Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of case studies
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Leadership, management and teamwork today
- 2 Getting started
- 3 Strategic leadership
- 4 Confident leadership and management
- 5 Leading and managing your team
- 6 Managing the work
- 7 Project management
- 8 Introducing and managing change
- 9 Communications
- 10 The people side of management
- 11 Managing money
- 12 Lifelong professional development
- Index
8 - Introducing and managing change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of case studies
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Leadership, management and teamwork today
- 2 Getting started
- 3 Strategic leadership
- 4 Confident leadership and management
- 5 Leading and managing your team
- 6 Managing the work
- 7 Project management
- 8 Introducing and managing change
- 9 Communications
- 10 The people side of management
- 11 Managing money
- 12 Lifelong professional development
- Index
Summary
Introduction
This chapter focuses on strategic change, that is, a conscious decision to introduce a change which will have a major impact on the service and its stakeholders. Examples of strategic change include the merger of a library service and an IT service, the restructuring of a service or a change in direction, e.g. from a public service to a self-funding service. These types of major changes have a big impact on library and information service staff as well as other stakeholders. Consequently, a management of change process needs to be introduced parallel to the project management one.
Leading change is a core and critical task for leaders and managers in library and information services. For library leaders, it means thinking ahead and introducing changes that will provide a sustainable future for their service. In addition, they may be involved in leading change, either wanted or unwanted change, as a result of decisions by the senior managers in their parent organization. This chapter covers the following topics: leading change; management of change; managing stakeholders; supporting people through change; and responses to change. The theme of ‘management of change’ could easily extend to a whole book. Further reading on the subject is provided by Brent and Dent (2013), Cameron and Green (2015), Coleman and Thomas (2017), Hodges (2016) and Phillips, Phillips and Weber (2016).
Leading change
Leading change requires knowledge and skills in change management, as illustrated by the work of Baker and Allden, who in their research on leading academic libraries interviewed senior university leaders. One participant said:
Change management has to be part of a librarian's skills set, in particular to be able to achieve successful re-structuring to update services, delivery, and efficiency. Intrinsically this requires a good understanding of process mapping to understand and trigger change. It also requires good people management. The library leadership must demonstrate this in the preparation for change, in a way that engenders a wish and will to change through widespread staff involvement in the process. The advantage of front-loading change through engagement leads to a much more effective process with less kick-back and union mistrust.
(Baker and Allden, 2017, 20)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The No-nonsense Guide to Leadership, Management and Team Working , pp. 145 - 158Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2019