Leading technology-driven change: Theory and practice

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Leading technology-driven change: Theory and practice

by Leslie Dillon, from Leader's Digest July 2007

The LAMA-LOMS Program at ALA Annual [2007], Leading Technology-Driven Change: Theory and Practice (featuring speakers Kathryn Deiss, Content Strategist, ACRL; Joyce Ogburn, University Librarian, University of Utah; and Felton Thomas Jr, Regional Branch Services Director, Las Vegas-Clark County Library District) began by differentiating managers from leaders. Managers focus on the short-term and on program administration; leaders focus on the long-term and on innovation and challenging the status quo. One blog post lists several excellent books on leadership and links to LibraryThing’s entry for Warren Bennis’ On Becoming a Leader, which is interesting in and of itself, particularly for the list of great titles on leadership generated by LibraryThing’s recommendations machine.

Steps in technology-driven change include making sure we define the purpose of this change. We need to be clear on how this change will create public value. Next we ask: what are the central elements of the change and how will they be implemented? A good source is Joan Giescke’s “Scenario planning in the learning organization” in Scenario Planning for Libraries. Other possible resources include another great list from LibraryThing. The vast number of choices and possibilities available today can overwhelm us. Will we be the victims or the masters of the new technologies? “In the end, we have to be able to describe what we will make from the change.”

Some quotable quotes:

  • Ogburn:
    • Universities are “untidy organizations” that operate on “delayed confounded feedback.”
    • From Patricia Battin: “Past strengths will become our liabilities.”
    • Effective leadership’s challenge is to enhance your mission rather than the mission being defined by the technology.
  • Thomas:
    • From David Seaman on libraries as agents of change: “We’re moving the profession one funeral at a time.”
    • On leaders carrying the burden of change: “It’s like going hunting and carrying the dog.”
  • Deiss:
    • Change is about two things: managing the action and managing the emotions that come with the action.
    • From David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous: We all have a need to categorize (not just librarians!). The old model is “everything has its place.” With the explosion of technology, this has become “everything has every place.” The goal needs to be how to deal with this change and imagine new ways to structure ourselves and our services to reflect this new reality.
    • On “choice overload”: A leader’s role is to get people to focus on what they need to see rather than being paralyzed by seeing too many things.

(Infomancy, June 23, 2007 and Z. Smith Reynolds Library Blog, June 23, 2007.)

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