to the needs and interests of the participants.

The class started by discussed employee motivations and how to create an environment that encourages employees to be engaged in their work.  Communication is definitely the key to sharing expectations and clarifying what tasks are “do now” and which can wait.  We also learned that employees can be working at a satisfactory level, but if they are not supported or even worse are in the wrong job they will not improve their performance or be motivated to expand their abilities.

One suggestion offered in class is to meet one-on-one with each member of your team at least once a month to review progress and discuss any problems.  This doesn’t have to be a long meeting, and shows the staf that you are interested in their growth.  Another interesting ideas was to provide interim performance evaluations with scores to staff having difficulties so that they can track their progress from version to version, and review areas that need improvement. 

This was a very interesting class, and I highly recommend it for supervisors and managers.  It does seem to be directed toward managers of larger groups, but those with smaller teams will still get some good ideas to try with their staff.   

Lisa R. Kenyon

Staff Development and Training

How do your direct reports see you as a manager?

If you are a managers, would your employees agree with these?

My manager:

• knows how to do my job and what is required on a day-to-day basis.
• is present, engaged, and accessible.
• helps me to see how my job and duties support the library's mission.
• supports my growth and development as an employee.
• helps me understand which parts of my job are the most important.
• understands the challenges of my job.
• offers opportunities for me to expand my duties and try new things.
• provides positive and negative feedback on an ongoing basis to help improve my job performance.

 If not, what do you need to do to fix this problem?

False Consensus and Team Building

If you are a manager or a team leader, you need to be aware of the idea of false consesus when working with your team.  False consensus is the belief that other people know the same things you know.  If you expect that everyone on your team already knows the things that you know, and they don't know these things, then you are setting your team up for failure.  

Team leaders also need to be aware of their unconcious biases, especially with regard to similarity.  This is the tendency of people to feel more comfortable around those that they see as "similar" to themselves in some way.  If we believe that people know the things that we know, then we will see them as similar to us.  We will then expect them to believe the things we believe and think the way we think, and behave the way we be behave.  These are very dangerous assumptions because they are usually incorrect.

Here are some hints to help avoid false consensus and unconcious biases to ruin your team dynamic:

• Take the time to learn what your team really knows, so that you can provide them with the information they need to complete their tasks.  
• Be aware of your biases so that you don't favor some team members over others, despite their level of achievement and the amount of work they actually complete.(or not) 
• Recognize that although you might share some interests with team members it doesn't mean that they are like you in other ways. You have to allow for different work styles and personality types.
• Ensure that every member of your team is performing at an equal level and completing their assigned tasks.

We need to make conscious efforts to work against our unconcious biases, avoid false consesus, and  ensure that we are supporting and challenging all members of our teams.

Leaving your manager

"People don't leave jobs, they leave managers."

Beverly Kaye

Questions Employees Should Ask Their Managers About Their Development

Think about where you would like to be, professionally, in the next few years.  Do you have the skills/abilities needed?  You should begin to increase your skills now, so that when new opportunities come along you will be ready.  An importat step in this process is having regular conversations with your manager.  Part of her/his responsibility as managers is to to assist staff members with their professional development.  Here are ideas and phrases to get the conversation started:

In the future, I would like to move into (department.position).  What are the skills I would need to make this change?

I'd like to strengthen my skills in(area/subject), how can I get more training in these areas?

I think I could learn from (person). Is there a way I could shadow/work with her/him for a time?

I'd like to gain more experience with (topic/technique/skill).  What types of trainings are available?

I really enjoy (task) and would like to exapand my responsibilities to include (new task). What skills do I need to take on this new task?

In my current position, I don't have a chance to use my (your ability). Are there other tasks in the department/branch/office that I could do that would let me show my abilities?

I found these classes/webinars in (area).  Can I participate in these trainings to strengthen my abilities in (skill)?  

You need to be involved in your own development, and see opportunities to improve your skills.  You can also contact SD&T with questions about opportunities and classes.

Questions Managers Should Ask Employees About Their Development

Managers, it is important to have regular conversations with your employees about their development.  All staff, not just librarians and LAs, should be working on their skills and abilities.   Here are some questions you can use to start these discussions:

What are one or two areas where your abilities/skills could be stronger?  How can we improve your performance in these areas?

What new skills would you like to learn?  Why did you select these skills?  What types of trainings are available for this skill?

What are your strongest skills/abilities?  How have you gotten to this point?  Could you share your abilities and teach other staff to be stronger in this area?

What new challenges/duties would you like to add to your job?  Why are you interested in these?

Are there positions at the library that you find attractive?  Can you connect your job to that job directly?  If not, what do you need to learn, and what type of experience do you need to add to your resume?

Where would you like to be, professionally, in the next few years?  What skills do you need to acquire or improve to meet this goal?

It is important that you and the employee are both invested in his/her development.  Help your employees strengthen their skills and increase their productivity.