Archive for June, 2007

Teams Need Lone Wolves

Published June 12, 2007 libraries , library , lonewolf , team , teams 1 Comment

Every team has a lone wolf. My thought today: every team NEEDS a lone wolf. This is the person that wonders “why?” and asks it out loud (and not just to have something to say as in “Let’s be able to answer the ‘why question’ so we’ll get more funding”). Yes, team work, team work is the key…yes, yes, yes…but when a team becomes merged into a unit without individual pulses–it’s time to be a lone wolf. Yes, you may be a lone wolf if you…

1. Find yourself wondering why a weak team-created logo, tagline, or message is being used right up until the point it is going to be printed.

2. Ask yourself why a rent-a-rep was paid to tell you about the same problems that have been talked about by everyone in your agency for years.

3. Realize that moving-target-deadlines and schedules don’t really need to be moving targets at all–it’s just a manifestation of indecision.

4. Actually ask about the things that came across your mind or up in discussions during lunch.

5. Find yourself wanting to howl out loud at the end of a meeting that most everyone else quietly slumped out of.

We all have our lone wolf moments. Let’s find the power the lone wolves to get us out of the ordinary and into overwhelming excellence. Alpha Wolves may be in pre-meetings getting the skinny, Lone Wolves have the energy to spread the team into real action. Howl on.

What About Dreaming?

Published June 9, 2007 Dream , libraries , library , policy , strategy 1 Comment

We (whoever “we” is) talk a lot about ’strategizing’ and ‘accountablities’ and ‘leveraging’ and ‘advocacy’ and all the big phatty words that are so important and necessary and all that jazz that is required to get funding (yes, that is too often what it is really about it appears). My question is this: what about dreaming? When do we get to dream again? When do we get to apply our real talents and imaginations-in-action?
What if: we allowed ourselves to dream BEFORE the big meeting, before the big plea for funding, before we started rooting ourselves into the concrete of policy and “strategery?”
Have you dreamed today?
What has helped you dream a little? Follow that. Support that. Advocate for that. Question those that can’t speak the language of dreaming. Anyone can talk. It takes a special breed to dream and then put it into action. When you find you’re being encouraged to dream and allowed to act on those dreams, first, jump for joy, then, support that source–and then get back to dreaming.

Kool Aid

Published June 3, 2007 kool-aid Leave a Comment


I’ve lost count of how many times in the past couple of weeks I’ve heard someone say a variation on the phrase “don’t drink the Kool-Aid” (meaning don’t get pulled in by them or become one of them, don’t fall for the lies, don’t sell-out, a’la Jim Jones’ tribe). What I see is that just about everyone–every group, every team, every for-hire troup is pouring the Kool-Aid and wants everyone else to drink their’s. It’s one big sea of Kool-Aid out there. Here’s my thought: If someone tells you not to drink someone else’s Kool-Aid what they are really saying is”Here, drink MY Kool-Aid instead.” Think of that next time you call forth the Kool-Aid Man. Oh, Yeah!

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