WILL UNWOUND #292: “How an Aluminum Baseball Bat can Keep a Stupid Director Under Control”
December 1, 2010A couple of unwinders complimented me yesterday for being a good person because I was the kind of administrator who listened to staff. As I have said on many occasions, I never saw it that way. I listened to staff not because I was a good person but because I was a selfish person. Throughout my management career, which lasted 31 years (I was a frontliner for only 4 years), I was into self preservation. I had five mouths to feed , five bodies to shelter, and three college educations to pay for. I was deathly afraid of getting canned.
So I analyzed that. How does a top level public administrator get canned? After examining the circumstances of a number of administrators around me who got canned I decided that there were 4 basic ways to get the axe: 1) tick off the city council and/or the city manager, 2) tick off the library board, 3) tick off the staff, and 4) tick off the public. Of course I realized that there was a tight interrelationship between these 4 factors. If staff hated me it would get back to the city council and the library board. Same thing if my policies and behavior ticked off the public. So with #3 and #4 I tried to listen and learn not to be a good guy but to survive. Numbers 1 and 2 were different. They were all about political skills and abilities. I needed to learn how to stay ahead of the political curve. Tip was right. All politics are local, and all local politics need to be studied and mastered.
Every time I hired a new supervisor, manager, assistant director, or department head I would tell them the 4 ways that they could get canned. The point I stressed, which seemed to get everyone’s attention, was that good management skills are basically oriented around self preservation.
Now…what was my biggest deficiency as an administrator? I was told that I was too intimidating. Here’s why: I loved the give and take of debate and dialog. I loved to ignite and stoke freewheeling discussions about all aspects of library service. I could be pretty intense. I loved to be challenged. The favorite part of my city manager job by far was meeting with each of my four public service unions each month for a no holds barred, free wheeling question and answer session. I loved the dialog. That’s why I love this blog. You guys seem to love to take me on!
Well, my style as some of you have already taken me to the woodshed for was considered bullying or badgering by a fair number of staffers. I was too free wheeling and too no holds barred, and this offended some folks. Though that was never my intention.
And so…I was the last person to see it that way. What I learned after a few painful bouts of tough love was that not all staff members loved the give and take, and so I had to learn to lower the volume and dial down the intensity level. What I considered dialog others considered an exercise in intimidation even though in the end I often deferred to the wisdom of my dialogers. I just wanted to make sure their approach was sound and well vetted.
So I did try to alter my personality. Did that work? Not really. You are who you are basically. You might be able to soften the fringes but hey, effective personality transplants are few and far between. I wore and will always wear my emotions on my shirt sleeve. That’s me. Should I apologize? Well, I often did as a manager. Not so much anymore in retirement.
So…what did work for me? An aluminum baseball bat (Mickey Mantle model). I showed it to everyone in my weekly staff meeting and I declared that if I ever came on too strong that the offended staff member should pick up the bat and I would get the message and if I didn’t get the message to just start beating me senseless with it. Everyone laughed and the bat became the touchstone to keep Will under wraps.
It worked because it was funny. If I came on too strong in a dialog situation, a staffer would grab the bat and everyone would laugh and the intensity of the room dialed down 50 degrees. Just like that.
That’s why I have this ultimate philosophy that humor is by far the best tool a manager can use. More on that topic in a future post.
Now it’s your turn. What works in your library to keep your director under control? Would the aluminum baseball bat work in your library?
And directors…what tools do you use to keep it real?
Will, I am really enjoying these last few postings. You are letting your passion for the work show, and it is very refreshing. Of course almost any executive, no matter how circumspect, runs the risk of being called a bully. The higher up the food chain you go, the greater the risk. At various times in my library director years, I made sure to soften the intensity by allowing myself to be ridiculed and humiliated in talent shows, staff day skits, failed athletic attempts, and the like. I was also helped by a staff member who developed a really impressive impersonation of me. He could sometimes be persuaded to do it on public occasions like the annual service awards party. It helped keep everything cut down to size.
Surely, though, you are exaggerating a bit when you insist that survival was your one and only professional motivation. Didn’t you ever do something you thought might get you kicked off the island, because you thought it was Really Important and the Right Thing? I bet you did. If nobody ever took that risk, we wouldn’t make much progress.
