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How to Work Together in Times of Growth and Transition
- 1. Organizational Assessment How to evolve and work together during times of growth and transition
- 2. Changes New Leadership Growth Changes for MembersBig Projects
- 3. Preparation • Pre-test survey • Outside facilitator • Workshop scheduling
- 4. Workshop 1 Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation- Behavior (FIRO-B) • How they come across to others • How and why conflict develops • How to understand their own needs as they interact with others • How to manage their own needs Expressed Inclusion Expressed Control Expressed Affection Total expressed 0 4 1 5 Wanted Inclusion Wanted Control Wanted Affection Total Wanted 7 1 9 17 Total Inclusion Need Total Control Need Total Affection Need Overall Needs 7 5 10 22
- 5. 25% 50% 25% Conserver Pragmatist Originator 10 Change Style Indicator (CSI) • Approaching change • Addressing change • How do others? • Three categories • Conserver • Pragmatist • Originator
- 6. Workshop 2 CliftonStrengths Develop strengths based on the way you most naturally think, feel and behave
- 7. FocusGroup Overall Impact Roll-out Ideas
- 8. Pre/Post-TestSurvey Results Mean 50.48 50.58 • Increased in 11 out of 23 categories • Decreased in 5 • Stayed the same in 7 92.17% 95.65% “somewhat” or “totally agree” 50.46 50.96 Pre-Workshop Post-Workshop MEAN SCORE
- 9. Questions? Assessment & User Experience Librarian Elon University Coordinator of Archives and Special Collections Elon University Angela Wacker awacker@elon.edu Chrystal Carpenter ccarpenter8@elon.edu
Editor's Notes
- Hi – I’m Angela Wacker and I work as the assessment and user experience librarian at elon university. Just to give you a little background on this project…..Although I have worked at Belk Library for 8 years, this is the first year I have served as the f/t Assessment librarian. While I have done assessment work in the library in a p/t role over the last few years, the f/t is a new position in our library. As part of my role, I coordinate assessment projects within departments throughout the library. I had been interested in digging into some type of team assessment and Chrystal, the Coordinator of special collections and archives, was game!
- In the last 7 years, the Archives have changed dramatically. When I began at the library in 2011, I volunteered in the archives and there was a single archivist. Shortly before she moved, a librarian from collection development and a librarian from instruction were moved into archives. Then, five years ago, Chrystal was hired as the Coordinator of the department. -Another archivist was hired, our systems librarian transitioned into some roles within the archives and a student staff was hired. Another paraprofessional began working pt for the department as well. A lot of people had taken on new positions, were learning new skills, working with new people. It was exciting to see, but it is a lot of growth for a small library like ours. -With the growth came larger projects – more instruction, collaborations, conferences, IR proposals, records management for the university – they were/are busy -Finally in the last several months, we have more changes for the group – A longtime, very dynamic employee (their cheerleader) moved out of state, Chrystal is now out (as of today) on maternity leave and the systems librarian is also moving (or did as of last week). This was a group that could be on the verge of collapse or on the precipice for exciting changes. I hoped it was the latter!
- We knew we wanted to utilize a strength-based approach, and I had researched a number of methods we could use. Previously, I worked as a care coordinator doing wrap around services. Basically what that means is I was assigned a “client” or youth that was in danger of being placed outside the home for either mental or physical health, judicial proceedings or behavioral concerns. I created and coordinated a team that included parents, siblings, educational and mental health providers, community supports or mentors. We all worked together, based upon the child and team’s unique strengths - to ensure that family’s goals were achieved. I was intrigued to see if this kind of process could work in a different type of environment. Obviously I wasn’t going to bring in our counselors but the concept could be approached similarly. In the beginning I had thought I would facilitate some group meetings and we would work on creating a mission, goals, objectives, etc… but we learned that our university had an office that was designed to help facilitate exactly the kinds of activities we were considering. We met with the director of the university office of leadership and professional development and talked about our ideas. She had some great insight and advised a few different “testing” scenerios. Available to all departments is an outside facilitator who will coordinate testing, workshops and guide the exercises. -Therefore, my part, as the assessment librarian, became how to assess this actual process. I decided to use a pretest which was a 23 item, likert scale survey regarding their feelings/beliefs about their team (department) and themselves as part of that team. (ex: The team demonstrates effective decision-making. I demonstrate effective decision making. Or The team atmosphere is comfortable and enjoyable. I am comfortable at work and enjoy my job.) The survey was modeled after a questionnaire I had once used while working with child/family teams. The survey was anonymous and scored by mean and weighted percentage. -We then met with an outside facilitator who advised us further on what types of questions, format of workshops, time frame of workshops, etc…. Each of the team (myself included) took two sets of surveys online in preparation for the first workshop.
