Developing a team management structure in a public library

Library Trends, Summer, 2004 by Betsy A. Bernfeld

Before this diagram was constructed, cross-functional work teams were not only not on the organizational chart, but they were not in individual job descriptions. Basically, they were unofficial add-ons to people's work assignments, with little recognition and no compensation. If this chart accomplishes nothing else, it has at least uncovered that oversight.

Getting closer to the center is the circle of Team Leaders, the management team. This team now has ten members: all the functional team leaders (which includes the director), the assistant director, and the executive director of the Library Foundation, who sits in meetings as a nonvoting, ex-officio member. With the exception of personnel issues, policy-making, and budgeting, Team Leaders generally have final authority in decision-making.

In the center of the organizational chart are the sources of energy, the driving forces: the director's vision, the guidance of the Library Board, the funding authorized by the county commissioners, and the Mission and Strategic Plan formulated by the community.

To demonstrate this model to my staff, I cut some pieces of foam core into four circles of diminishing size. I was competent in cutting the shapes and coloring and lettering the circles, but when it came time to screw them together, I panicked and turned the job over to my husband. He returned with the completed model within five minutes. He said it was no problem to achieve the correct alignment because each circle supports the one adjacent to it in its proper position. The same can be said for our management structure. The supportive role is not left to the director but is shared by all through the organizational structure itself.

That was the first of many revelations my staff and I have had about our management structure because of the model, which, by the way, sits out in my office and is referred to frequently--as opposed to the old hierarchical model that was hauled out once a year. The model makes me feel empowered and empowering, not burdened. Staff feel a sense of recognition for the work they have been doing on cross-functional teams, and they now see this extra responsibility as a way to advance in the organization. The model visually supports our consistent preaching that customer service is our top priority. The model has made it easy to explain to the Library Board and county commissioners how we operate and what we are doing.

Team Learning

Shelley Phipps also assigned me to read Peter Senge. My copy of his book The fifth Discipline is riddled with underlining and margin scribbles. I also have a spiral notebook full of notes and a three-ring binder packed with chapter summaries. I am convinced of the importance of each of the five disciplines Senge describes: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking. What remained unclear to me after all that study was the relationship of the five disciplines.

Senge stresses the importance of developing the disciplines as an ensemble, with systems thinking the integrating force. He seems to say that if an organization cultivates all of the disciplines, individuals will at a certain point experience a shift of mind or "metanoia" (Senge, 1994, p. 13), a learning experience. The organization learns.