July 2019 – Teachers Who Know Me

Reflecting on Organisational Theory 2.1

(ETL504 Module 2.1)

A good leader must ‘know thyself’ and ‘model best practice’:

We need to be prepared to take on the traits of a leader: to practice and engage in identifying problems, correctly analyse problems, develop solutions using tested theory, tools or techniques, and apply these when needed.

We need to be able to strategically plan for our own practice as well as for the library by knowing ourselves and our staff, effectively organising and managing time, assessing strengths, weaknesses and job roles.

We need to be able to make the library an information resource, not just a source, by enabling continual ‘physical and intellectual access’ for our patrons.

We are part of something much bigger than ourselves:

Remember that the library is part of the greater school context, the greater community, the greater educational context and the greater context of the state and federal government curriculum and funding bodies.

We must understand the nature of information services and information management:

Information services: are contextually designed, satisfy need(s) of specific stakeholders and a range of users, offer support facilities, turn sources into resources, and promote both visible and invisible benefits. Information services are exactly that: services.

Information management: manages information that could be human, intellectual and technical.

(Colvin 2000) Competitive and effective managers / leaders reject the administrative, economic or scientific models of leadership and mechanical organisations and instead embrace and encourage: shared values, recognition, appreciation of judgement, innovation or creativity, and building relationships as the most important aspects of a living and breathing, humanistic organisation’s success.

The big issues are “how to attract and motivate the best knowledge workers, the value of teams, organising by projects, using infotech wisely and the flattening of hierarchies.” (Colvin 2000) … Management versus administration: “Iron authority has its uses but it has serious problems as a way to manage a fast-moving, adaptable, creative enterprise.” (Colvin 2000).

Administration is aligned with the mechanistic model: “functionally organised, many tiered hierarchies”(Colvin 2000). It could also be the economic model / scientific management: “…millions of free agents zoom(ing) around in cyber-space selling their knowledge-worker services hyper efficiently to such organisations as may require them from moment to moment…and in which buyers and sellers of everything connect for near anonymous transactions at that instant’s mutually optimal price” (Colvin 2000).

Organisations are “more like organisms than machines” (Colvin 2000).

People are “complex creatures…most likely (to be) ‘knowledge’ workers rather than physical labourers.” (Colvin 2000).

Managing is the ability to “create, judge, imagine and build relationships” (Colvin 2000). The human centred model views “values as the basis of managing the 21st century corporation…lots of people with aligned values constitute an awesome power…creating, articulating and sustaining the organisations values, thus become(s) one of management’s most important jobs…(Q)uirky humans…still very much need interaction, recognition and relationships…(M)anagement is a human art and getting more so as infotech takes over the inhuman donkey work – the ox work – of the world…Most managers now seem to understand that they will find competitive advantage by (quickly and effectively) tapping employees’ most essential humanity, their ability to create, judge, imagine and build relationships” (Colvin 2000).

Henry Mintzberg (Kokemuller, 2017) classifications for organisations:

Entrepreneurial: non-elaborated, flexible structures closely controlled by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Machine: bureaucratic set-in-their-ways corporations or government departments
Professional: similar bureaucracy to machine, but with largely professional, competent, specialised, autonomous and knowledgable workers pushing the ‘economic engine.’
Divisional: large corporations with centralised control with divisions supervised by vice presidents.
Innovative: cutting-edge leadership in new industries with innovative leaders using de-centralised decision making which allows talented leaders to make judgments efficiently.

Look out for more reflection on these classifications in my next post!

References

Colvin, G. (2000). Managing in the information era. Fortune, 141(5). Retrieved from http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2000/03/06/275231/index.htm?iid=sr-link1.

Kokemuller, N. (2017). Mintzberg’s five types of organizational structure. In Hearst Newspapers: Small business. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/mintzbergs-five-types-organizational-structure-60119.html

Case Study 1 – Reflection and Ideas

The background of case study 1 from CSU Interact2 ETL504 Module 1 (Downloaded on 17/7/19)

Case study 1 from CSU Interact2 ETL504 Module 1 (Downloaded on 17/7/19)

Firstly, it must be said that I am vastly under-qualified for the leadership position at the facility in this case study.

