CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION SERVICES

CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION SERVICES Dr. D. V. SINGH University Librarian University of Delhi Delhi

“--- the performance of the managerial leadership determines the success or failure of the organization.” Peter Drucker

Paradigm Shift

Sources of Change • Change is inevitable • Most common forces for change include: New competitors, innovations in technology, new company leadership, evolving attitudes toward work • Two sources of change: • External • Internal

Organizational Change Unplanned Change –change that is imposed on the organization and is often unforeseen Planned Change –change resulting from a deliberate decision to alter the organization Managers must be prepared to handle both

Sources of Change (cont.) External sources of change • Originate in environment • Examples: • Customers(user) • Prevailing economic climate • Labor force • Legal environment • Legislation

External Forces for Change Workforce Diversity Globalization Changing Technology Ethical Behavior

Sources of Change (cont.) Internal sources of change • Exist within the organization itself • Examples: • Shifts in workers’ attitudes towards their supervisor or benefits packages • Decline in productivity • Changes in key personnel (whose goals and values influence large populations of the organization)

Internal Forces for Change Company Crisis Declining Effectiveness Changing Employee Expectations Changing Work Climate

Resistance to Change • Fear of the unknown • Fear of loss • Fear of failure • Disruption of interpersonal relationships • Personality conflicts • Politics • Cultural assumptions and values

Dealing with Resistance to Change • Communication • details • rationale • Participation in the process • ownership • commitment • Empathy and support

Change Leadership Self-esteem 6. Search for meaning: Individuals begin to work with the change and see how they might be able to make the change work for them – self esteem begins to rise. 1. Immobilisation – as rumours of the change circulate, the individual feels some sense of shock and possible disbelief – so much so that they deem it worthy of doing nothing. 5. Testing out: Individuals begin to interact with the change, they start to ask questions to see how they might work with the change. 2. Minimisation: As the change becomes clearer, people try to fit in the change with their own personal position and may try to believe that it will not affect them. 3. Depression: as reality begins to dawn staff may feel alienated and angry, feelings of a lack of control of events overtake people and they feel depressed as they try to reconcile what is happening with their own personal situation. 4. Acceptance/letting go: The lowest point in self-esteem finally sees people starting to accept the inevitable. Fear of the future is a feature of this stage. 7 2 7. Internalisation: the change is understood and adopted within the individual’s own understanding – they now know how to work with it and feel a renewed sense of confidence and self esteem. 6 3 1 5 4 Time

Change and Library • In 21st century, change and how to lead it successfully has become the foremost topic on the minds of library professionals. • Change is happening everywhere; its speed and complexity are increasing, and the future success of our libraries depends on how successful library leaders are at leading that change. • In today’s marketplace, change is a requirement for continued success, and competent change in library leadership is the most coveted executive skill. • Libraries’ track records at change are not very good

Change management • change management has attempted to provide solutions to two major problems • how to plan better for implementation, and • how to overcome employee resistance. However, these two necessary components of change have not produced adequate positive results, especially for transformational change. Why? Because attention to implementation and resistance is only the tip of the iceberg of what is required in transformation. It is now time to move beyond change management into change library leadership, and to develop the advanced change strategies that supports this new type of change.

Transformational change • Transformational change involves a number of very critical and unique dynamics that demand a new leadership perspective, skill, and style. • Most librarians, however, are viewing transformation through their old perspectives and are applying traditional management approaches that just do not work. Leading transformation calls for a deeper understanding of change and a new set of leadership skills and strategies. • Librarians must broaden their understanding and gain insight about what transformational change requires, and let go their old approaches, and guide the process of transformation differently. Librarians themselves must transform in order to lead transformation successfully in their libraries. • Over the past two decades, librarians have done a phenomenal job of increasing the quality of service of their libraries. However, because today’s change is so often transformational (making it much more complex), the requirements for today’s librarians, out of necessity, are expanding. • The challenge is that today’s marketplace is not asking for just a librarian. It is demanding a change librarian – even more, transformational change librarian – a new breed of librarian for a new breed of change.

