Empowering Staff

Effective leaders create focus. 

Robert Benson had us think about and talk about what our most fun job was and describe when we surprised ourselves and made a contribution you made in a job.  After we went around the room and did this he said most of what he had to say had already been said, so he tied it in to explain this.  Our team wants to be engaged.  We need to figure out how to get them to be that way.  He talked about the 12 elements of Great Management.  He discussed 3 books. The main one was to Start with Why.
He explained more about this.  The other 2 books were One Thing You Need To Know and Good to Great.  The Y is to clarify your purpose.  People buy why you do it, not what you do.  In Good to Great he emphasized the Hedgehog Principal, which is going about your business slowly with purpose, knowing what you are doing and not running around fast pace like a fox not having a clue.  Also instead of having a to do list, have a "Stop Doing" list.

Performance management

I haven't been doing any evaluations on my staff.  I might try that to see how it goes.  I have been encouraging one of my staff members and praising her for her work.  I have just begun learning how to get work out of the other one.  Sometimes it isn't about just telling them to do it.  It's about asking in a nice way.  I am working on the way I phrase things to get what I want done.

Staff Devolpment

What I Learned Today 

I have been making sure that my staff is going to training meeting, as well as myself.  I have been doing some webinars and I've tried to get the staff to do some as well.  I guess I will have to pick some for them to watch and assign it to them.  One of the staff members however said she does better with hands on than with webinars.  I totally agree with this.  The only problem I have is the mayor not wanting us to close the library to all go to training meetings.  We found out about a Ladies night out going on in Bolivar and we all went to that.  It was about women's health issues.