(session #5 of 5 workshops that were held across the state of Maryland)
Gail Griffith lead this workshop series that introduced library staff at all levels to the power of shifting our mental models in order to help our libraries move ahead more nimbly in a rapidly changing world. We worked with mental models that can be used to transform library programs and services, including customer service. Throughout the day, we co-created ideas for transformative services that can help build advocates in our communities.
The foundation for the workshop was Peter Senge's, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Senge's vision of a learning organization is a group of people who are continually enhancing their capabilities to create results they care about.
The following information is modified from a handout Gail gave us in the workshop:
The learning organization focuses on two kinds of learning:
- Adaptive learning - learning that helps us survive
- Generative learning - learning that helps us create
Senge's five disciplines are at the core of learning organizations:
- Personal Mastery - the development of a set of skills through learning and practice.
- Mental Models - deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures/images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.
- Shared Vision - if any one idea about leadership has inspired organizations for thousands of years, it's the capacity to hold a shared picture of the future we seek to create.
- Team Learning - teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations. When individuals and teams share what they learn with each other, team learning occurs - their knowledge is spread across the organization. This is what we try to accomplish by sharing what we learn on this blog! :)
- Systems Thinking - this discipline integrates the other four.
Videos about mental models and libraries
Pam Sandlian Smith's TEDx Talk about What to Expect from Libraries in the 21st Century.
New York Public Library's video that hopes to change the public's mental models about the transformative power of public libraries.
Exercises that I thought were effective and want to try within WMRL:
Busting Mental Models
Involves taking a project or concept and listing everything that comprises our mental model of that project or concept. This can be done individually but I get the sense that it is more effective when done in small groups. For example, in the workshop, the group I was in explored the library service of providing internet access to the public. We listed things like:
- Connection speed
- Wired and wireless
- Current hardware and software
- IT support - for both the staff and the public
- Staff support for the public (customer service)
- Effective facilities (i.e. plenty of power plugs, proper and safe wiring, etc)
Then we chose one of the above items to turn on it's head so we said, "We're Down." (aka the Internet is down; there is no Internet for whatever reason). Then we listed what opportunities could arise from such a situation:
- Insanely great customer service by having staff donate their personal devices (i.e. smartphones) to act as wi-fi hotspots for small groups of individuals
- Direct people to non-Internet dependent events already happening at the library like storytimes for kids or movie-screenings or speakers.
- Create spontaneous events like a board game competition or scavenger hunt
- Staff can take advantage to unplug and get other non-Internet dependent things done :)
- Partner with other community organizations who might still have Internet and then direct folks to them.
We Geek Collection Connections
This was so cool and it was created by Annie Norman at the Delaware State Library - and you can read more and get downloadable resources by visiting their website. You can create different decks of cards to suit whatever it is you want to mental-model bust but we played it to bust mental models around programming by combining seemingly unrelated aspects (via the 3 decks of cards) and by incorporating both the Dewey cataloging areas as well as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So much fun!! I want to do this for training ideas. Below are pics of the game board and the card decks:
Post-Project
As part of the workshop, we were asked to participate in a post-project that involves posting to a wiki out ideas for how we can identify and bust more mental models.
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