Joys and Pains of Middle Management

James Kelly, Morgan Miller and Janet Vogel did a great job developing and delivering this program that focused on strategies for managing ourselves and tips for managing others.  Here are some of the things that I made note of:

• In regards to personality types - we can rub people the wrong way by being ourselves (nice!)
• We can only control how we react to other people or situations, and we should keep in mind that 3 out of 4 people react differently than we do
• treat every day as though it were a job interview
• In life and in the library, things are cyclical.  In bad times plan for good; in good times, plan for bad
• The best resource you can give staff is time
• James said that he tries to apply the 50/10 rule which involves 50 minutes spent on one project and 10 minutes walking around/taking a break.  I can't quite imaging 50 uninterrupted minutes - it sounds glorious.  I am really looking forward to having an office with a door in the new library!
• Another Kelly strategy that I am working on employing is having two to-do lists.  The one that is endless is inevitable, but he also suggested making one each day with three things on it.  The idea being that it is more reasonable to focus on a few things and if those are accomplished, one can go on to the large list, but each day brings accomplishments.