Staff Professional Development

The revised and updated tenth anniversary edition of the classic, beloved business fable that has changed millions of lives in organizations around the world. Our Iceberg Is Melting is a simple story about doing well under the stress and uncertainty of rapid change. Based on the award-winning work of Harvard Business School's John Kotter, it can help you and your colleagues thrive during tough times. Our Iceberg Is Melting is based on John Kotter's pioneer­ing research into the eight steps that can produce needed change in any sort of group. After finishing the story, you'll have a powerful framework for influencing your own team, no matter how big or small.

John Kotter's now-legendary eight-step process for managing change with positive results has become the foundation for leaders and organizations across the globe. By outlining the process every organization must go through to achieve its goals, and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work. Leading Change is widely recognized as his seminal work and is an important precursor to his newer ideas on acceleration published in Harvard Business Review. Needed more today than at any time in the past, this bestselling business book serves as both visionary guide and practical toolkit on how to approach the difficult yet crucial work of leading change in any type of organization. Reading this highly personal book is like spending a day with the world's foremost expert on business leadership. You're sure to walk away inspired--and armed with the tools you need to inspire others.

The first edition of Crucial Conversations exploded onto the scene and revolutionized the way millions of people communicate when stakes are high. This new edition gives you the tools to: Prepare for high-stakes situations, transform anger and hurt feelings into powerful dialogue, and make it safe to talk about almost anything. Be persuasive, not abrasive.

Behind the problems that routinely plague organizations and families, you'll find individuals who are either unwilling or unable to deal with failed promises. Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, failed to live up to commitments, or just plain behaved badly-and nobody steps up to the issue. Or they do, but do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems. Accountability suffers and new problems spring up. New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating, they're costly-sapping organizational performance by twenty to fifty percent and accounting for up to ninety percent of divorces. Crucial Confrontations borrows from twenty years of research involving two groups. More than 25,000 people helped the authors identify those who were most influential during crucial confrontations. They spent 10,000 hours watching these people, documented what they saw, and then trained and tested with more than 300,000 people. Second, they measured the impact of crucial confrontations improvements on organizational and team performance-the results were immediate and sustainable: twenty to fifty percent improvements in measurable performance.

The classic guide that helps you communicate your thoughts clearly, concisely, and effectively. Essential for every professional, from entry level to the executive suite, Writing that Works includes advice on all aspects of written communication--including business memos, letters, reports, speeches and resumes, and e-mail--and offers insights into political correctness and tips for using non-biased language that won't compromise your message. Concise and easy-to-use, Writing that Works features an accessible, at-a-glance style, full of bulleted "tips" and specific examples of good vs. bad writing. With dozens of samples and useful tips for composition, Writing That Works will show you how to improve anything you write: E-mails, memos and letters that get read--and get action; proposals, recommendations, and presentations that sell ideas; plans and reports that get things done; fund-raising and sales letters that produce results; resumes and letters that lead to interviews; speeches that make a point, and much more.

"Critical Thinking: Proven Strategies To Improve Decision Making Skills, Increase Intuition And Think Smarter!" is a well-rounded introduction to the principles of critical thinking. The book provides tips and steps that are easy to follow, yet very effective in solving problems of all kinds. This guide is helpful to people of all walks of life. The techniques it provides are useful - cutting across careers, businesses, political and even the social arena. After reading through this book, you will be amazed at the amount of resources you can save just by making critical thinking part of your everyday life.

In this book, nine librarians from across the country describe their libraries' best practices in this key area. Their contributions range from all-encompassing customer service policies and models any library can both adapt and be proud of to micro-approaches that emphasize offering excellent user-focused technology planning, picture book arrangement with patrons in mind, Web 2.0 tools to connect users with the library, establishing good service delivery chains, and making your library fantastic for homeschoolers. As past Public Library Association President Audra Caplan writes in her introduction to this book, "There is nothing magical about providing excellent customer service; it just takes the right people, the right philosophy and the passion to make it a reality." If you've got all that, here are the best practices to make stellar customer service a reality for your library's users.

