Leadership in the post-hierarchical library - The Library Director

Library Trends, Summer, 1994 by Richard T. Sweeney

The customers of the post-hierarchical library must receive enhanced benefits in all service areas. Reengineered work processes, primarily directed at internal customers, are also not enough to create a post-hierarchical library. Carefully reengineered work processes are certainly needed in order to achieve this type of library, but they are not sufficient.

Librarians are very familiar with the traditional library department structure which has served the library community well for over a hundred years. Indeed, most library administration books have been written with chapters dedicated to each department. The structure was a practical response to accomplishing tasks which had to be performed, but the structure was not concerned with ensuring continued customer satisfaction.

Everyone in a process needs to understand the ultimate benefits to the customer. For example, the acquisitions department performed the service of ordering and purchasing books which were then sent to the cataloging department. The cataloging department was the principal customer. The cataloging department was concerned with the quality of the catalog but not necessarily with how quickly a user could search and obtain a particular book that satisfied his or her need. Typically, no one department "owned" an entire process and measured what their customers really wanted.

The last generation of librarians developed expertise in a specialty and often did not know very much about activities outside their specialty. An acquisition librarian may not have been very knowledgeable about cataloging and data processing, for example. Those specialties developed in response to the large amount of knowledge and skill required in limited areas of library operations.

Each specialty, over time, built its own culture and tradition. It was not necessary nor convenient for the various specialties to frequently interact. After all, a specialist was rewarded for his or her work by the department manager not by other internal or external customers. It was the job of the manager to take care of interdepartmental communications and issues. The hierarchy created the flow of information and decision making.

Specialists became more responsive to their colleagues than to the final customers of their processes. It was more important to be recognized for your expert cataloging by professional colleagues, for example, than to be recognized by the customers for the great catalog.

Cross-functional teams offer an opportunity for all staff, even specialists, to be assigned to interdepartmental processes. Cross-functional teams own an entire customer-oriented process. These teams are beginning to be used not to replace "home" departments but rather to speed effective decision making and responsiveness. Cross-functional teams are composed of different kinds of specialists with a common charge--i.e., the specific process goals. These teams vary considerably from advisory in nature to fully empowered. Every member of an effective team must share the common concern for, and knowledge of, the customer.