1. De behendige informatie
professional
Michelynn McKnight, PhD, AHIP
Associate Professor
Louisiana State University
School of Library and Information Science
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
mmck@lsu.edu
Workshop: NVB 100
Utrecht, The Netherlands
November 16, 2012

4. Chapter Topics
1. Knowing your value to 7. Ensuring positive
your organization communication
(8. Marketing, advertising and public
2. Delighting your clients relations
3. Expanding your political 9. Gathering and using evidence to
influence support decisions)
4. Pleasing your boss 10. Behaving ethically
5. Impressing decision 11. Sustaining your green
makers and growing career
6. Choosing an instantly
credible professional
image

5. 1. Knowing your value to your
organization
 Your specialized expertise
 Your professionalism
 Your role in the institution’s mission
 Know exactly how it needs you
 Show how it needs you
 Tell the decision makers

6. Professionals
 Know
 Show
 Tell

7. Seven Marks of a Profession
Michael Winter
 Professional  Legitimate
Association monopoly over a
 Licensing or body of knowledge
credentialing  Service Orientation
 Ethics Code  Community
 Formal Training Recognition

8. 2. Delight Your Clients
 Client centered service  Individual information
needs
 Take action: It is up to
us  Remove barriers to
client delight …
 What do clients need including old rules
and want?
 Traditions and habits:
 Population information gateways or barriers?
needs
 Ambience and attitude

9. 6. Choosing an instantly credible
professional image
 Place, People, Site and Things: What works
 Improving our image to increase our
credibility
 That looks good: color and credibility
 Neatness counts: clear and simple
 That sounds good
 That tastes good
 You don’t look like a librarian

10. 7. Ensuring positive
communication
 Welcome and save the client’s time
 Turn negative messages to positive
 Complaints are reference questions in disguise
 Emotional Intelligence: acting professionally
when feelings are intense
 Common ground and innovative solutions to
conflicts
 Prioritizing and increasing the effectiveness of
your own complaints

11. Immediate welcome needs
 Informed
 Entertained
 Perceived value(worth their time)
 Fast service
 Safety
 Feel SPECIAL!

12. 7. Positive communication
 Negative actions into positive
 Verbal messages: from negative to
positive
– What to say
– Scripts and the magic eraser word
– What to write

14. Positive Communication:
Complaints as reference questions in disguise
– Step One – open a communication channel
– Step Two – gather information to frame the
larger context of the problem
– Step Three – work together to define and refine
the central problem
– Step Four – search for information, answers or
solutions
– Step Five – communicate, evaluate and invite

15. 7. Ensuring positive communication
Special situations
 Act professionally when feelings are
intense
 Find common ground and innovative,
mutually beneficial solutions
 Turn problems into innovations
 Prioritizing your own complaints
 When you should complain

17. 3. Expanding your influence
What’s Politics?
INFLUENCE

18. 3. Expanding your influence
 Effective organizational politics
 Lessons
from the professionals in
government
 Building positive political capital
 Advocacy outside the institution

19. Personal politics (Wolfe)
 Understand your corporate system
 Know when to hold and when to fold
 Believe in win-win
 Play fair
 Think first, act later

20. Politics:
Know your organization
 What’s the business?
 Who’s where in the organization?
 What’s the culture?

21. Politics:
Build a Positive History
 Respect and self-respect
 Face time -- appointments and walk-abouts
 Meetings
 Receptions, parties and events
 Champions in reserve

22. Politics:
Inform the Decision Makers
 Solve their information problems
 Tell the good things
 Tell your boss the bad things (no
unfortunate surprises)

23. 4. Pleasing your boss
Understanding roles Information services for
and perspectives the boss
Allies, mentors and Subtly educating the boss
mentees
Reference and update
What does the boss
services
want? What does the
boss need?
Informing the boss
– The good
Leadership and
– The bad
management styles
– The uncomfortable truth

25. 5. Impressing Decision Makers
 Who are these decision makers?
 Whyare their understanding and
experiences of library services
important?
 What concerns stakeholders?
 Actions that impress

26. 11. Your Green and Growing
Career
 Your own missions
 Setting priorities
– Urgency and importance
– Perfect or good enough
 Scheduling
– Make appointments not only with others but also
with yourself
 Risk taking and reward: dare to be proactive
 Keep starting again

27. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1981) Strength to Love. (Reprint of 1977 edition, Cleveland, Ohio: Collins)
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, page 93
“We must accept finite disappointment,
but we must never lose infinite hope.
Only in this way shall we live without the
fatigue of bitterness and the drain of
resentment.”

28. De behendige informatie
professional
Michelynn McKnight, PhD, AHIP
Associate Professor
Louisiana State University
School of Library and Information Science
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
mmck@lsu.edu
Workshop: NVB 100
Utrecht, The Netherlands
November 16, 2012