Are You Too Pushy?

Do you tend to pull your employees along with you, or do you push them to do what you and your organization needs?  Is there a difference?  I’ve never really analyzed this, but the post Pull Me−Push You got me to thinking about it.

 

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Dan Rockwell says it is better to pull:  “The secret of leadership is helping others uncover what pulls them into the future and get them doing it. If you’re pushing people you haven’t tapped their inner engine.”  This may be correct, and as I said, I haven’t thought of it this way before.  But I also think, sometimes people do need a push.  Don’t they?  Or maybe I should say, they need a little “nudge.”

Okay, now after thinking about it more I’m thinking about parents who push their children. Perhaps into sports, music, academics, whatever.  I tend to think parents should support what their children are interested in, but not force them to practice more, work harder, etc.  I don’t have hard facts to support it, but I think that can lead to children eventually hating what they were “passionate” about, and resenting and rebelling against their parents.  So perhaps they need to pull, rather than push.  And this can apply to the workplace too.

I think this push rather than pull thing is a fine art.  Not all leaders have it.  Do you?

 

Playing Catch Up

We all do it, at home and at work.  And I do it on this blog.

I’ve got a bunch of links I’ve been saving up to write about.  Here’s a potpourri of some from The Fast Track:

• 5 Things Likely to Disrupt Your Project Plan
• 15 Attitudes That Are Ruining Your Life and Work
• What To Do When 2 People on Your Team Don’t Get Along
• What to Do When Your Team Disagrees With Your Decision
• Why Some Projects Will Always Fail

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Happy New Year!

Lots of posts about a new year, looking back at 2014, setting resolutions, etc.

Here’s one you should take a look at:  4 New Year’s Resolutions for a Stronger Team.  Who doesn’t want a stronger work team?  We all do, right?  There’s some great tips here, starting with one I harp on all the time:  Give feedback!

Good luck, and happy New Year!
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Improve User Satisfaction!

You’ve heard me say it before.  Libraries exist for our users.  So the phrase and the act of  “user experience design” is especially applicable to our libraries.

I have been following Aaron Schmidt’s blogs and articles for years.  I guess I’d better read his book Useful, Usable, Desirable soon!  Maybe you should too.

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Onboarding

I talk and teach a lot about orienting new employees, but I just learned the word “onboarding” this year.  Are you familiar with it?

But, it doesn’t matter what you call getting your new staff up to speed: onboarding, orientation, training. . .  the important thing is that you do it!

There’s lots of stuff out there about the topic. Here’s a fairly current one from one of my favorite bloggers:

3 Tips to Quickly Onboard New Employees

You don’t ever want new employees to feel like “Mark” who “wasn’t sure how to do some of the work. He was concerned about asking too many questions because he wanted to look like he knew what he was doing.”

Good luck with your new hires!

It’s Not Your Job to Know Everything

I recently read a post I thought would be a great way to start the new year: The Know-Nothing, or, How to Be a Library Novice.  The author is writing about her first library position, but I have actually felt the same way every time I start a new job.  You go from knowing “everything” about the job you are leaving, to knowing “nothing” about the new one.  It’s very humbling.

But check out this quote:  “When you begin to know it all, that’s when you hit a road block. When you don’t know everything, you leave room for potential.”  Pretty good advice, I’d say, and it applies to every aspect of your life, really.  As I said, it seems to me good advice to heed as we start a new year.

2014 in Review

Thanks for reading A Life in Libraries in 2014.  Here’s a summary of how you found me, what posts were read most, and more:

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,300 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 38 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Maximize

What is wrong with me?  Once again I don’t feel like writing.

Perhaps it is the time of year.  I can’t claim that I am busy because it is the holiday season.  I don’t have to travel until next week, I don’t have any presents to buy, I don’t have any holiday baking to do, our few decorations are up, and grades are turned in for the course I just finished teaching.  But perhaps it is just because it is the “time of year when the days are short and the nights are long.”

That thought made me feel better, as shared by Jesse Lyn Stoner.  If you too, are feeling your energy flag, you will find How to Maximize Your Energy When You Don’t Have a Lot interesting and useful.  And here’s a tip:  it works for other times of the year too!

A Lazy December Post

That is all.

Accountability Doesn’t Just Happen

If you are a leader, manager, supervisor, director, boss. . .  you have others who are (or should be!) accountable to you.

But it is not unusual to have accountability problems, such as staff who miss deadlines or submit substandard work.  If this sounds familiar, you’ll find 3 Ways to Build Accountability On Your Team helpful.

Not surprisingly, things like communication, feedback, and consequences are important!