I had lunch Friday with a friend of mine who produces training for Career Development Services and she was telling me about a new series of leadership training they are working on that focuses on the role of *play* in leadership. I think there’s a lot to be learned from what they are researching because I strongly believe that people who play together tend to trust one another, and they also respect creativity and risk. Play is about taking risks, and bending rules, and having fun along the way.
We as a profession tend to take ourselves waaay too seriously, and that can and does alienate our customers. I think it’s essential that those in public service are accessible to their customers, and today that means things like fewer rules, fewer desks between the staff and customer, more freedom for staff to make decisions on the fly without worry of retribution or reversal by management, and so much more.
During my conversation with my friend, we talked about people in positions of leadership who achieved those positions not because they are exceptional leaders but because of circumstance — basically being in the right place at the right time, or being the best of the worst candidates for a job. She said you can usually spot an organization led by this kind of person because it is so rule-oriented. Rules give a leader a way out, a scapegoat if you will. We’ve all heard it…
“I can’t do anything about XXX because it’s policy, or my board won’t let me, or the software doesn’t work that way, or whatever…”
These kinds of leaders are all about blame and not at all about decisions. The concept of strategy does not occur to this kind of leader because there’s a rule for everything. And this type of leadership spawns a workforce that is so caught up in minutiae and rule-following that they lose sight of what they’re there for.
What does all that have to do with play? Using concepts of play in decision making can open the door to better staff buy-in and participation in the overall goals and mission of the organization, and make things fun. I know there are people here who will argue the library isn’t supposed to be fun and have been eloquent in expressing why. I posit, however, that the time of our libraries being staid, quiet research facilities is fading and a new, livelier, more demanding customer base is emerging. We’re looking at a generation of high school and college students who have grown up with The Simpsons (can you even believe it’s been on the air 20 years?) and Nintendo. In short, a generation that combines irreverence with ingenuity in ways we haven’t seen before. And we ignore them at our peril.
Can we combine professionalism with play? Absolutely. Play is all about acknowledging the game….that most of what we do is not life-and-death. The library will still be standing tomorrow if we forgive a fine, let a patron use the computer for 5 minutes longer than they’re supposed to, send a New book to another library, or let someone check out without their library card. Professionalism is knowing when to do all of that and when not to. Playful leadership allows the members of an organization to really connect with their customers by removing barriers to service that are normally controlled by management. You make a mistake, maybe you go back two spaces. No big deal. Life goes on.
Patty