Luckily, it is a hypothetical situation or I might have to have a nervous breakdown as the first thing I would do on Monday morning’s diary entry. Thus, my first reaction is that I need to use something like the graph from Skills You Need to start managing my time more analytically and prioritising tasks more effectively. For example, am I trying to chair too many committees when my staff are falling apart? Am I too busy trying to make myself look good to bond with employees who are running the library, possibly inefficiently?
Perhaps delegating the sorting of my correspondence, reports, memos and emails into ‘now, soon, later’ by a secretary, who could then create my schedule for the week, would be a good idea. If this isn’t in the budget then I will need to allocate time specifically in each day to organise myself.
After reading the background of the case study, I am similarly overwhelmed. In my work experience in marketing, I was at a corporation of similar size to this school and it required a Human Resources (HR) team to support the smooth running of the management and staff. We had a vibrant HR manager who, following a corporate restructure, ran a series of ‘meetings’ where we worked together to improve the workplace culture, and I believe this workplace is in serious need of these HR intervention ideas.
The video from the Bastow Institute’s Tracey Ezard on ‘Building Trust and Collaboration’ (2015) supports this view, offering helpful tips on how to improve the quality of relationships and build trust and risk taking through: discovering each person’s potential and capabilities, admitting my own failings as a leader, appreciating each other and being authentic in what we say and do.
Some ideas on how to achieve an improved workplace culture specifically would be to: do the VIA character traits survey and discuss the results; Build individual and communal philosophies via the GoogleDocs survey that I created; Then collate the results of these into the school library website or intranet to encourage pride and unity.
I would also seek to enhance the external support for those staff members who have challenges at home with childcare and children with disability, possibly through a crèche or respite care. (Not sure what to do about the bloke sleeping at his computer in sight of students. Maybe a having a friendly, helpful and private chat about his health and some options for improving his engagement at work would solve the issue?)
It is clear that some training is necessary and I would look to provide opportunities for the Berry Street Educational Model (BSEM) training for the whole team, but particularly for Liam, Peta, Dani, Victoria, Shelley and Bobbi, who (for various reasons) are not connecting appropriately with students and/or teachers and library staff. While the BSEM training was created to help educators support students with trauma backgrounds, it has the simultaneous effect of building skills in educators like empathy and understanding and the ability to form connections, as well as opening us up to changing our environments, responses and attitudes to better suit the students.
Similarly, the whole team would benefit from a visit from Keynote Speaker: Rachel Robertson, who explains her ‘No Triangles’ strategy as well as many other useful ideas for improving workplace culture.
Further training in relevant technology used by the library and possible ideas for additional technology is also needed, particularly for Shelley, Allison, Bobbi & Melissa. This could be achieved in house by training sessions by Lydia, Liam, Derek & Malia. In support of the staff, I should also have an understanding of the relevant technology and use it daily.
Marlia & Liam could also be trained in the ‘LANS & Networking configurations’ by Derek, who is likely to leave and take his knowledge with him. (And what’s up with that Derek? Do you need to feel more valued or has that ship already sailed?)
The issue of lack of student and teacher engagement in the library needs a whole team approach. Data needs to be collected, possibly through surveys or programs like Oliver to determine the severity or areas of disengagement. Once the data has been collected and collated, it will need to be analysed by the whole staff and ideas for improving engagement need to be shared with everyone based on and supported by recent information science and educational practise research. One aspect of this would be the whole staff having more input and contributions during the actual teaching of student lessons.
Finally, due to the constant staff turnover, a lack of clear direction or goals, and a lack of unity, everyone has ambiguous roles and responsibilities-including me. While I see from the diary that I am meeting with them one-on-one, this needs to be formalised into a performance and review schedule where I first meet with everyone around the same time to determine the specific roles and detailed responsibilities of the respective jobs within the sub-groups of the library, e.g. my roles, the TL’s roles, the tech’s roles, the assistant’s roles and the IT department’s roles. Atlassian has a great structure for a team meeting activity to help achieve this. Some 6-12 months afterwards, I could meet with individuals to review their performance and determine their success or needs relating to their roles and responsibilities.

The task at hand is large. I’m glad it is just hypothetical and am looking forward to hearing input from others in this subject on how they would handle it on Monday…

References

BastowInstitute. (2015, July 27). Building Trust and Collaboration – Tracey Ezard [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/kUkseAdKyek

Teacher Librarians as Leaders?

Here is what I know so far about Teacher Librarians (TLs) as leaders:

It would be such a shame to do all of this work for a Masters of Education and not be viewed as a leader (if only in name only and not recognised in a formal employment title and matching AP salary). I have written about this aspect of the degree and profession in my blog. (See the posts with ‘Leadership’ and ‘Roles and Responsibilities’ tags.)
The library is the heart of the school (Roche, 2018) and this places the TL as in a prime centre position to demonstrate leadership…but what sort of leadership style would I have?
Librarians, stereo-typically, are lovers of books and as such, can sometimes find social situations challenging. Leading, as opposed to autonomy or autocratic behaviour, does not always come naturally. Speaking for myself, I have always found the biggest challenge in adulthood to be working with other adults.
Is it cruel to say that a teacher librarian could become a leader in a DET primary school when the trend has become to have an untrained teacher as a school librarian (or a temporary staff member) and as such, the opportunity to be a leader is nearly impossible and as valuable as it would be, it is in fact an unrealistic expectation?

I am looking forward to revisiting this post at the end of the ETL504 subject to compare what I’ve learnt to these observations.

References

Roche, C. (2018). Making the library the true heart of the school. SCIS. Issue 105. Retrieved from: https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-105/making-the-library-the-true-heart-of-the-school/