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Working Knowledge
A Monthly Column about Life on the Job |
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By Mary Pergander
American Libraries Columnist
Mary Pergander is director of the Lake Bluff (Ill.) Public Library. She received her MS in library and information science from the University of Illinois in 2002. Contact her at working@ala.org.
Column for May 2006 |
Be Your Own Successor
Are you feeling bored and restless at work? Are you looking for new challenges in a job you still enjoy? Conversely, are your current job satisfaction and performance not what they could be? If one of these three scenarios describes you, then consider looking at your job in a new light. If someone else had your job, what challenges would she find? What would she think important to accomplish? What would she drop or ignore?
Examining our work through the assumed eyes of our successors can help us discover inspiring new possibilities. We all experience what I call the “Sock on the Mantelpiece” syndrome. If someone tossed a sock onto the mantelpiece in my home, I would immediately notice it. If enough time went by without my removing it, though, eventually I wouldn't even be conscious of it.
However, any stranger walking into the living room would immediately see it, and probably deal with it. The same thing can happen in our work lives. What seems obvious when we first arrive at a new job can become invisible to us when usurped by thousands of other details to which we must attend.
Become your successor
You can proactively increase your involvement in your job and your organization by putting yourself in the role of your successor. You might find this exercise easier to perform on your first day back from a vacation-but don't use that as an excuse to put this off!
- Reorganize. If someone else were to go through your files, what story would emerge? Do your files represent what is truly important in your work? Just use five minutes a day to go through them as your successor would.
- Build skills. If your boss were going to replace you next month, what skills, knowledge, or experiences would he or she seek in your replacement? What can you do now to develop those skills? Consider volunteer work, classes, or continuing education.
- Form alliances. What partnerships for projects or funding might the new person create? What new synergies for cooperative programming could emerge? Think of some ways to improve your relationships or expand your role in the organization and community to get these benefits now.
- Do the impossible. Perhaps you need to accomplish a seemingly impossible task: Reduce cataloging turnaround time by half or expand hours or services without additional staff. When we live with conditions on a daily basis, it can seem impossible to break through to new approaches for needed improvements. Consider what someone less familiar with the setting might do. Are there assumptions or sacred cows blocking new approaches? Where would your successor get the ideas needed to accomplish these challenges? Be the one who breaks through to the solution. A cataloger reduced the constant three-month backlog to less than two weeks through this method. Another librarian tripled video/DVD circulation in her library after a visit with a colleague.
Other possibilities
Other areas you might consider:
- Make full use of existing tools and technology.
- Identify new sources of funding.
- Serve a new population.
By applying some of these techniques in your current situation, you may discover a richer work experience. Your value to your organization will improve, too. Become your own successor and you may discover you will not need a real one!
WORKING WISDOM
Clear the Deck
How will you create the time needed for these ideas? Try this:
Imagine you are leaving your organization in 60 days. Mark it on your calendar. On what would you focus during your remaining time? What would you absolutely have to do, and what could you jettison or ignore? By clearing the decks, you will release the old projects and ideas standing in the way of the new. Declutter your job. Be careful, though: You don't want people to think you are really leaving!
P.S. In a future column, I will feature librarians who've been in their jobs for many years and still have high job satisfaction. Please write to me at working@ala.org.
—M.P.
(c) Copyright 2006 American Library Association
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