Managing People from 5 Generations; Harvard Business Review, 9/25/14

Rebecca Knight, Harvard Business Review; Managing People from 5 Generations:

"For the first time in history, five generations will soon be working side by side. But whether this multi-generational workplace feels happy and productive or challenging and stressful is, in large part, up to you: the boss. How should you relate to employees of different age groups? How do you motivate someone much older or much younger than you? And finally: what can you do to encourage employees of different generations to share their knowledge?"

Understanding the Culture or Establishing It | Leading From the Library; Library Journal, 9/24/14

Stephen Bell, Library Journal; Understanding the Culture or Establishing It | Leading From the Library:

"“Don’t expect to change anything unless you can do it within the constraints of the organization culture” is a piece of advice often given to leaders. Perhaps leaders are better off ignoring it and establishing a new culture.

When I was a graduate student working towards my degree in higher education administration, in one course we read a book called The Invisible Tapestry. You probably are more familiar with the author, George Kuh, than with the content of this publication. Kuh is well-known as a higher education researcher for his work related to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The book is subtitled “Culture in American Colleges and Universities,” and the “invisible tapestry” refers to an institution’s culture as the intangible fabric that weaves together the experience of belonging to that particular academic community. Kuh and his coauthor Elizabeth Whitt deftly blend theory and cases to demonstrate how institutional culture plays a role in not only differentiating colleges but establishing a set of properties (norms, rituals, icons, myths, etc.) that define what it means to be a member of the community. The book’s big takeaway is that if, as an academic administrator, you want to effect some change within an institution it must be done within the constraints of the culture. Attempts to force change that conflicts with the culture are doomed to failure. In other words, implementing conservative-minded programs at a place like Oberlin College would probably be an ill-fated move."

5 Tips for New Team Leaders; Harvard Business Review, 9/22/14

Jeanne DeWitt, Harvard Business Review; 5 Tips for New Team Leaders:

"I’ve been a new manager five times in my career: once as a first-time manager at Google going from being a teammate to leading peers, three times as I was promoted within Google, and most recently as the new Chief Revenue Officer for UberConference, a teleconferencing startup in San Francisco. What I’ve found is that success out of the gate is normally tied to being truly open to learning, communicating openly and honestly, and ultimately being prepared to take action when you know where the team needs to head.

To that end, here are the key things I’ve learned along the way:"

Center for an Urban Future Re-Envisions New York’s Branch Libraries; Library Journal, 9/19/14

Lisa Peet, Library Journal; Center for an Urban Future Re-Envisions New York’s Branch Libraries:

"From the Andrew Carnegie–era temples of learning to the small cinderblock “Lindsay boxes” built during Mayor John Lindsay’s administration from 1966–1973, New York City’s 207 library branches are as varied as its population. And like much of the city, they are feeling the crunch of budget cuts and neglect. The Center for an Urban Future (CUF), a New York City-based public policy think tank, published a detailed report September 15 titled Re-Envisioning New York’s Branch Libraries. The 56-page report, funded by the Charles H. Revson Foundation, focuses on the physical and economic challenges facing the buildings that make up New York City’s three library systems: New York Public Library (NYPL), which serves Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), and Queens Library (QL). It lays out the many design, space, and infrastructure problems that need to be addressed, and explains the difficult processes required for the city’s libraries to secure funding and carry out various building and renovation projects. In addition, the report offers “20 actionable steps that city government and the libraries themselves could take to address these needs.”"

Most People Don’t Want to Be Managers: But if you're young, gay, black, or a man, the odds are higher that you do; Harvard Business Review, 9/18/14

Nicole Torres, Harvard Business Review; Most People Don’t Want to Be Managers: But if you're young, gay, black, or a man, the odds are higher that you do:

"Of the thousands surveyed, only about one-third of workers (34%) said they aspire to leadership positions – and just 7% strive for C-level management (the rest said they aspire to middle-management or department-head roles). Broken down further, the results show that more men (40%) hope to have a leadership role than women (29%), and that African Americans (39%) and LGBT workers (44%) are more likely to want to climb the corporate ladder than the national average.

The online survey polled a nationwide sample of 3,625 full-time workers in government and the private sector, across salary levels, industries, and company sizes. It’s the first time CareerBuilder has asked about leadership aspirations in a worker survey (they now plan to track it semi-annually or annually), so we don’t know if these numbers signal an increase in people who don’t want to be leaders. But past research shows this sentiment is nothing new. Many people don’t want their boss’s job – for reasons that range from generational differences to being happy in their current positions to concerns about responsibility and work-life balance.

And even without these issues, leading others is – and has always been – just really, really hard. Managers have the inherently alienating task of balancing conflicting interests of the worker and the corporation, as a young Warren Bennis summed up in 1961. So it’s no wonder there are more people who dislike being in charge than people who like it."