Rick…great comment and great question. Brings back memories of my dunk tank days. Actually, you are correct. I did go for broke once early in my career. As a young director I did a political end run around certain members of my city council in Illinois to get an increase in the library budget. I did pay a big price for that. I didn’t get canned but I did end up dusting off my resume. That experience kept me cautious and within the 4 parameters I delineated in my post. Then when I became city manager, I had to learn how so many moving parts meshed together that I really didn’t have the inclination to go long. It wasn’t just self preservation that guided me (altho that was huge…after college educations came the 401k retirement fund challenge) but the realization that you got things done within the four parameters far more effectively than from outside of them. If you have the support of the public, staff, city council, and library board, you have built up a huge reserve of poltical capital that you can then expend on important goals, objectives, and projects. Bottom line is that my early experiences directing relatively small libraries taught me the importance of playing inside baseball.
Will,
Great post, and a great insight into how you tick. If I read something that puts me on edge here in the future, I’ll be sure to wave my virtual “aluminum bat.”
Here’s a question for you, though. What advice would you give to a front-desk staff member who wants to approach his/her director with feedback, but is afraid to? What if said director seems too far removed from the realities of front-line library service, and perhaps a touch volatile at times? It seems to me that a lot of your unwinders might be in that position. We would *love* to be heard, but aren’t sure how to get there.
Thanks.
Jenna…I love that…the virtual aluminum baseball bat. Wave it in fun and fearlessness. I hadn’t thought of that but that’s a great addition to our blog’s evolving culture. Great idea. Now for your question… I would approach the director from his/her point of view. I would say, “Mr./Ms. Director, we on the staff are always watching your back. We know you don’t like surprises…so I think it’s important that you get this “heads up” about what’s happening out in the library with regards to our new computer usage policy for visitors. We would not want you to get blindsided and hear about this issue from the library board or the city council.” Jenna, in my day (gosh that makes me sound old) staff was always approaching me with the words, “Will, here’s an important “heads up” for you. You need to know this so that you can put out the fire before it goes political.” That approach always got my ear…always! Remember, realistically it’s all about self preservation. Hope this helps.
Getting things done most effectively within the four parameters — After 10 years of directing a library, I couldn’t agree more.
Thanks, Jane. It worked well for me. I never did get canned. I did get thoroughly burned out at the end of my working days, but not canned.
I love what you call free-wheeling discussions. Unfortunately, the previous director said the same thing but it wasn’t the truth. I have found that my trying to get a discussion going has the effect of shutting staff down. I have tried to ask for honest feedback on my new ideas so we can have give and take and refine the ideas, but the trust isn’t there. I am trying to resign myself to the conclusion that it will take time for the trust to develop but that it will as long as I remain truly interested in hearing their ideas.
What tools do I use to keep it real? Right now I am so new to the job I am reminded everyday how much i have to learn and that keeps it real. What will I use when I feel more established. I will have to think about that before it becomes too late for me.
ND…be patient. You’ll be fine. You are asking the right questions and you are worrying the right worries. I can tell from your tone you will succeed in winning the staff over. I have always said that problems that develop over a long time take a long time to overcome. You are insightful. As Jeanne said in her comment yesterday it’s all about trust. That takes time. If you try to hurry it, you will come across as insincere. One strong suggestion I have is that if you spend some time working each service desk on a rotating basis, that will speak volumes to your staff that your heart and mind is with them. Oh…donuts help too. The best department head who ever worked for me brought donuts every Friday. He was an extremely talented, bright, and effective administrator but he also had a self effacing sense of humor. One day in a staff meeting someone asked him how he wanted to be thought of when he died (it was one of those touchy feely human relations seminars that cities spring for from time to time). His answer was great: “On my gravestone I want the words ‘HE BROUGHT DONUTS IN EVERY FRIDAY.’ The seminar leader didn’t like the answer but everyone else loved it.
Spend some time on each service desk… certainly doing that. We are small and staffing has been cut so much that I get to work the Tuesday night shift alone. Oh and open on Friday. I did get a good laugh from the others when they asked me how much earlier they had to be in when we open at 7:30am. I said I counted it as good if the front door was unlocked at 7:30. Students could wait for computers to boot up. It was something I wouldn’t have thought much about if I wasn’t the one opening every Friday morning.
I will remain patient. I have almost finished my first semester. The students are getting a bit stressed with the end of the semester. I discovered today I have to learn how to not let that get me stressed and crazy feeling.
ND…stress – that was always my big problem. I used to deal with it by going down to the batting cage at the city park at lunch time and whacking baseballs with my aluminum baseball bat. So you see, it had a double use!
If the staff are reluctant to join in a free-wheeling discussion, maybe they’d be willing to submit anonymous suggestions or observations. If you bring these up for consideration at a future meeting, it may engender more discussion since it will be on topics that at least one of them already is interested in.
Great idea, birdy.
Great idea though given how small we are I am not sure if people would feel anonymous. But maybe I can offer it as an option and let people choose to use it or not. Thanks for the suggestion.
