Robert C.Miller
Libraries and current trends in management thought
Director of Libraries Emeritus University of Notre Dame
Libraries come in all shapes and sizes: school, public, special, medical and from the one person library to those with hundreds of employees. They share to varying degrees at least two characteristics. All manifest a core of specific library values on the importance of gathering in some fashion information and sharing that information in various formats with actual and potential users. Thus, they have or should have a strong focus on service and people.
In addition libraries are organizations and as such must be managed. Because of this obvious fact, we will here briefly explore some of the major ideas about management that are currently fashionable in both business and academic circles, and that have had some impact on library management. This review will necessarily be limited in scope. For a broader, more comprehensive consideration, the reader is referred to John Nirenberg's Power Tools: a Leader's Guide to the Latest Management Thinking. [1]
While the word management sometimes has for some an unsavory connotation, the function sis unavoidable, whether good or bad. What is management? While there have been many definitions offered, they seem to come down to the direction of the human, financial and physical resources of an organization toward the achievement of specific goals. Any library will involve these resources and have goals, whether articulated or not. While much of the academic study and research on management theory has been based on business, the results usually have applications to libraries.
Why should librarians be concerned with management theory? Apart from general intellectual curiosity which all librarians hopefully possess, there are two principal reasons: First, to better understand organizations in general and their specific organization in particular. Secondly, to use the knowledge acquired to be able to make this organization more effective. The achievement of these ends requires both the careful study of the ideas and tools proposed and their applications, both the successes and the failures, as well as a thoughtful and honest reflection on how these might apply to my organization.
At the outset, it is important to consider the responsibilities of management. The management of any organizations is responsible to all the stakeholders in the organization, that is, anyone who has a interest in the activities of the organization and its success or failure. And who are these stakeholders? Obviously, the stockholders, i.e. the investors or in the case of non-profits, the sponsoring institution, are a primary concern. Employees at all levels are obvious stakeholders, as are vendors and suppliers. So are customers, or as termed more politely for non-profits, users. And finally, society as a whole has an interest in any organization, including libraries. Unfortunately, too many managers and administrators seem to operate with a far more limited view, sometimes limited primarily to themselves.
Finally, in reading management literature, it is very helpful to keep in mind an insight proposed by Gareth Morgan in his stimulating book, Images of Organizations.[2] In that he posits that all management theories are based, consciously or not, on metaphors which describe one thing in terms of another. He identifies seven that are common. An organizations is sometimes seen as a machine, rationally constructed of interacting parts that act as a single whole; as a living organism, subject to evolution, growth and aging and interacting with its environment; a brain which process information and learns; a political system of conflicting interest groups and power struggles; a culture with historical patterns of beliefs and behaviors; a psychic prison in which individuals are trapped; a system in constant flux and transformation. Each of these, he argues, has validity and provides insight into organizations, but each is also incomplete and distorts the full reality as it ignores other aspects of organizations.
Now for some specific ideas and tools. The first is "Reengineering", an approach which John Nirenberg, has characterized as the "mother of all contemporary fads."[3] Essentially, it involves the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of all processes in an organization, with a view to achieving major improvements in all areas of performance. Thus, attention is paid to the speed and cost of operations as well as the cost and quality of products and services. It is about redesigning the organization around core processes rather than looking at functional and vertical hierarchies. In practice, it tends to result in flatter, leaner ( i.e. smaller) horizontal, team-based processes with a focus on customer needs. The levels of hierarchy are usually lessened often resulting in the elimination of positions - and employees - euphemistically termed "downsizing"- so much so that for some, reengineering and downsizing are virtually synonymous.
The radical nature of a true reengineering process is such that virtually everything in an organization is critically examined including roles and responsibilities of positions, the measures and incentives used, the skills called for, the shared values, the organizational structure and use of technology, especially information technology. Typically, there are five phases in a reengineering process: initial planning, usually limited to top management; internal learning as individuals are educated to the reengineering process as perceived by management; external learning in more detail; the actual redesign of processes and finally, actually implementing the proposed changes. A project manager is usually appointed and an outside consultant utilized.
