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Management Experience Through the Back Door
by Louise E. Alcorn
Many Nextgens - new, younger librarians - run into a brick wall when trying to get management and leadership experience, which is often required to move "up the ladder" to supervisory and administrative positions. How do you get that experience, if it is not offered to you as part of your job?
In the November issue of Info Career Trends, Chrissie Anderson Peters ("Unintentional Leaders") discussed people who were thrust into leadership situations without seeking them out. This does happen - it happened to me, as I'll explain later - but what about when you are seeking leadership positions, but feel stymied on how to find and get into them?
Also in November, Barbara J. Arnold (in "Developing the Leader in You") outlined ideas for showing off your skills, including volunteering for committees or becoming expert on a topic of use to your organization. I want to expand on this idea and show you how "unintentional leadership" can be made to work for you: in particular, how opportunities for non-traditional management experience can be yours for the taking.
One Librarian's Experience
My experience serves as an example of some of the ways we can make our mark in libraries, using our unique skills and perspectives as newer librarians. I began my job straight out of library school (University of Michigan) in 1996. This was a newly-created position, Reference Technology Librarian, which mixed the standard tasks of a professional reference librarian and the know-how of a techie.
One great leap forward in my leadership skills came when the library immediately set me to creating a library web site. About a year after the site went live, the City of West Des Moines, of which the Library is a semi-autonomous department, decided to create its own web presence. A committee was created (isn't it always?), and I was the logical choice to represent the library. I was a fairly new employee, and saw the chance not only to advance my own standing in the larger organization, but also to help the library - which tended to have a fairly low exposure in the city structure. I wanted to show my worth, and the worth of libraries in general to projects of this kind. Librarians know how people look for information; we can help others understand this, and design accordingly!
I quickly realized that, among the committee members, I had the most experience with site creation. Also, I had picked up tips and learned about pitfalls in working on a collaborative web site design project during my tenure on the original Internet Public Library Project at UMich.
Remember those annoying group projects we all had to do in library school? Much to my dismay, those projects - not the work we produced, but the experience of working with others in a collaborative effort - turned out to be the most useful thing I learned in grad school. Among other things, I'd learned that my best skills were in the daily grunt work of making sure things got communicated and tasks got done. So, that's what I jumped in and did for the city. During that process, the committee members came to respect each other; in particular, my previous experience with collaborative web sites was useful. I found that, for the next year or so, I was the person most called upon when there was a question with the web site. I really felt I was contributing to my larger organization and to helping our citizens.
A year or so later, we knew we had to have a more professional redesign. Money was found, and the Assistant to the City Manager was charged with the task. However, she had no experience with web design, or even with web maintenance. I gently pointed out that there was a standing committee which had been updating and maintaining the web site for some months. She'd thought she could just call up a company and task them, which showed a deep lack of understanding, not only of the varying costs of web site design, but also city procedure. (This, by the way, was my first experience with the tricky tightrope act of office politics - a management tool of the first water!) The committee was thus reconvened. I took it upon myself to prod the young woman in charge about policies, procedures and the importance of trusting the committee's experience.
Just as we were to sign a contract with the chosen company, the Assistant moved on. Suddenly...I was in charge! This happened largely because I had been the primary communicator on the tasks and issues, including the RFP process for finding the designer. I ended up running meetings and somehow (it's a blur!) getting thirteen departments to agree on a design, color scheme, message and format for a web site which still, some years later, stands the test of time. I'm reasonably proud of the work we did, and my role in it. To some extent, my being thrust into this situation was "right place, right time," but it was also about sticking my foot in the door and making myself useful to the larger organization.
Leadership = Management = Experience
Yes, I was lucky, but how can you make this work for YOU? Have you volunteered for any committee - in your library, in your parent organization (city, university, company), or in your statewide associations - where you might be useful? Have you learned about a new technique/source/database/strategy that you could write up, not only for your library, but also for a statewide newsletter? Have you simply jumped in and been willing to do the scut work on a large project your library is implementing?
If you have done any of these things, have you made sure that those above you (or potential new employers!) have heard about them? I was lucky, but I also made some noise. Not whining, mind you, but standing up and saying "yes, I'll do that rather crappy piece of work you need done, and I'll do it well, and I'd like you to take notice." There is a fine line between making your accomplishments known and crowing, but it's possible.
I have a dear friend who has been an academic librarian for over twenty years. I have another mentor who has been a public library director for at least that long. Both of them, independently, gave me the same valuable piece of advice. I was complaining that all the jobs I might apply for at a similar salary level required two to five years of "supervisory or management experience." I don't supervise anyone directly, nor do I have opportunity to do so in my organization.
Both of my mentors pointed out that the experience I described above, and similar tasks which had come my way, constituted a nice line in project management. This type of experience can easily be sold to potential employers as roughly equivalent to supervisory experience. Employers want to know that you can work with people, make decisions, coordinate activities, and set tasks for others. What else is project management all about?
I have to admit, this view of the work I had done had barely occurred to me, and I'd never thought it would be deemed useful by others when applying for jobs. My mentors are both in positions where they hire frequently. They couldn't believe I hadn't made a bigger deal of my experience! Lesson learned.
Make Some Noise!
A colleague of mine said recently: "The private sector recognizes project management experience as valid supervisory experience, and the main reason that the library world doesn't is because most people don't make enough noise about those roles that we take on."
As a Nextgen librarian, your career path and skill building may not follow a traditional path - but you didn't want to be traditional anyway, did you? Take the opportunities that are offered to you, and a few that aren't, and make them your own. Take responsibility, take ownership, then tell people what you've done. The most likely response will be that you'll be given more to do, but that's what a career path is about - increased responsibility. If you're looking to change organizations, be sure that your resume reflects ALL that you have done, not just the traditional tasks expected from your job description.
No one is going to hand you what you need to get ahead. Take some chances, take a few interesting detours, take on project management. Then write it up, shout it out, and make it known!
Louise Alcorn received her MILS from The University of Michigan in 1996. She is the Reference Technology Librarian at the West Des Moines (Iowa) Public Library, a vibrant, growing suburban library in the Midwest. She's an active member of the NexGen Librarians list and can be reached at louise.alcorn@wdm-ia.com.