I’ll take a pass on this one. The q you asked re library directors and control is so far from my reality I haven’t a clue.
JR…not sure where you’re going with your point. Please explain. Thanks.
LOL, Will, I love the bat idea. Brilliant!
I also enjoy your point that our shortcomings are our shortcomings: they’re not going anywhere. I felt about 1000x better about myself a couple years back when I realized that I was under no obligation to dissolve my flaws (which is good, because they are legion), but instead to develop my strengths. Total worldview changer right there.
Jessa…totally agree. At some point you have to accept your basic essence, imperfect and flawed as it is. It’s a matter of self definition. Then, as you say, you work on the strengths and put yourself in a position where your flaws are not fatal. But then if you are in a position of management you have to be honest about your flaws and surround yourself with people who will a) give tough love when needed (*swings the aluminum baseball bat*) and b) who have a skill set that complements your own. In other words if you’re Will, don’t hire Will clones. If you’re Jessa, don’t hire Jessa clones. What I’m advocating I guess is something between self love and self loathing. A wise man said “Know Thyself.” Management is not rocket science. Same with self management. Having said that I screw it up regularly as you well know!
One of the first things that I’ve had to do is a pretty ruthless analysis of my own strengths and weaknesses.
I know that I’m pretty good on ‘the vision thing’ but that I absolutely suck at detailed implementation. (I can work with an architect to come up with a good building design, but if I have to do the floor layout the library will be unusable.)
I have a gift for extemporaneous eloquence, but the brain gets ahead of and detached from the mouth. (“Did we quit when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”…”Shut up, he’s on a roll.” has nothing on using the wrong city name — the name of a library that I managed two jobs ago — to Council during a budget presentation.)
I’m pretty good at hearing and using folks input on job related stuff, but I have a tin ear when it comes to paying attention to how their personal lives affect their work lives.
I have a high tolerance for ambiguity and a low tolerance for bureaucratic structure. (I have to physically suppress a lip curl when someone says “We need to make that policy more specific.”)
I love to throw multiple solutions on the table quickly and then sort out which of them work and see if they can be combined into something that’s better than any of them. I hate the sound of a door closing on an option.
I communicate by metaphor and by story. Doing otherwise means that other folks’ creativity is inhibited. I expect that they’ll play with the perspective to come up with their own approaches. (That’s led to a lot of post-meeting conversations among other participants that are summarized by “What the hell was he talking about there?”)
When I go to logical rather than analogical, I tend to leave steps out of the string of syllogisms. Sometime they’re strongly implied in my mind, but left out of the verbalization. Other times, I don’t know that they’re there until someone has asked the question.
I have a hard time connecting with frontline people without stepping on the lines that make it possible for intermediate levels of management work. Sometimes I create problems by relating too closely with the frontline; sometimes I create problems by being too distant.
All of that being said, I’ve tried to develop some compensatory tactics.
Humor is key. I laugh at myself a lot. My colleagues are encouraged to laugh at me as well. They’re also encouraged to laugh at themselves. (I have little patience for self-importance and I’m not good at hiding it. On the other hand, one of the humor topics about me is bloviating — sometimes with pomposity.) The old saw about taking the mission seriously and not taking ourselves seriously really is a byword.
I have survived by being surrounded by good people and finding the right roles to put them in. If there aren’t people in the organization who are detail oriented, have a drive for operations and demand to have discussion come to and end rather than endlessly discussing options, I’m dead meat. (And, like Will, I have a strong desire to survive.) That means that everyone that I work with has to have an unwritten role in their job description — unwritten because it would drive HR nuts. Everyone has to have the role that is referred to in my favorite management book “Up the Organization” (again) — Vice President in Charge of Calling Bullshit.
The other thing that’s crucial is remembering and showing the way that responsibility works. If anything screws up, it’s my fault, period. A screw up means that I didn’t provide the organization with the framework, the resources, the training or the vision that was necessary for the right thing to happen. If anything works, it’s because of the people that made it happen, not that guy in the corner office. It was their blood, sweat and tears that worked. They’re the ones that deserve the praise, whether it emanates from the Board, the Council, the City Manager or the Council. (And, yes, from a practical point of view all four of those elements are smart enough to know that the guy in the corner office is not a dolt if he insists that the praise belongs to the folks who really do the work.)
I’ve blathered here, but that’s one of the elements of the style.
Bill, this is eloquent in its honesty. It’s the rare administrator who can publically list all of his flaws for all to see in a very accessible and heavily trafficked blog. Kudos, kudos, kudos. I’m not sure the unwinders recognize how special your comment is. I honestly don’t know of another library director who would do this. Thanks, Bill. You are definitely a role model for all library administrators. Plus it was damned humorous!