Does it work? Sometimes, though one study suggests that 4 out 5 reengineering programs have been unsuccessful. There have been a variety of explanations for the failures. One writer attributed failure to not being tied to strategic issues, not involving the right people, lack of a clear focus, management feeling that everything must change, attention focused on redesign with implementation issues slighted, lack of attention to human issues and failure to put in place infrastructure necessary for continuing the process. On the other hand, there have been a number of success stories, some dramatic: one unit of GTE was able to "double revenues, cut costs in half, and to chop cycle and systems development times." This produced higher levels of employee and customer satisfaction. The downside was the elimination of 25,000 employees! Reengineering is usually expensive in time and effort which means dollars, and often in human costs. From my perspective, the basic problem is that reengineering is process-focused at the expense of people. In addition, its emphasis too often seems to be monetary, and not on building an overall sound organization.
The University of Arizona Library was an early advocate of reengineering and was widely reported in the literature with largely favorable results, though informally and off the record staff and others expressed concerns. To my knowledge, to date no objective review of the results of this effort have been conducted.
Prior to the emergence of Reengineering, Total Quality Management(TQM) was a common feature on the American business scene for many years and in fact continues to be. It has also been used in a number of academic institutions and libraries. The origins in this approach can be found in the work of the statistician W. Edwards Deming, who had been called to consult to business in Japan which after the Second World War had the reputation for poor quality. He focused attention on production which was problematic and concluded that 85% of production problems were the responsibility of management: their lack of attention to quality. He approached the problem with statistically based quality control tools, but viewed people as the key to success. He stressed that quality is continuous improvement through reduced variation. With the success of his work in Japan he became a prominent person on the American business scene. Indeed, for a number of years there has been a prestigious award named after him to companies that had made major improvements in the quality of their efforts. Other writers, especially Philip Crosby and Joseph Juran also achieved prominence with quality concepts, but with somewhat varying emphases.
TQM has been defined as a strategic, integrated management system for achieving customer satisfaction. It typically involves all managers and employees and uses human resource management and quantitative methods to continuously improve an organization's processes. In TQM the word "customer" has a special meaning, covering all involved in a process from beginning to end, including internal customers within the unit or the organization, and external customers outside the unit or organization. Within libraries, for example, cataloging staff are customers of acquisitions personnel. There is also a distinction between primary customers whose demands must be met first, and secondary customers whose needs are important but secondary. Every effort should be made to meet the needs of all customers, but secondary customers''may have to be deferred. For libraries this distinction is critical: do staff concerns take precedence over library users? Consideration must also be given to suppliers who are critical to the success of any process. Because the workers involved in any process know that process best, teams of line workers are integral to the TQM approach, with a special emphasis on team education and training, both in group dynamics and the use of a variety of statistically based tools. Typically, the basic process for these teams is PLAN -DO-CHECK-ACT or some variation. This means analyzing the problem and planning a possible solution, conducting a pilot project, evaluating it and then fully implementing it. In libraries delays in reshelving might be an example of a problem warranting a team approach. These teams, it must be noted, are always issue oriented - i.e. specific processes - and usually of limited duration.
Does TQM work? It certainly has in some instances, but there have been numerous failures - according to one survey, 2/3 of US managers think it has failed in their organizations. Having been personally involved in one such failure, I would suggest the following reasons in my organization which probably apply to many other failures: a faulty understanding by many involved of the principles of TQM, inadequate preparation of managers and employees for the process, lack of patience, and sometimes a lack of commitment on the part of managers and finally inadequate training and follow through.
While TQM had wide popularity in academic and business circles, it was far from a household name. With the publication of In Search of Excellence: Lessons From America's Best Run Companies by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman in 1982 [4], the word excellence became immediately popular and was used as a theme by many writers. The main focus for all was on the customer. Peters and Waterman themselves identified what they terms the seven s's in excellence. There are three hard s's: strategy, structure and systems, that are relatively easy to change, and the more fundamental and difficult to affect "soft's," staff, style shared values and skills. They predicated success on a bias toward action, clear and informal communication, involving workers in productivity improvement and sticking to core competencies. Their approach, not unrealistically, placed great stress on motivation for all levels of managers and workers. This can be very difficult over the long haul, and non uncommonly lead to cynicism on the part of many. None of this is particularly unique, but it was the packaging in print and in outstanding presentations that bordered on the charismatic that really made for the "excellence" phenomenon.