- Our first workshop was held in January for 4 hours. It was held outside of the library as well. -I would like to talk a little bit about the different tests we took as they were both useful for our needs (change/team building) but are also commonly used in nonprofit and for profit team building as well. The FIRO-B is not a personality test but it focuses on how you are oriented to interpersonal relations. It is a measure of interpersonal wants and needs in three areas: inclusion, control and affection. Inclusion : belonging, involvement, participation Control: power, authority, influence Affection: support, sensitivity, openness The interesting part of this test is that those three elements are examined in terms of expressed by you AND wanted by you – which may be very different things. So for example, this person above may have a need and want for affection (support, morale-boosting) but not demonstrate this at all. They may also have a very low want or need for control so if their boss was a micromanager, conflict would probably emerge.
- Libraries as institutions have continued to undergo tremendous changes over the past several years. From shelves of books, silent and serious spaces to computer centers to learning commons to today’s full-service, multi media resource centers – they are not the same in space, in concept or in experience. Those who work in libraries, however, are not always comfortable with change. To some, change is exciting and fun, while others are frustrated and disoriented by any change they encounter. The CSI captures your preferred approach to change. They flow on a continuum from conserver to pragmatist to originator. -Conservers prefer the known. Their goal is to improve effectiveness by using current resources, minimizing chaos and uncertainty. They like to play inside the box, by the rules. -Pragmatists are objective. They advocate for change that is reflective and functional. -Originators want fast and radical change. They challenge rules, politics, structure – there is no box ! Even in our little group – we found exactly this – ½ of us were in the middle, and a ¼ on the very ends. When discussing this, it was clear how all types, however, are needed. In the library world, attention to detail – to tradition –to culture is vital, but without someone pumping in new ideas and without a fear of failure in trying these things – it can become stagnant. When we are working with others, it sometimes feels easiest to work with those that are like us – that pay attention to details (or not), that follow the timelines (or not), that see the world through the same lens as we do. However, what our facilitator talked us through is that having differences in groups or teams is what enhances the work. If one person has the “big ideas” but not the attention to detail or focus to follow through – partnering with someone who is the opposite can bring those big ideas to life.
- The second workshop was held in February for 3 hours. Again, prior to the workshop, we completed the CliftonStrengths online test – this is used by many colleges for students and even some companies use it in hiring – however, this can be pretty controversial. After completing the survey, you receive your Strengths Insight and Action-Planning Guide which includes your five top “themes” which fall into 4 domains, questions for you to consider to increase awareness of your talents, how to best apply your talents and steps to leverage your talents for achievement. It is really interesting to see where you fall within these and to see where you colleagues natural talents are. Some were not surprising based on their profession (strategic thinkers working as systems or assessment). When looking at it on a grid, you can see how your team might benefit from someone with a particular skill set or where your strengths lie as a group. You can see this group is really lacking in “influence”. They have indicated they often feel alienated and that their work is not respected as other colleagues. They did have someone they believe would have been in this category and all have greatly missed their presence when she moved away.
- To wrap-up the project, I spoke with the group about their experience. Overall- very satisfied and happy with the process. In particular felt is was useful in starting conversations about how we function as a team and how we function as a whole within the library. It wasn’t as corporatey as imagined and allowed to air grievances or work annoyances in a positive way. It normalized our differences and made it more acceptable to acknowledge and appreciate difference rather than demand everyone behave the same. It gave them the language to use and ability to articulate how all types are needed for a great team to work collaboratively. Impact – had an overall “positive effect” on the team, learned it isn’t about change, but how we adapt to change and adapt to others differences; how to communicate better, how to manage better, to understand who needs what kind of mentoring, direction, how to better ask for what you need in the workplace. For some, this process was a challenge because they feel shy, insecure and don’t like to highlight their individuality. Even for those, they felt it was nice to learn more about others and themselves and to recognize how this can deepen their relationships. The initial plan was to pilot with this group of wonderful people and then roll out amongst the library as a whole. We are in the process of developing a new 10 strategic plan, preparing for retirements, new hires, and will have a self-study combined with an external reviewer over the next year. Again, these are big changes that, after going through this process, everyone involved felt the library as a whole would greatly benefit from. However, because the library would incorporate a larger number of people, a less familial type of environment, there were definitely things that would need to be adjusted. The group thought that it could only be done during the summer to avoid scheduling issues. They thought it would possibly help folks be more receptive to the self-study. In terms of format, they agreed the group as a whole could do the FIRO-B and the CSI together as we did, but that smaller groups (such as departments) should break out for the CliftonStrengths. In regards to how to keep this type of thing “alive” and not forget about what we learned in a workshop, a conference – we wanted to come up ways to keep using these tools. This is something we are still considering moving forward. An idea the facilitator had would be to each have a one pager with our
- I wanted to show just a little bit about the scoring of the pre and post test. When the pre-test was taken, the group scored highly so I was not expecting any real growth to be seen in these areas. However, there was improvement. The highest would be a 51 so there isn’t a lot of room in this group for better satisfaction (now if this was taken by the library as a whole – we would have a different story!).