In the rapidly changing business landscape, harnessing the power of diversity and inclusion is essential for the very viability and sustainability of every organization. Talent who feel fully welcomed, valued, respected, and heard by their colleagues and their organizations will fuel this growth. We will only succeed in this transformation if those in leadership pivot from commandand-control management styles to reinvent how we look at people, every organization's greatest asset. It's also critical that we build systems that embrace diversity in all its forms, from identity and background to diversity of thought, style, approach, and experience, tying it directly to the bottom line. Inclusion: Diversity, the New Workplace & the Will to Change stands up and embraces what true diversity and inclusion represent to any organization in any industry, an opportunity. Open your heart and prepare to be inspired as award-winning entrepreneur, dynamic speaker, and respected diversity and inclusion expert Jennifer Brown shares proven strategies to empower members of your entire organization to utilize all of their talents and potential to drive positive organizational change and the future of work.

When Steve Long-Nguyen Robbins was growing up, his mother routinely told him, "Long, you walk on a path cleared by others, so it is your responsibility to clear the path for others." Her insightful guidance and self-sacrificing example are the forces that drive Robbins's corporate work around diversity and inclusion today. His goal is unwavering: to clear the path for others and recruit more "path makers" --to honor his mother and to make a better world for everyone. In What If?, Robbins provides twenty-six inspiring, lively, and sometimes deeply personal stories illustrating diversity and inclusion concepts. He offers insight and practical advice on how to reconcile unity with diversity and reframe our organizations for competitive advantages. He adds tips and suggestions for putting key learning into action in your organization, ending each chapter with questions, an activity, and an assignment to inspire you to be more open-minded and inclusive and to discover how the ideas presented in the book might apply to your daily life at work and at home.

In today's increasingly diverse, global, interconnected business world, diversity and inclusion is no longer just "the right thing to do," it is a core leadership competency and central to the success of business. Working effectively to combat unconscious bias across differences such as gender, culture, generational, race, and sexual orientation not only leads to a more productive, innovative corporate culture but also to a better engagement with customers and clients. The Inclusion Dividend provides a framework to tap the bottom-line impact that results from an inclusive culture. Most leaders have the intent to be inclusive, however translating that intent into a truly inclusive outcome with employees, customers, and other stakeholders requires a focused change effort. The authors explain that challenge and provide straightforward advice on how to achieve the kind of meritocracy that will result in a tangible dividend and move companies ahead of their competition.

I know my own mind. I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way. These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. "Blindspot" is the authors' metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases. Writing with simplicity and verve, Banaji and Greenwald question the extent to which our perceptions of social groups--without our awareness or conscious control--shape our likes and dislikes and our judgments about people's character, abilities, and potential. In Blindspot, the authors reveal hidden biases based on their experience with the Implicit Association Test, a method that has revolutionized the way scientists learn about the human mind and that gives us a glimpse into what lies within the metaphoric blindspot. The title's "good people" are those of us who strive to align our behavior with our intentions. The aim of Blindspot is to explain the science in plain enough language to help well-intentioned people achieve that alignment. By gaining awareness, we can adapt beliefs and behavior and "outsmart the machine" in our heads so we can be fairer to those around us. Venturing into this book is an invitation to understand our own minds. Brilliant, authoritative, and utterly accessible, Blindspot is a book that will challenge and change readers for years to come.

In today's fast-paced world of competitive workplaces and turbulent economic conditions, each of us is searching for effective tools that can help us to manage, adapt, and strike out ahead of the pack. By now, emotional intelligence (EQ) needs little introduction--it's no secret that EQ is critical to your success. But knowing what EQ is and knowing how to use it to improve your life are two very different things. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 delivers a step-by-step program for increasing your EQ via four, core EQ skills that enable you to achieve your fullest potential: 1) Self-Awareness 2) Self-Management 3) Social Awareness 4) Relationship Management

This is the book that established "emotional intelligence" in the business lexicon--and made it a necessary skill for leaders. Managers and professionals across the globe have embraced Primal Leadership, affirming the importance of emotionally intelligent leadership. Its influence has also reached well beyond the business world: the book and its ideas are now used routinely in universities, business and medical schools, and professional training programs, and by a growing legion of professional coaches. This refreshed edition, with a new preface by the authors, vividly illustrates the power--and the necessity--of leadership that is self-aware, empathic, motivating, and collaborative in a world that is ever more economically volatile and technologically complex. It is even timelier now than when it was originally published.