Another major trend in contemporary management thinking centers on learning on both the individual and group levels, resulting in what is often termed "the learning organization". Learning in this approach is meant to be shared for the benefit of the organization at large as it modifies itself to meet a constantly changing environment. While all organizations, like all individuals, are constantly learning, consciously or not, what distinguishes the learning organization is an understanding of the why, what and how of the learning. While many of the ideas in this approach go back at least to the work of Chris Argris in the 1970's, widespread interest really began in the 1990's. Why? An important factor has been the experiences and often failures of organizations with initiatives such as TQM and Reengineering. These suggested that problems and failures in these initiatives were in human factors such as skills, attitudes and the general organizational culture.
A major element in the increased popularity of the idea of learning organizations was the publication in 1990 of Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.[5] In this book he suggested five elements characteristic of a learning organization: Systems Thinking; Personal Mastery which involves opening to deeper realities and being creative rather than reactive; Mental Models - driving and fundamental values and principles; developing a Shared Vision, a co-creation based on a personal vision; and Team Learning, using both dialogue to explore alternatives and discussion to narrow the alternatives. Ultimately, according to Senge, true organizational learning involves more than merely taking in information; it must involve change in both the individual and the organization.
A reading just some of the vast literature on learning organizations raises the question of whether there is any true learning organization of any substantial size. One writer has suggested that to be a learning organization, an organization must establish a learning culture involving continuous experimentation, network intimacy, accurate information systems, reward systems that recognize and reinforce learning, human resources practices that select people for their ability to learn and a leader's mandate for unlearning and learning. These are all noble and important and reflect a culture that is quite different from most organizations. A number of commentators have noted that the learning organization is a process and one that only gradually emerges.
A final trend to consider is knowledge management (KM). While superficially related to the learning organization, it is really quite different. Senge himself has expressed serious misgivings about this approach, especially in its earlier manifestations when it was closely allied to information technology. In fact, KM did evolve from earlier programs for information management involving information technology to record, organize and disseminate data relating to an organization's activities and relationships. KM incorporates this but goes further in stressing processes to facilitate the creation of knowledge and to manage the way people share and apply knowledge.
There are still two quite different approaches to KM. One looks at knowledge resources as basically a body of information and focuses on managing that resource, relying on innovative uses of information technology to increase the organization's knowledge assets. The other views knowledge as know-how, residing in people, and focuses on managing the behavior that creates the resources. In this approach, KM is an organizational transformation process where relationships are redefined in terms of organizational learning.
Despite much literature on KM emphasizing one of the other of these approaches or variations thereof, the field lacks an outstanding guru as was true with TQM, Excellence and the Learning Organization. Perhaps this is because the field is so complex and unclear, even in the distinction between information and knowledge. Two things are clear: ultimately knowledge is both a resource and a process, and there is a growing appreciation for the importance of knowledge in organizational effectiveness.
As suggested earlier, these are just a few of the many currently popular approaches to management. There are a number of common themes in this literature and that of other management trends. First and foremost is the fact that most are concerned with developing effective ways of dealing with change, a factor that is affecting all aspects of any organization including libraries: the nature of both customers and employees, the technology that is available, globalization, government regulations, public pressures and increasingly complex legal challenges. The one thing that is certain for all managers seems to be that things will be different tomorrow. Each management approach suggests that it is the best way to deal with this environment, which one writer has describes as "permanent whitewater", a world of chaotic change and "managing as a performing art. [6]
Leadership, its nature and critical role in organizational effectiveness has been a major concern in management literature for many years. Not surprisingly, there are a number of different descriptions and definitions of what leadership is and the elements that make for successful leadership. Most seem to identify the importance of a vision for what could be. Leaders must have a vision and be able to sell that vision, creating for the organization a shared vision.
What is a leader? A leader is not necessarily appointed or elected. Titles like library director, even power, do not make for leadership. Rather, it is a personal characteristic that must be earned and demonstrated. A true leader fulfills four principal functions. He or she defines and maintains direction, provides and maintains group structure, cohesiveness, action and interaction, provides the means for goal attainment and facilitates task performance. A leader needs to be out in front, pulling not pushing others. You can't push a horse to water, and you can't make him drink. The same is true with organizations. A true leader pulls the organization to goals and gets it to buy them. Note that while all organizations have executives, not all have leaders.
