Leading change: strategies and organizational implementation

Leading Change

Positive Change at the Library

One of the most profound change efforts I have been a part of took place shortly after I completed my undergraduate degree. My town's local library was undergoing severe budget cuts due to some decidedly impecunious actions on the part of civic leaders, who essentially squandered away my town's budget (for their personal gain) so badly that many of its programs were being cut due to lack of funding. It did notmatter that those civic leaders were facing criminal charges and possibly impending civil charges. For the time being, the library was facing some drastic changes that would involve a reduction of hours and the loss of its two principle librarians, both of whom were immensely popular with the townspeople and as congenial and as helpful as anyone could want them to be.

When news of the impeding changes were published in the local newspaper, a small group of dedicated citizens and concerned community figures decided to meet in order to consider options that might help to preserve the library's hours and its staff. I volunteered my time and energy to partake in this initial meeting, as did many others, particularly due to the fact that the town's library had been constructed and opened only a couple of years prior and it would be such a shame to lose virtually everything we had just gained.

In order to produce a concerted change effort that could alleviate the undesirable fate of the library and its fulltime staff, one of the first orders of business that took place at that initial meeting was an examination of all of the knowledge that would be necessary to preserve the current library hours and librarians. From an empirical standpoint, then, it became necessary to start by gathering some basic knowledge of how much money was required to pay the salaries of the librarians, as well as how much money would be needed to preserve the current hours. There was other logistical information that we had to determine as well, such as when the funding would need to be procured by in order to divert the proposed changes, who to pay it to, and things of that nature. In outlining just what information was needed to take place, this impromptu organization demonstrated some of the most important facets of the constructionist principle of appreciative inquiry -- which states that knowledge of an organization and the situation it faces must be obtained prior to making any significant changes (Fitzgerald et al., 2003, p. 5-6).

The interesting aspect of this initial meeting was that it ultimately led our organization to induce change via the means of an asset based approach, which was instrumental to the future success we would incur. It was determined that approximately $50,000 would be required to preserve the library's current hours and fulltime employees. However, there were a number of non-profit groups that had been created at the same time that the library had been, which were able to contribute funding. From the three principle groups, approximately $10,000 was already gathered and able to be utilized for preserving the current library system. Moreover, our research efforts were able to provide critical information about our options. The city was unable to fund 10 library hours; the rest were already funded by the county. Our research indicated that if we were able to fund half of that amount, $25,000, we would be able to keep the library open for 5 of the proposed 10 hours it would lose, which would enable us to keep our full time librarians -- although the library would be closed on Sundays as a result. Thus our participatory action research allowed us to focus on our assets, such as the financial prowess from the non-profit groups supporting the library, and invoke change in a proactive manner (Hickman, 2010, p. 121).

More importantly, a number of citizens were able to attend city council meetings and voice their concern over the proposed changes. By contributing directly to the political process in our town, myself and other members of our ad-hoc committee were able to persuade the city council that we would be able to finance five of the 10 hours that the city was previously funding. Additionally, we found out that although it was August, we would not have to raise the funds until November due to the annual system of financing that the county was on. Our efforts at the city council meeting helped us to obtain more vital information, as well as to play an active role in controlling the nature of the change affecting the library. It allowed us to focus on the positive aspects of our situation -- that we needed to come up with $15,000 more dollar but we had a couple of months to do it in, and also conveyed to the city council that there were some determined citizens concerned about the value that the library, its staff and its services provided to the community. We were able to demonstrate the fact that "Without citizen leadership and the values of community that it brings to the decision-making process, choices all too frequently reflect the expeditious consideration of business and political interests" (Hickmasn, 2010, p. 122).