Fostering Leadership Across the Academic Library Organization:

Avoiding the Competency Trap

Elliott Shore Executive Director

Association of Research Libraries

11th Columbia Library SymposiumLEADERS EVERYWHERE: Fostering Leadership

Across the Academic Library OrganizationMarch 21, 2014

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Competency Trap

• The position of an organization which uses a suboptimal procedure because it is good enough in the short run and so does not switch to a better one.

(Becker and Levitt – 1988/2004)

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Disagreement deficit

• People are naturally hesitant to disagree with those around them, what Kathryn Schulz calls the "disagreement deficit.”

• We not only believe what those around us believe, but we even see things as those around us see them.

http://www.cityethics.org/content/being-wrong-i-summer-reading

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A Story of a Competency Trap(Ann Pendleton-Jullian and John Seely-Brown)

Glenalvon — 1880s

Clipper Ships

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France II

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Preussen

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Thomas W. Lawson

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Lesson Learned…

Incremental change lands you on the rocks.

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Imagining Beyond Incremental Movement Forward

A BeliefThe challenges we face

are both fundamental and substantial.

We have moved from an era of equilibrium to a new

normal—an era of constant dis-equilibrium.

Our ways of working, ways of creating value, and

ways of innovating must be reframed.

(John Seely Brown)

The Competency Trap works against change!

but what blocks one from seeing new patterns?

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Fostering Leadership

“Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error” by Kathryn Schulz

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Being Wrong

“To err is to wander, and wandering is the way we discover the world; and, lost in thought, it is also the way we discover ourselves. Being right might be gratifying, but in the end it is static, a mere statement. Being wrong is hard and humbling, and sometimes even dangerous, but in the end it is a journey, and a story.” (Schulz)

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Being Wrong

“Who really wants to stay home and be right when you can don your armor, spring up on your steed and go forth to explore the world?” (Schulz)

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Being Wrong

“True, you might get lost along the way, get stranded in a swamp, have a scare at the edge of a cliff; thieves might steal your gold, brigands might imprison you in a cave, sorcerers might turn you into a toad-but what of that? To [mess] up is to find adventure.” (Schulz)

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The Disagreement Deficit

• Our communities expose us to disproportionate support for our own ideas

• They shield us from the disagreement of outsiders

• They cause us to disregard whatever outside disagreement we do encounter

• They quash the development of disagreement from within

(Kathryn Schulz)

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Protecting Those Who Disagree

Lee Iacocca, Dan Atkins

Lee Iacocca delved deeper into the organization and discovered a rich reserve of dynamic, young, talented people, “people with fire in their eyes,” raised them to the light of day, and gave them freedom and responsibility to express their capacities in their work.

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Paths forward?

• Smile and ask: “Why can’t we do it this way,” or “What is stopping us from trying this idea?”

• “What is the worst thing that could happen if we try this?”

• “Our scholars learn from experiments – often more from unsuccessful ones – can we experiment with this idea?”

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Working under constraints

•“I would like to ask if we might suspend disbelief…”•“Can we imagine that there is another possible answer to this question?”

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Differently positioned

• We all report to someone else• We learn more when we listen and

engage and respond than when we dictate and disregard

• There is more strength in hybridity than in monocultures

• We all stand somewhere• We should share our ideas

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Thank you!

Elliott Shoreelliott@arl.org