Will, if I’d listed all the flaws it would have been a much longer post.
Bill, all I can say is that dishonesty is definitely not one of your flaws. Also…you’re not a wimp! Very courageous stuff here, Bill. Huzzah!
I agree with your 4 parameters – which is why I always laugh to myself when people ask me if I enjoy “being in charge”. And I also agree that if you do keep everyone happy and build up relationships, you can do marvelous things with your library. As a local mayor once eloquently phrased it: “Be careful of the toes you step on today, they may be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow.” Crude yes, but you do have to be sure not to burn bridges, to phrase it nicely.
As for keeping it real: If you don’t have the ability to laugh at yourself, don’t bother going into management. You will screw up in public at least once, and it’s not worth worrying over, but can be a mine of humor later on. And it deflates the old ego balloon very nicely, thank you.
Never think you know it all. I’ve been in this business since 1977 as a student assistant, and I’m still learning. Everyone you meet is a potential teacher, including the maintenance man, the page, the UPS delivery guy, your kids, the town clerk, board members, etc. Everyone. But you can’t learn if you don’t listen with respect and kindness. I prefer to interact with friends, not adversaries, and so I try to cultivate good relationships with everyone in my library sphere. But it has to be real. We can all spot the fake, and we all resent them bitterly.
To front line staffers – as a director, I appreciate being approached with issues, but please, do your homework before you come talk to me. A dramatic “everyone hates the new computer reservation system” tells me nothing. “Several patrons have had difficulty negotiating the reservation page – this part in particular” is much more helpful. In this example, I can adjust the page, but I cannot deep-six the entire system which cost thousands and really is necessary because of heavy computer use. Details are important, calm assessment is key, possible solutions are really nice – help me to help you help the patron! (say that fast 3 times!)
It all boils down to the Golden Rule -
I think I have a new tagline for my home, not work email. Thanks.
LOL! Reading your post, I think we both have the same management style – laughing, hiring good people, and accepting responsibility. And I am all about shades of gray – hate to be nailed down to black or white for answers!
Does that actually work? The details part, I mean? I’ve been system admin of our ILS forever, and no matter how many times I say it, write it, email it, fax it, document it, etc. I still get calls that basically come down to “the system gave me a weird message so I rebooted my workstation, and its OK now, can you fix it?”
If I have an issue with the computer system, you can be darn sure I write down exactly what the message is, and exactly what I was doing at the time, what station, what time, etc., etc. I think it’s more in terms of policy that things should be left with a little give to them.
Leslie, thanks for pointing out the fact that we need to keep the frontline folks real too! This really hasn’t been brought up.
Leslie – Bless you!!!
For a long time we had a “digression chicken”. It was a puppet of a chicken that was “borrowed” from youth services one day, and which we ended up keeping. Whenever the discussion started to drift to far afield or become a lecture instead of a dialog someone would grab the chicken. It has since disappeared. I think youth services did a secret raid and recovered it.
Love it, Deb. We used to give out a pink Flamingo award each month for the staff member who came up with the craziest most creative new idea. They would plant it proudly at their work system.
I haven’t been reading closely enough. Define the 4 parameters.
Wynette, there are basically four constituencies that a director needs to keep happy: staff, public, library board, and city council/city manager.
Got it! Thanks!
Love the baseball bat story and others posted here. At one of the branches I managed we did “play” extensively with puppets and a sort of mannequin type thing that was inexplicably in our storage closet. Lots of high jinx donchaknow!
In fact an interesting topic some time might be—cleaning out library workroom storage closets. When you are moved to a branch you have a small window of opportunity for getting storage closets cleaned out. You must do it quickly during your honeymoon period. Oh the things you find! And just now I’m sure lots of libraries are having the jousting match over holiday decorations.
Probably these issues sound trivial—but in the branch world—-they are huge.
But I digress. More coffee, please.
I get the 4 parameters–do you rank them in any particular order, or is it more of a continuous balancing act?
Pat…great question. It’s like the circus juggler who has four balls in the air at all times. Hard to tell which is first, second, third, and fourth.
Drop any one of those balls, and you are dead. Each one will have priority at different times. Many a headache has been caused by each!
Absolutely right on target.
Will, the only comment I have is that I’m surprised a natural guy like you would have used an unnatural aluminum bat whose maker had the audacity to use the signature of the great Mickey Mantle, another natural guy who never used an aluminum bat. You should have had a white ash Louisville Slugger with The Mick’s signature on it.