As the director of the Wattagrate Library system, it’s important for me to take the threat of a reduced funding seriously and to do what I can do to confirm, manage and intervene skillfully against the potential threat.
From the KLC perspective of Intervene Skillfully, we can begin by asking seven questions:
Do we need to raise or lower the heat? Why? I need to raise the heat and confirm the rumors. I can do this by reaching out to my contacts on the city council and my informal network of community leaders who can inform me indirectly on the source of the rumors and the reasoning behind the potential reduction in library funding. I also need to lower the heat if the rumors have reached library staff and are creating panic or worry. After getting confirmation of the rumors, I would decide how to best relay the news to staff to minimize concerns and reiterate my commitment to the library.
What is our typical approach to issues like this? When facing earlier threats to library funding, I approached the city council directly, confirmed the state of local government funding position, and argued the merits of the library to our community – both in education and economic terms.
What new approaches might be necessary? Depending on the reasoning by the desire to defund the library, I might have to look for new sources of funding and potentially looking at new functions the library may be able to take on or share. I may also need to put lobbying pressure on the city council through my contacts in our Friends of the Library Group. I may explore the money available from the FCC to fund the new White-Fi initiatives and money potentially available from FEMA to upgrade the library to function as a community information resources in times of potential crisis.
What actions or interventions are needed now? Clearly, the main intervention needed is to confirm the rumors. Without actionable knowledge, it is foolish to formulate a plan of action or implement it.
What would be the purpose of those interventions? The main purpose of the intervention is knowledge. Acting without a clear view of the situation constrains the potential responses that are available. If the rumor is unfounded, and I go in guns blazing I may alienate potential and future allies on the city council. If the reasoning behind the defunding is based on a shared sacrifice needed by the entire community, I would be branded as a selfish player if I was unwilling to work for the greater good of the community by accepting some sacrifice.
Do they connect with our larger purpose? I believe the larger purpose is to maintain the service levels of the library to my community and to better those services during my tenure of management through cost savings and increased efficiencies.
What is our plan? Who will do what, when? I plan to gather information through my network of contacts to confirm or deny the rumor and assess the potential threat to the larger mission of my library. Assuming the rumor is true, I will then perform updated SWOT and PEST analyses to get a sense of the current state of the library vis-à-vis the local community as well as using the analyses to help my staff understand the current situation. Based on the outcome of those analyses I would assign certain tasks to staff members and create an operational timetable to begin my intervention against the risk of reduced funding.