Because leadership is so personal, much of the literature is basically addressed to the individual: how to be a leader. Perhaps the most popular recent book has been Steven Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey's approach is posited on the importance of individual character and the role of habits in forming character. As the title suggests, he has identified seven core habits that he believes lead to success, in leadership as elsewhere. These are: having ends in mind in all that is done; being proactive; putting first things first (time management); the ability to synergize which is bringing all things together; and finally what he terms “sharpening the saw" or constantly improving oneself in all areas. The book, a very useful one, offers insights into developing these habits and their importance to the success of the individual.[7]
Another theme in management literature closely related to leadership is what is sometimes called "authentic communication". Very many studies of individual organizations identify communication as a significant problem. There are few if any employee surveys conducted that did not complain about communication. This is as true in libraries as in any other organization. Communication is a two way street. On one end is the giver of information. Is management open in proving information or is it done on a need-to-know basis? Is it given in clear, unambiguous language that can be understood. On the other end, listening is critical, a skill far more complicated than is at first apparent. In this area there are several problems. One is not really paying attention, instead focusing on responses to the communication. Another is hearing only what one wants to hear.
In an organizational setting it is important management provide opportunities for communication that are open and truly non-threatening for both employees and customers to express their views, and are these views really listened to. A critical factor in effective communication is trust in both directions: is the other side being honest and open? No management tool can be successful without this.
The word "team" is one of the most common in almost all the writings on tools for improvement. It seems to be assumed most things should be done through teams. Unfortunately, the meaning of the word varies greatly. Organizations are basically people working together in groups, but while all teams are groups, not all groups are teams. Factors affecting groups and their viability as teams include: formality; degree of internal cohesion; the presence of a focus - production or problem-solving; intensity - do the members see themselves and actually operate as a team; authority - is the group advisory or decision-making and is this distinction recognized at all levels; and the extend of participation by the individual members. There are two basic components of team functioning: the substance of their efforts -viz improving production or quality and the processes the group uses including especially the role of the leaders and the responsibilities of individual members. Based on my reading and experience, for team efforts to be successful, managers must be prepared to live with the results of their efforts, ensure proper training in both group processes and the specific tools the team will need, maintain open communications and be prepared to reward the team as such and not just individual members. Teams are an important element in today's management scene, but as in all cases, their presence must be viewed with caution, lest the promise exceed the reality.
As both practitioners and theoreticians have looked at organizations over the past 30 years or more, much attention has been given to the culture of organizations. What is it? Robert Vail has defined it as the unique common psychology of an organization. [8]As such, it provides shared patterns of perception so that members know how they are expected to think and act. It also provides to the individual member an emotional sense of personal involvement . The culture may be expressed concretely in the existence and content of newsletters, the presence or absence of meetings and their nature, the organizational structure, even the design of physical facilities. On another level are specific values are often articulated in reports and public statements. Finally there are the usually unarticulated basic assumptions as revealed in actual behaviors.
In any organization there are inevitably subcultures, sometimes in conflict, that can have major impact on organizational behavior and effectiveness. In libraries examples of subcultures include but are not limited to professionals and non-professionals, technical services and public service personnel, librarians and computer-focused staff. Each of these subcultures tend to have variant values and the variations can be disruptive unless recognized and dealt with honestly and openly.
It is useful to think of two basic cultures in any organization: the one formally expressed by management and the one actually practiced. Too often these are at variance. An important issue is the extent to which the culture may be shaped or manipulated by management. Given the complexity of any culture and its historical nature, this may be possible, but not in the short run. Management can influence but not really change the culture by fiat overnight. It is worth noting that much of the literature of effecting change involves the organizational culture. This makes the process far slower and more complex than some would suggest.
Systems thinking is another central focus in current thinking about organizations and management. This means viewing the organization and its environment as a whole system, in which everything is related and both the cause and effect of other things. This complex interrelationship of inputs to and outputs from the system is, it is sometimes claimed, the key to both understanding and action. Organizations are seen as man-made systems in which the input is the effect of the environment on the system and the outputs are the effect of the system on the environment. On the micro level, this same kind of interrelationship exists between units with an organization. In libraries this typically involves book selection, acquisitions, cataloging, book processing, circulation, shelving, reference, to name just a few of the traditional units that may be involved ed in the overall library "system." Systems thinking is a common assumption in many of the approaches we have considered.