The Creative Benefits of Boredom; Harvard Business Review, 9/9/14

David Burkus, Harvard Business Review; The Creative Benefits of Boredom:

"“Gasper and Middlewood suggest that boredom boosts creativity because of how people prefer to alleviate it. Boredom, they suggest, motivates people to approach new and rewarding activities. In other words, an idle mind will seek a toy. (Anyone who has taken a long car ride with a young child has surely experienced some version of this phenomenon.)

Taken together, these studies suggest that the boredom so commonly felt at work could actually be leveraged to help us get our work done better…or at least get work that requires creativity done better. When we need to dream up new projects or programs (divergent thinking), perhaps we should start by spending some focused time on humdrum activities such as answering emails, making copies, or entering data. Afterward, as in the Mann and Cadman study, we may be better able to think up more (and more creative) possibilities to explore. Likewise, if we need to closely examine a problem and produce a concise, effective solution (convergent thinking), perhaps we should schedule that task after a particularly lifeless staff meeting. By engaging in uninteresting activities before problem-solving ones, we may be able to elicit the type of thinking we need to find creative solutions.""

What New Team Leaders Should Do First; Harvard Business Review, 9/11/14

Carolyn O'Hara, Harvard Business Review; What New Team Leaders Should Do First:

"Getting people to work together isn’t easy, and unfortunately many leaders skip over the basics of team building in a rush to start achieving goals. But your actions in the first few weeks and months can have a major impact on whether your team ultimately delivers results. What steps should you take to set your team up for success? How do you form group norms, establish clear goals, and create an environment where everyone feels comfortable and motivated to contribute?"

The Best Leaders Are Insatiable Learners; Harvard Business Review, 9/5/14

Bill Taylor, Harvard Business Review; The Best Leaders Are Insatiable Learners:

"So what is the opposite of boredom, the personal attribute that allows individuals to keep learning, growing, and changing, to escape their fixed attitudes and habits? “Not anything as narrow as ambition,” Gardner told the ambitious McKinsey strategists. “After all, ambition eventually wears out and probably should. But you can keep your zest until the day you die.” He then offered a simple maxim to guide the accomplished leaders in the room. “Be interested,” he urged them. “Everyone wants to be interesting, but the vitalizing thing is to be interested…As the proverb says, ‘It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.’”...

It takes a real sense of personal commitment, especially after you’ve arrived at a position of power and responsibility, to push yourself to grow and challenge conventional wisdom. Which is why two of the most important questions leaders face are as simple as they are profound: Are you learning, as an organization and as an individual, as fast as the world is changing? Are you as determined to stay interested as to be interesting? Remember, it’s what you learn after you know it all that counts."

Chattanooga Library official resigns, another suspended after audit findings; Times Free Press, 9/5/14

Joy Lukachick, Times Free Press; Chattanooga Library official resigns, another suspended after audit findings:

"After two top Chattanooga Library officials were reported to the state for suspected fraud, one official has resigned and another will be suspended.

Library Systems Administrator Meg Backus has resigned and Administrative Director Nate Hill will be suspended, Executive Director Corinne Hill said this morning...

Sewell reported her two top staffers, Nate Hill and Backus, to the state's comptroller's office after he found they took multiple paid speaking and consultant jobs on library time and took weeks of unreported vacation time. When questioned, Backus also deleted evidence and lied to auditors. The total excess reimbursements that Corinne Hill and her staffers received and the amount of mismanaged funds are estimated in the auditor findings at nearly $3,000."

Curiosity Is as Important as Intelligence; Harvard Business Review, 8/27/14

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Harvard Business Review; Curiosity Is as Important as Intelligence:

"3) CQ: CQ stands for curiosity quotient and concerns having a hungry mind. People with higher CQ are more inquisitive and open to new experiences. They find novelty exciting and are quickly bored with routine. They tend to generate many original ideas and are counter-conformist. It has not been as deeply studied as EQ and IQ, but there’s some evidence to suggest it is just as important when it comes to managing complexity in two major ways. First, individuals with higher CQ are generally more tolerant of ambiguity. This nuanced, sophisticated, subtle thinking style defines the very essence of complexity. Second, CQ leads to higher levels of intellectual investment and knowledge acquisition over time, especially in formal domains of education, such as science and art (note: this is of course different from IQ’s measurement of raw intellectual horsepower). Knowledge and expertise, much like experience, translate complex situations into familiar ones, so CQ is the ultimate tool to produce simple solutions for complex problems.

Although IQ is hard to coach, EQ and CQ can be developed. As Albert Einstein famously said: ““I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”"