A-B-Cs of Non-Sales Selling: Buoyancy

This is a continuation on the three previous posts on libraries/librarians as non-sales salesmen as the concept of non-sales selling was introduced by Dan Pink in his ASTD webinar  a couple weeks ago. In this post, I continue to study and apply the A-B-Cs, as explained by Dan Pink, to public libraries and librarians and I'm also explore on whose shoulders these traits fall or are they (should they be) on every single library employee's shoulders?

I look forward to reading your thoughts in the comment area provided.

The A-B-Cs of non-sales selling are:

1. Attunement: perspective taking, being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes
2. Buoyancy: resilience in the face of rejection and/or failure, being able to stay afloat
3. Clarity: the ability to curate information and make sense of it, to sift through the superfluous to find the truly important pieces

Buoyancy:
How do libraries/librarians stay afloat amid rejection and failure especially when rejection and failure can take on more forms than just budget cuts: low employee retention, failure to embrace disruptive technologies, inability to increase the number of consistent borrowers, etc.

[Caution: my bias shows in the following paragraph.]
In regards to budget cuts, I believe it's important, if not essential, to have a director, or someone in the role of CFO if you will, who is politically savvy and active. We need someone in this role who is not only business-minded but who is also good at developing and sustaining meaningful relationships with the men and women who control our metaphorical and actual purse strings.

Why? It seems almost a non sequitor at this point but I believe it's because of the A in the A-B-Cs. If a director cannot relate to the folks who set our budgets and control the legislation that affects us, how will he or she be able to convince them to maintain (or, better yet, increase) our funding? To not close our doors? Or to put it in non-sales selling terms, how will the director be able to convince our funding bodies of our value in order for them to want to continue to invest in it and lobby for it?

But what about the other ways libraries/librarians can fail or be rejected?

How do we handle low employee retention (aka high turnover)? It seems to me that there's been a push in recent years for succession planning but that hasn't taken effect across the board. I know that if I were to leave tomorrow (I'm not) that there really aren't any systems in place to take over in the chasm between my absence and the new-hire's presence. But then I wonder, how much of my own succession planning is my own personal responsibility? Should I go ahead and take measures to make sure there is something in place for when I leave my post and someone new comes in? What do you think? What are you doing to plan for succession?

We also could consider failing/rejection at the micro level: programs that bomb; presentations we give that we don't ace; customer service transactions that don't quite go the way we envision; raises we ask for that we don't get. The possibilities are endless. I need to look into the ways we can prepare for rejection, experience rejection as it's happening, and recover from it afterward. I've heard mention of resources that exist but I haven't got around to researching them.But if you're reading this, maybe you can share your techniques for handling rejection!