Transcript SAA Talk - Society of American Archivists

Linda Garnets, Ph.D.
Angelo + Garnets Consulting
Sustainable Archives Conference
Austin, August 13, 2009
“Who
are you?” said the Caterpillar…
“I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present, “ Alice replied
rather shyly, “at least I know who I was when I got up
this morning, but I think I must have been changed
several times since then.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Reasons for Combining
Archives and Special Collections
 Meeting users/patrons changing needs
 Accessibility of collections
 Financial/budgetary factors
 Technological changes
 Operational flexibility
 Improving efficiency
 Resource sharing
 Innovation and learning
 Downsizing
Continuum of Organizational Combinations
Alliances
Joint Ventures
Mergers
Acquisitions
As go along continuum from left to right, greater degree of:

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Investment of effort
Commitment
Control
Complexity
Impact
Integration
Risk
“True collaboration engenders a
transformative change that is akin to letting
go on one trapeze in mid-air before another
swings not view.”
Ken Soehner, Chief Librarian at the Metropolitan Museums
of Art Thomas J. Watson Library, 2005 RLG Conference.
Staff Concerns
 What will happen to me?
 What’s in it for me?
 Will I still have a job? Will my job change?
 Will my work experience get worse, better,
stay the same?
 Will I get a new boss? What will that be
like?
Guiding Assumptions about
Workplace Transitions
 Definition: Implementation of a new state,
which requires dismantling the present ways
of operating and introducing new ways
 Adaptation to transitions is a natural and
deliberate process that can not be
circumvented
Transition Realities
 Mismanaged transitions have a negative, not
a neutral, impact on people and
organizations
 A post-transition culture will emerge—
either the status quo or a modified one by
design or by default
Bottom Line
Either you manage change, or
change will manage you!
Model for Managing Workplace Transitions
Adapted from Mitchell Marks (2003), Charging up hill:
Workplace recovery after mergers, acquisitions, and downsizings
Weakening the old
Emotional Realities:
Business Imperatives:
Strengthening the new
Empathy
Energy
Engagement
Alignment
Model for Managing Workplace Transitions
Goal:
 Weaken forces for the old organizational
order
 Strengthen forces for the new one
Model for Managing Workplace Transitions
Levels:
 Emotional realities
 Ways in which people experience transitions
in the workplace
 Business imperatives
 Things that need to get done for
organizational success to occur
Empathy
Objective:
 Let people know that leadership
acknowledges that:
 The transition has been, is, and continues to
be difficult
 People need—and will be allowed—time to
recover from the difficulty
Empathy
Key tasks:
 Acknowledge realities and difficulties of
transition and recovery
 Offer workshops to raise awareness of
transition process and help people understand
where they do and do not have control
 Use symbols, ceremonies, and forums to end
the old
Engagement
Objective:
 Create understanding of and support for the
need to end the old and accept the new
organizational order
Engagement
Key tasks:
 Help people get their work done
 Communicate and provide opportunities for
involvement
 Diagnose and eliminate barriers to
adaptation
Engagement
Guidelines for communication:
 Provide a compelling rationale for why the
status quo is no good
 Describe the change as completely as you
can
 Assure people of what is not changing
 Share information again and again
 Be comfortable saying “I don’t know.”
Energy
Objective:
 Get people excited about the new
organizational order and support them in
realizing it
Energy
Key tasks:
 Clarify a vision of a new and better
organization
Dimensions of New Organizational Order
 Direction
 Mission
 Culture
 Core competencies
 Social and work systems
Making the Case for Change
What Staff Members Tend to Want To Know:
 What are we doing?
 Why?
 To what end?
 When are we doing it? How will we do it?
 What is it going to take for us to do this?
Energy
Key tasks:
 Create a learning environment that:
 Motivates people to experiment & open up to
new ways of doing things
 Create opportunities for short-term wins
 Connect with people & provide support
 Accept confusion & backsliding
 Give people time to move through
adaptation
Alignment
Objective:
 Solidify new mental models that are
congruent with the new desired
organizational order
Alignment
Key tasks:
 Align systems and operating standards with
the new organizational order
 Involve people in bringing the vision to life
 Track the development of the new
organizational order
Principles of Managing
Workplace Transitions
 Provide straight talk about the transition
process, and keep employees involved in it
 Track the recovery process, learn from the
mistakes, and disseminate the knowledge
throughout the organization
 Give transition process high-priority status,
and help managers determine how to
prioritize it within the context of current
organizational requirements
Principles of Managing
Workplace Transitions
You pay now, or you pay later
 Task: You pay now by giving people time to
express their experience and mourn the loss
of the old, and to participate in creating the
new…
 Or you pay later by having a workforce that
continues to hold on to the past rather than
look ahead for the future
 Action: Do it now!