Michelynn McKnight - Workshop Agile Librarian

De behendige informatie professional

Michelynn McKnight, PhD, AHIPAssociate Professor

Louisiana State University

School of Library and Information Science

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

mmck@lsu.edu

Workshop: NVB 100Utrecht, The Netherlands

November 16, 2012

Chapter Topics

1. Knowing your value to your organization

2. Delighting your clients

3. Expanding your political influence

4. Pleasing your boss

5. Impressing decision makers

6. Choosing an instantly credible professional image

7. Ensuring positive communication

(8. Marketing, advertising and public relations

9. Gathering and using evidence to support decisions)

10. Behaving ethically

11. Sustaining your green and growing career

1. Knowing your value to your organization

Your specialized expertiseYour professionalismYour role in the institution’s mission

Know exactly how it needs you Show how it needs you Tell the decision makers

Professionals

Know Show Tell

Seven Marks of a ProfessionMichael Winter

Professional Association

Licensing or credentialing

Ethics Code Formal Training

Legitimate monopoly over a body of knowledge

Service Orientation Community

Recognition

2. Delight Your Clients

Client centered service

Take action: It is up to us

What do clients need and want?

Population information needs

Individual information needs

Remove barriers to client delight … including old rules

Traditions and habits: gateways or barriers?

Ambience and attitude

6. Choosing an instantly credible professional image

Place, People, Site and Things: What works Improving our image to increase our

credibility That looks good: color and credibility Neatness counts: clear and simple That sounds good That tastes good You don’t look like a librarian

7. Ensuring positive communication

Welcome and save the client’s time

Turn negative messages to positive

Complaints are reference questions in disguise

Emotional Intelligence: acting professionally when feelings are intense

Common ground and innovative solutions to conflicts

Prioritizing and increasing the effectiveness of your own complaints

Immediate welcome needs

Informed Entertained Perceived value(worth their time) Fast service Safety Feel SPECIAL!

7. Positive communication

Negative actions into positive

Verbal messages: from negative to positive

– What to say

– Scripts and the magic eraser word

– What to write

Positive Communication:Complaints as reference questions in disguise

– Step One – open a communication channel

– Step Two – gather information to frame the larger context of the problem

– Step Three – work together to define and refine the central problem

– Step Four – search for information, answers or solutions

– Step Five – communicate, evaluate and invite

7. Ensuring positive communicationSpecial situations

Act professionally when feelings are intense

Find common ground and innovative, mutually beneficial solutions

Turn problems into innovations

Prioritizing your own complaints

When you should complain

What’s Politics?

INFLUENCE

3. Expanding your influence

3. Expanding your influence

Effective organizational politics

Lessons from the professionals in government

Building positive political capital

Advocacy outside the institution

Personal politics (Wolfe)

Understand your corporate systemKnow when to hold and when to foldBelieve in win-winPlay fairThink first, act later

Politics:Know your organization

What’s the business?Who’s where in the organization?What’s the culture?

Politics:Build a Positive History

Respect and self-respect Face time -- appointments and walk-abouts Meetings Receptions, parties and events Champions in reserve

Politics: Inform the Decision Makers

Solve their information problemsTell the good thingsTell your boss the bad things (no

unfortunate surprises)

4. Pleasing your boss

Allies, mentors and mentees

What does the boss want? What does the boss need?

Leadership and management styles

Subtly educating the boss

Reference and update services

Informing the boss– The good– The bad– The uncomfortable truth

Understanding roles

and perspectivesInformation services for the boss

5. Impressing Decision Makers

Who are these decision makers?

Why are their understanding and experiences of library services important?

What concerns stakeholders?

Actions that impress

11. Your Green and Growing Career

Your own missions Setting priorities

– Urgency and importance– Perfect or good enough

Scheduling– Make appointments not only with others but also

with yourself Risk taking and reward: dare to be proactive Keep starting again

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1981) Strength to Love. (Reprint of 1977 edition, Cleveland, Ohio: Collins) Philadelphia: Fortress Press, page 93

“We must accept finite disappointment,

but we must never lose infinite hope.

Only in this way shall we live without the fatigue of bitterness and the drain of resentment.”

De behendige informatie professional

Michelynn McKnight, PhD, AHIPAssociate Professor

Louisiana State University

School of Library and Information Science

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

mmck@lsu.edu

Workshop: NVB 100Utrecht, The Netherlands

November 16, 2012