The Innovation Book is your roadmap to creating powerful innovations that deliver success in a competitive world. It answers the following questions: · How do you become a more innovative thinker? · How do you lead and manage creative people? · How can you use innovation tools to get the best results? · How can you engage people with innovation? · How do you avoid pitfalls, problems and screw-ups? With a practical bite-size format, The Innovation Book will help you tackle the really important challenges and seize the most valuable opportunities.

More and more organizations are realizing that the only hope for survival in an ultra competitive landscape is through innovation: developing new and better products and services-and creating efficient processes for delivering them. Designed for managers, team leaders, and trainers looking to promote innovation at work, the book is packed with 55 activities to help participants: * Employ "visioning" and "brain writing" processes to achieve breakthroughs * Cultivate a sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness * Utilize methods of deep observation * Build networks for open source innovation and creative collaboration * Use images to spark ideas and connections * Develop out-of-the-box techniques for problem solving * Deal with failure successfully and productively * Spot trends and determine "the next step" Innovation at Work contains worksheets, questions, and case studies to inspire discussion as well as assessments for determining managers' openness to innovation. This handy book provides readers with a roadmap for fostering creativity and innovation in any team in any industry.

Libraries today face reduced budgets, increased customer expectations, and aggressive competition from web-based information sources. Management guru John Huber, a pioneer and leader in the Lean Manufacturing movement, has worked as a consultant with libraries across North America. In this new book, he shows you how to apply Lean principles and practices--how making small, simple changes in everyday routines will reap large time- and money-saving results. You'll learn how to: * Create a culture of change * Define and streamline your library's service delivery chains * Transform everyday operations like placing customer reserves and technical service processes * Implement performance measures that can drive continuous improvement * Apply Lean techniques in digital operations. Ten years of success-proven strategies and success stories from libraries where John Huber has partnered are included throughout. By learning and applying these principles, your library will dramatically improve efficiency, service performance, and service lead times.

The impulse to create archives is rooted in the very human need to leave one's mark on the world. Whether through letters, diaries, reports, photographs, films, or a teenager's simple need to scrawl "I was here" on a subway wall, there's a deep desire in individuals to tell their stories, to be seen--literally and figuratively--in archives. With this desire also comes the need to ensure that archives are as diverse as the world we live in and to preserve the individuals and cultures that have been consciously or unconsciously underserved in the archives. Through the Archival Looking Glass: A Reader on Diversity and Inclusion, edited by Mary A. Caldera and Kathryn M. Neal, features ten essays that explore prominent themes related to diversity, including creating a diverse record, recruiting diversity to the profession and retaining a diverse workforce, and questioning the archive itself, on representation, authority, neutrality, objectivity, and power. This book illustrates a multitude of perspectives and issues so that fresh voices can emerge alongside more familiar ones, and new concepts can be examined with new treatments of established ideas. Diversity is an ever-evolving concept; the term itself is increasingly rephrased as inclusion. By stimulating further ideas and conversation, we can come closer to a common understanding of what diversity and inclusion are or can be and, perhaps most importantly, how they may be realized in archives and the archival profession.

Moving into a library management position can feel like a daunting and solitary pursuit. Graduate courses in management are expensive and hard to find. To help library managers improve their skills and acumen, renowned speaker and trainer Hakala-Ausperk presents a handy self-study guide to the dynamic role of being a boss. Organized in 52 modules, designed to cover a year of weekly sessions but easily adaptable for any pace, this workbook covers major management topics such as success with stakeholders, staffing, customer service, planning, funding, leadership, and more. Suitable for all levels of management, from first-line supervisors to library directors, this book lays out a clear path to learning the essentials of being a great boss.

