Introduction

Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about Flexibility as one of the most important skills leaders need to be successful in their workplaces.

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we are here to chat with you this season about building your leadership skills. We provide support and training for all types of libraries, and our work can be used by anyone who wants to build skills, and to become a better leader in your own organization.

And now, on with the show! Who is here this week? Joining us is Bethany Kauffman, Media Specialist and Book Club Advisor from Rogers High School.

The Basics

This is another one of those leadership competencies that may not seem important at first glance. But it is an important tool people can use to meet the needs of the communities they are serving. Everything we discuss here goes back to getting the job done, and flexibility is one of the tools you need for that!

What do we mean by flexibility? For us it means the ability to change course when necessary to achieve your goals, and changing plans to be successful.

We have talked about planning in prior episodes, but always emphasized the importance of not getting too focused on meeting every little detail of the plan as written. Always keep in mind your bigger goals: what are you really trying to accomplish? That needs to be your focus, not the little things that can be changed or discarded along the way.

The easiest example of this to visualize building a wonderful new library building. That’s your overall goal. Things will definitely go off-plan in this process! Everyone wanted purple carpet for the Reading Nook section. Everyone agreed, it was picked out, and everyone loved it. And then it’s out of stock for the next two years. Being flexible lets you quickly pivot to choosing purple with flowers, or maybe a nice shade of blue. Your overall goal gets accomplished, and the details along the way bend to meet that goal.

Being flexible makes your job easier, and think about current and future staffers who may also work with you. Do they HAVE to be at their desks at 8am sharp? Would a staffer who coaches their kid’s soccer team prefer to come in at 6am, and leave at 2 some days? Do the walls HAVE to be painted blah boring Apartment White? Could you have a contest to see who would like to add murals to the walls? Or could at least one wall be painted in chalkboard or whiteboard paint, so patrons can write or draw on the walls?

We have talked about stress in the workplace, and how hard it can be to get past that. So as a leader in your organization, think about ways to let staffers be flexible in the details of their job while still accomplishing the big goals. It makes for a happier work environment – good for current staffers, and a place where future staffers will want to work.

Flexibility is one of the keys to good leadership, and it also makes for a better work environment!

If you are part of an organization where people frequently shoot down new ideas by saying “Well, we’ve always done it this way…” or “We tried that once twenty years ago and it didn’t work…” this is a bad sign for the culture. Go back to our Season Three episode on building a good workplace culture for ideas!

There is probably no job anymore that is just stable and steady, where things do not change. Libraries are definitely NOT that job! Anyone working in a library should be changing what they do, the services they provide, the programs they share, the ways the reach out to connect with community members. It should be obvious that doing what you did ten years ago is not going to be successful today; probably what you did five years ago also does not work, or even what you did last year.

Flexibility means looking toward the future, and always being ready to change what you are doing to be sure you meet the needs of your community members – today and into the future.

Now we have some ideas about our competency of flexibility. So let’s build on that and talk with Bethany about how to really make that happen!

Books We Read

Everyone shares a book (or two) they have enjoyed, or are currently reading.

Absurdistan by Eric Campbell

Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between) by Lauren Graham

In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?” She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!”), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout”).

In “What It Was Like, Part One,” Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two” reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.

Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high”), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!”).

Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.

Iron Lake (Cork O’Connor Mystery Series) by William Kent Krueger

Part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor is the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota. Embittered by his “former” status, and the marital meltdown that has separated him from his children, Cork gets by on heavy doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt. Once a cop on Chicago’s South Side, there’s not much that can shock him. But when the town’s judge is brutally murdered, and a young Eagle Scout is reported missing, Cork takes on a twisty case of conspiracy, corruption, and scandal.

As a lakeside blizzard buries Aurora, Cork must dig out the truth among town officials who seem dead-set on stopping his investigation in its tracks. But even Cork freezes up when faced with the harshest enemy of all: a small-town secret that hits painfully close to home.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for joining us today! Thanks to Bethany for helping us build our own flexibility skills! Remember to check out our website for all the information we just discussed.

Tune in next Thursday for another important leadership skill! We are looking forward to chatting with you then.