Library and Information Services: Definition and Scope • Information does not organize itself • The role of the future librarian will be to anticipate and satisfy the information needs of patrons and to collect or provide access to the information that will be needed.

Future roles of librarian • information need assessor, • information evaluator, • information planner, • information services manager, and • information instructor.

Pitfalls of change to technology • The shift in emphasis toward accessing information through electronic technologies may have unintended negative consequences to the profession. • Information technologies have focused librarians’ activities on techniques for information access - information as a commodity - a role that can be comfortably exploited by those who know the value of information and can use it profitably. • As such, the technical character of the knowledge needed to access information and the value of the knowledge that can be accessed tends to raise the status of the librarian (at least temporarily) • Yet librarians in a rush to exploit this trend may not be considering all the consequences. Estabrook (1981) has warned that this enthusiasm may be short-lived, as those with greater capital recognize the potential of information control and appropriate the information marketplace for themselves.

Humanistic and democratic values of Librarianship • Finding pieces of information has always been part of the librarian’s role – but subsumed under larger purposes: the humanistic and democratic values of traditional librarianship. • Butler (1951) referred to the humanistic values in librarianship as the “cultural motivation” of librarianship. This motivation was “the promotion of wisdom in the individual and in the community” • The librarian was to foster understanding and judgment within the citizenry and society. From this perspective, librarians are educators, individuals who enrich the lives of library users through their advice and guidance. • Librarians foster the love of reading, provide intellectual stimulation, bring those not familiar with libraries into their confines, provide instruction so that library users can continue to grow and develop intellectually throughout their lives, and provide entertainment and diversion from an often weary world. • It is not technological competence that forms the basis of such a model; it is service to people. What makes the role attractive is not merely satisfying an information need but caring about people, solving human problems, and improving lives.

LEADERSHIP • Types of Leadership • Transformational • Transnational

Does Transformational Librarian Influence Informational Services? • Transformational leadership approach • Transformational leadership emerged from the writings of scholars such as Burns (1978), Bass (1985), Bennis and Nanus (1985), and Tichy and De Vanna (1986) • Transformational leadership can be assessed through the use of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ).

Multifactor Leadership • idealized influence (charisma), • inspirational motivation, • intellectual stimulation, • individualized consideration, • contingent reward, • managed-by-exception, and • laissez-faire behaviour.

TRANSNATIONAL • Contingent Reward • Management by Exception • Laissez Faire

Transformal Leadership approach - weaknesses • conceptual clarity; • based on the MLQ, which has produced inconsistent results; • creates a framework that implies that transformational leadership has a trait-like quality; • sometimes seen as elitist and undemocratic; • derived from and supported by data that focus heavily on senior level leaders, and so suffers from a “heroic leadership” bias; and • has the potential to be used counterproductively in negative ways by leaders. Despite the weaknesses, transformational leadership appears to be a valuable and widely used approach in improving organizational effectiveness

Some Issues….. • How will new technologies affect the future mission of libraries? • How will electronic publications and information be evaluated and selected? • How will access to electronic information be provided, controlled, and paid for? • How does technology affect the employees of the library, and how can it be implemented for maximum value-added services?

Change Management and Information services • To highlight the missing ingredients in current change management practices and reveal the neglected people and process dynamics that so often cause failure in change. • To demonstrate the requirement that librarians become much more conscious of these unseen dynamics, which enables them to create an integrated, process-oriented, change strategy. • To introduce the new change leadership competency of process thinking that spotlights librarian and employee mindset change as a key driver of successful transformation • To set up the conceptual stage for the pragmatic guidance to the change roadmap, that is, as to how to navigate a library’s transformation

THE CHANGING LIBRARY • There is no doubt that the concept of library is changing. • Some say it is in transition from “collection to connection.” • The extent to which this transition will actually occur and its impact on library services are yet to be fully determined. • There is no doubt that libraries of the future will be looking for new skills and abilities among its employees and will be continually emphasizing retraining and continuing education as new technologies are introduced. • The new technological environment is one in which professional and support staff each need significant skills, and there are many types of professionals (for example, systems operators and librarians) working to provide information services. • But there are many unknowns regarding the future of libraries though and how they will be affected by technology is a topical most question.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION SERVICES