In Reframing Academic Leadership, Lee G. Bolman and Joan V. Gallos offer higher education leaders a provocative and pragmatic guide for crafting dynamic institutions where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Creating campus environments that facilitate creativity and commitment. Forging alliances and partnerships in service of the mission. Building shared vision and campus cultures that unite and inspire serving the larger goals of the academy and society. Throughout the book, the authors integrate powerful conceptual frameworks with rich and compelling real-world cases to support academic leaders searching for the best in themselves and in their institutions. The book tackles thorny issues such as building institutional clarity and capacity, managing conflict, coping with difficult people, partnering with the boss, and developing leadership resilience. Following in the tradition of Bolman and Deal's classic Reframing Organizations, Bolman and Gallos emphasize a pragmatic approach. They tease out the unique challenges and opportunities in academic leadership and provide ideas, tools, and encouragement to help higher education leaders see more clearly, feel more confident, and become more skilled and versatile in handling the vicissitudes of daily life. Reframing Academic Leadership is the resource for those seeking to understand, develop, and manage colleges and universities.

From the time we learn to speak, we're told that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. When you become a manager, it's your job to say it--and your obligation. Author Kim Scott was an executive at Google and then at Apple, where she worked with a team to develop a class on how to be a good boss. She has earned growing fame in recent years with her vital new approach to effective management, Radical Candor. Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly. When you challenge without caring it's obnoxious aggression; when you care without challenging it's ruinous empathy. When you do neither it's manipulative insincerity. This simple framework can help you build better relationships at work, and fulfill your three key responsibilities as a leader: creating a culture of feedback (praise and criticism), building a cohesive team, and achieving results you're all proud of. Radical Candor offers a guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, written for bosses and those who manage bosses. Taken from years of the author's experience, and distilled clearly giving actionable lessons to the reader; it shows managers how to be successful while retaining their humanity, finding meaning in their job, and creating an environment where people both love their work and their colleagues.

Leadership is separate from, but integral to, management; and library directors today and for the foreseeable future can be expected to play an institutional role as they lead the library to contribute towards the mission of their college and university. Similarly, new courses in library leadership now accompany more traditional ones on managing organizations and information resources. However, much of the literature on LIS leadership represents a distilled application of principles and practices borrowed from other disciplines, with few reports of research from the library field. Conceived as a companion to The Next Library Leadership (Libraries Unlimited, 2003), Making a Difference includes not only a discussion of effective attributes, but of issues central to the development of leadership qualities, strategies, and dispositions. Essential reading for anyone interested in advancing the quality of leadership within LIS, particularly academic librarians in or aspiring to positions of managerial leadership.

I'm getting more done in less time, but where are the rich relationships, the inner peace, the balance, the confidence that I'm doing what matters most and doing it well? Does this nagging question haunt you, even when you feel you are being your most efficient? If so, First Things First can help you understand why so often our first things aren't first. Rather than offering you another clock, First Things First provides you with a compass, because where you're headed is more important than how fast you're going.

Library work often involves coordinating projects with many tasks and many stakeholders where cost and time limitations can be seen as opportunities. Project management can serve librarians well in their approach to a project. Learning to effectively manage those projects will help to work more effectively and to achieve goals. This book is designed to provide all library staffers at every level, in public, academic, school, and special libraries with an understanding of the basic tools of the project management methodology so that they may embark on projects with the expectation of success. The book is divided into three sections. The first section, Preparing for Project Management, includes the terminology, the philosophy, the people, and the return on investment of project management in libraries. The second section, Planning and Implementing Project Management, introduces the basics of the project management methodology as designed by the Project Management Institute. The third section, Library Resources, provides assistance in using the project management methodology for specific types of library projects, an introduction to agile project management, and success stories in library project management. The book includes many examples of project management tools and techniques as applied to library projects.

Imagine a workplace where everyone chooses to bring energy, passion, and a positive attitude to the job every day. A powerful parable that will help you see your life and work in a new way. Filled with inspiration and timeless wisdom that will resonate with anyone in any field or career level, it's easy to see why FISH! is one of the most popular business parables of all time. People in organizations around the world use its practical lessons to improve customer service, build trust and teamwork, bolster leadership, and increase employee satisfaction. They also use the lessons to strengthen personal relationships, fulfill lifelong dreams, and realize their ambitions. FISH! will help you discover the amazing power that is already inside you to make a positive difference-wherever you are in life.