Picking and choosing your battles
A while back, I had a very visceral reaction of disgust and depression to a comment on my “Why do we put up with this” post. After my initial reaction, I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss where my reaction came from and why I think this response while well meaning sets up a no win situation. I started a post then left it alone. However, today after a conversation with a colleague at University of Texas I thought perhaps this unfinished post was worth revisiting.
What the commenter said that sent me off the deep end was
As for your statement of having to become a member of your state association, I think we can safely say that you’ve pretty much stated that TLA has little, if anything, to entice you. Not becoming a member makes sense. However, change usually comes from within an organization, although it might be stimulated by an outside event. If you aren’t happy with how TLA works, then you’ll have to join and help us make the needed changes.
To be perfectly honest, my first thought when I read this was “you’ve got to be kidding me”. Then I thought about the fact that I had a nearly IDENTICAL conversation with folks at code4lib as to why they should join LITA. The truth of the matter is that I believe in trying to change things by working within the system. However, there are only so many battles one can fight at one time. It seems to me that it is often the same people who pick up the torch and fight these battles for change in librarianship. It is the same people who get asked to do more, and to take leadership roles over and over again.
I was talking to a colleague at UT who is active in a particular library association and that association’s board of directors complaints/dismay that membership had dropped off. My colleague is trying to change the organization in question, and she is one of those folks I described above who genuinely care about the profession but is extremely over-committed because others refuse to take on leadership roles or are poor leaders.
Talking to her and thinking about other colleagues in similar situations, a pattern emerged in my mind. One where the same enthusiastic and effective people get asked to take on more and more and lead over and over again.
In my mind, this pattern has extremely dire consequences. Burn out of active and enthusiastic librarians for one. But burn out is the tip of the iceberg, because burn out can result in ineffectual leadership within our libraries and library associations to the point that we fail to be effective and as a result, alienate users and association members.
The solution isn’t for people like me or my UT colleague to take on more commitments. Instead our associations and libraries must recruit, train, nurture, and retain more people who are enthusiastic, engaged, and effective leaders. Our professional sorely needs this if as a whole we intent to be relevant in the future.
I agree that this is part of the solution, but it is not the entire solution, either. It’s not even the entire problem. I know a lot of enthusiastic, engaged, and effective librarians and librarian leaders who wouldn’t touch their professional associations with a ten-foot pole, because they can accomplish more outside them.
This is not a recruitment or mentorship problem. This is a problem of organizational effectiveness — a systemic problem — and all the recruitment and mentorship in the world will not solve it. At most, it’ll recruit and mentor more people to get chewed up and spat out by the same old bad systems. Cui bono?
Case in point, what’s going on over at ACRLblog over a Five Weeks spinoff. If you read the comments, you find a lot of people more concerned about potential negative impact on ACRL than excited about better member service. The system’s self-perpetuation has taken precedence over the good of the profession and its members. Recruitment and mentorship won’t fix that.
I agree with you comment that it is an issue of organizational effectiveness. Often ineffective people end up in leadership positions because they are the only folks willing to volunteer. This makes the organization ineffective, further alienating potential members, who believe that it isn’t worth being part of the organization because the organization is fundementally ineffective and they can accomplish more by putting their time elsewhere. It is a Catch-22 in some ways. To make things work an organization need to make sure the organization and its leadership is effective. To get good leaders you need an effective organization. For me organizational effectiveness and recruitment are interwined not only at the organization level but also at the level of individual libraries. If you don’t change the leadership then the organization itself has very little chance of adapting and changing effectively.
Random thoughts…
The best part (the only good part?) of membership within a large national association is the peer network. Without these connections, I wouldn’t belong. With the Web, I’m not sure why I still belong, except it’s good on the old C.v. and when I have a regular day-gig my attendance is generally paid for, which means I get to f2f with my buddies.
Pick and choose your battles, for sure. I wrote off my former state library association (though I had to participate nominally as part of my job). It’s not that I couldn’t see how to change it… but I had enough oomph for one or two things of that flavor, and didn’t want to waste my oomph fixing the largely unfixable.
Note that in the best of organizations there will always be a 80-20 breakdown; there are personal differences; there is a shortfall between what you want and what really happens. It happens everywhere, and certainly not just in associations. The key is whether in the end what you contribute makes a difference for you and everyone else.
I think Dorthea made the point I was going to make, only much better.
The “negative impact” comment made me chuckle. I’d call that a “librarian” thing to do. Librarians love to pick apart things that aren’t perfect and ignore anything good, I see it time after time after time….
Unfortunatly organizations are made up of meetlings (people who enjoy meetings, committees and conferences).
I guess for me there’s more to it than leadership, Karen. I’ve been in some ineptly-managed organizations and still managed to Get Stuff Done.
The difference to me is whether the eyes of the organization are on the prize (the mission, the outcomes, the product, whichever is appropriate) or whether they’re on perpetuating the organization itself. On an individual level, are folks at all levels (not just leadership) in it for the accomplishment or for the whuffie?
I’m in ASIST because they don’t make grandiose pronouncements about what they’re about, and they pretty much do what they’re in business to do, which is advance the state of the art through putting the right people in the right conference rooms and the right journals.
ALA has forgotten — or at the very least is deeply conflicted about — what it’s in business to do. This leaves far too much room for organizational navel-gazing and individual fief-building.
This is a very interesting conversation for me to follow, as a leader of a student chapter (ASIS&T) at a library school (Simmons). I have some half-formed thoughts on this that I will have to mull over and get into shape.
Oh, I’m not disagreeing with you, Dorothea. As noted in other venues, I’m in ALA because I’m a stubborn cuss… I do plan to try to change it.
Most organizations forget that their core deliverable is to help make life (/work) better for their members. Period.
Oops, I meant blog-owner Karen, not KGS Karen! Sorry to both Karens!
(Saw your comment on the post at ACRLBlog, KGS — thought it was right on, and thank you very much for saying it.)
I think many of us in the current “generation” of librarians are in this boat. Can we make the change we want to the large structures of our profession, or are we more effective as leaders from the outside? I haven’t gotten a good feel for the answer yet, although I look to KGS and others as people who have been in the belly of the beast and may be able to help with some change-agency.
I’m wedded to the ALA for at least another year or two. After that, we’ll see whether my energies are better spent elsewhere. Depends on how quickly the coup happens, I suppose… :-)