A final common theme has been the importance of quantification, expressing things in numerical terms. This may be, in libraries, titles cataloged or volumes circulated, time consumed or lapsed between receipt and cataloging or book return and reshelving, sales contacts made, costs, revenues and profits in terms of dollars, even the "value" of individuals based on a numerical scale. Some have gone so far as to claim that if it can't be measured, it isn't important. While numbers in these terms are undoubtedly important, there is a real danger in ignoring what isn't or can't be counted.
All of the ideas and tools discussed here have been used in libraries as well as in business: there are examples of great successes. But all have also had their failures as well. Why success or failure? There would seem to be two basic reasons for failure: a faulty understanding of the tool itself, or a failure in application because of the wrong environment or insufficient commitment. So what should be done? Are all these ideas a waste of time and effort? Hardly. As was noted in The Economist, "The only thing worse than slavishly following management theory is ignoring it completely."
What, then, is a library administrator to do after reading about management theories and tools? Perhaps the most important thing is to avoid both uncritical enthusiasm and skepticism about any theory or proposal. With this in mind, in an organizational setting a critical first step is for the administrator to do an self- audit, looking at his or her strengths and weaknesses, values and skills. A wide variety of tools exist for this purpose, but they must be used honestly. It is then important determine what problems actually exist in the organization. This should take into account all major aspects including financial considerations (the bottom line), the use of technology, customer satisfaction and human factors like employee morale, communication, evaluation and systems of recognition and reward. While this can initially be done on the basis of the gut the feelings of the administrator - most administrators think they know what ails the organization but they are frequently wrong. Thus, a more objective view should be obtained with an organizational audit, preferably with the assistance of an outside consultant. After a careful review of available tools that address the problems identified and their potential costs in time and money, a choice among the alternatives needs to be made. Two warnings are appropriate at this stage: beware of biases in the consultant and bear in mind that if you don't know what you are building, no tool will help.
The choice then needs to be explained - indeed, sold - to the library organization and its personnel and to its sponsors. This is critical, as nothing will be effective if it is not widely accepted. At this point one can follow the Plan-Do-Check-Act strategy. Plan how and where the tool can potentially be utilized; Do a pilot study in a limited area; Check by evaluating the results honestly; and if the results are favorable Act on broader actual implementation. Throughout this process, appropriate training for potential participants is important, as is constant communication to the organization generally. Finally, honesty to both self and the organization is very important, and an administrator should never feel blindly bound to a particular tool. His or her commitment must always be to the organization, not to a tool.
In conclusion, these are just some of the theories and tools that can be used to address organizational problems in libraries. Among the many others are Just in Time, Management by Objectives, Activity Based Costing, One Minute Management, Matrix Management and Participative Management.[9] All have their values, and their shortcomings. The challenge to the library administrator is to know both their problems and the potential ways of dealing with them. This means really knowing the library and the literature. Neither is easy but both are essential. Finally, a word of American folk wisdom: If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Footnotes
[1] J. Nirenberg, Power Tools, a Leader's Guide to the Latest Management Thinking, New York, Prentice Hall, 1997. See also Stuart Crainer, The Ultimate Business Library: 50 Books that Shaped Management Thinking, New York, American Management Association, 1997 and Carol Kennedy, Guide to Management Gurus, London, Business Books, 1991. One of the finest comprehensive books on organizations and their management is Charles Handy"s Understanding Organizations, New York, Oxford University Press, 1993.
[2] G. Morgan, Images of Organisations Executive Edition, San Francisco, Sage Publications, 1998.
[3] Nirenberg, op.cit., p. 193. For more on this approach, see James Champy, Reengineering Management: The Mandate For New Leadership, New York, HarperBusiness, 1995. A practical treatment especially applicable to libraries is Alceste T. Pappas, Reengineering Your Nonprofit Organization: A Guide to Strategic Transformation, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1996.
[4] T. Peters, R.Waterman, In search of excellence. Lessons from America"s best run companies , New York, Random House, 1982
[5] P. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, New York, Currency Doubleday, 1994.
[6] P. Vail, Managing As a Performing Art, San Francisco, 1989.
[7] S. Covey, The seven habits of highly effective people, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1989.
[8] P. Vail, op.cit., p.147. For a comprehensive treatment of organizational culture by one of the leading students of the subject, see Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 2nd , San Francisco, Jossey Bass Publishers, 1992.
[9] See Nirenberg for discussions of these and many others.
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