Oak Park Public Library Staff In-Service Day

OPPL Staff Day
Bringing Learning Back
December 6, 2013
Monday, December 9, 13

Who Am I?
• Dr.Anthony Molaro
• Assistant Professor, St. Catherine University
• Twitter.com/infoactivist
• informationactivist.com

• But before we begin
• Once upon a time...

The Fifth Discipline:
The Learning
Organization

The 5th Discipline
• By Peter Senge
• Brought the notion of the learning
organization into the mindset of leaders
and managers

• Systems thinking
• Personal mastery
• Mental models
• Shared vision
• Team learning

• The goal of the book (and this discussion)
is to foster a more interconnected way of
thinking
• An organization that is quick to learn is
quick to adapt

• In order to gain a competitive advantage,
libraries need adapt to change quickly
• We need to learn faster than our
competitors

• Interspersed within my talk will be some
group activities

Why
• Why do we do group activities?
• Learning theory
• Fitness

You Just Have To Do It

Why:The Most
Important Question

Systems Thinking

Fragmented World
• From the earliest age, we are taught to
break problems and tasks apart
• This allows us to make complex issues
more manageable

When we unfragment our world we are often faced with a
distorted reality

Systems Thinking
Exercise

Wallet
• How many people made the perfect wallet
for them self?
• What does this tell you?

• If I had asked you to design a new library
service, most people would design a service
to improve work in their department
• Circ staff would improve circulation
workﬂow or experience
• YA staff would create new programs forYA

Systems Thinking
• This is systems thinking
• Systems thinking is seeing the system as a
whole not parts
• It is seeing how an increase inYA programs
will impact circ, adult services, security and
even parking
• It is seeing something in its completeness

Structures & Patterns
• System thinking is a way to see structures
and patterns
• Structures that we are unaware hold us
prisoner

Sometimes the best path is counterintuitive

Upside Down
• The easy way out often leads us right back
into the issue
• Often times the cure is worse than the
disease
• Cause and effect are often separated by
large amounts of time

Shift In Mind

A World of Circles
• We live in a world of circles but we think in
straight lines
• We are linear thinkers
• System thinking refers to these circles as
loops

5 Whys
• A patient goes to the doctor not feeling
well. The doctor diagnoses them with high
cholesterol. Gives them medication and
tells them to lose weight

Asking'Powerful'Questions:'5'Whys'Worksheet!
!
!
!!
!
! Why!is!it!happening?!
!
!
Define!the!Problem:!
You!don’t!want!
to!list!5!different!
reasons;!you!
want!to!go!deep!
on!1!reason.!!
Why!is!
that?!
5. !
2. !
1. !
4. !
3. !
Action:(
Why!is!
that?!
Why!is!
that?!
Why!is!
that?!
Caution:!
= If!your!last!answer!is!
something!you!can’t!
control,!go!back!up!
to!the!previous!
answer!on!1!reason!
= Cannot!because!of!a!
person!

Interdependencies
• We live in a world (a system) in which
most everything is connected

• When we try to pick out anything by itself
we ﬁnd that it is bound fast by a thousand
invisible cords that cannot be broken, to
everything in the universe.
• John Muir 1869

• Don’t push growth; remove the factors
limiting growth

• Don’t shift the burden
• Solutions that address only symptoms of
problems is short sighted

Leverage
• System thinking is applying leverage to
achieve maximum results
• Well focused attention

Remember
• Unintended consequences
• Counter-intuitive
• Interdependencies

Personal Mastery

Personal Mastery
• Personal mastery doesn’t mean mastering a
speciﬁc skill
• It is more of a mindset of continual learning
and improvement
• Kaizen (80/20 time)
• Most workplace learning is incidental not
intentional
• Its about growth not being the best

• It goes beyond spiritual unfolding and
opening, although it requires spiritual
growth

• Personal mastery is really about removing
noise
• Emotional noise “I’m not good enough”
• The internal dialogue within all of us
• Attentive noise or distraction

• Hippie Alert
Hippie Alert: Danger Touchy Feely Ahead

Zen parable man on
horse

Science of Mindfulness
• There is a sizable body of research
• Effects on the amygdala
• Leads to higher emotional intelligence

Mindfulness
• Is simply paying attention
• In a particular way
• On purpose
• In the present moment
• Without judgement

Reﬂective Inquiry
• Mindfulness and many of the techniques of
the learning organization have to do with
reﬂective inquiry
• The intentional examination of issues,
problems, purpose and life

PersonalVision
• Personal vision is not a series of goals and
objectives
• It is living with purpose
• But it is more

• Purpose is a general direction
• Vision is a destination

Roadmap

PersonalVision Exercise
• Let’s take 15 minutes to begin the process
of creating a personal vision

Hidden Question
• What happens if your personal vision is
contrary to your job?

Try Something New for 30 Days

Mental Models

Thumb Wrestling

• Debrief

Mental Models
• Are deeply ingrained beliefs, myths, stories
about how the world works
• They are often invisible
• But directly affect our actions

Organizational Mental
Models
• Organizations have mental models too
• As organizations age and grow the mental
models become further entrenched
• Organizational structures and individual
thinking becomes more rigid

A Few Examples
• Higher circulation is better
• Bigger salaries are better
• Libraries shouldn’t charge for materials
• Library websites are important/vital
necessary
• We must catalog our materials
• A Ph.D. makes me smart

• Mental models are neither inherently good
or bad; right or wrong
• They simply are
• The goal is to increase awareness of them

Example
• One of the simplest exercises to do when
problem solving is to list our assumptions
about a problem or proposed solution

SharedVision

• A shared vision is not necessarily an idea
but rather a force in one’s heart

• Why did Hogwarts ﬁght with Harry Potter?
• There was no fear of reprisal
• They fought because they believed

• Shared visions emerge from personal
visions
• The vision of OPPL is a combination of all
of your visions together
• But it also means believing in the vision so
much that you are willing to sacriﬁce
personal ideas

Experiment
• Who do you think will reach the target?
• Someone blindfolded
• or someone not blindfolded

Experiment
• I need two volunteers

• Why did this happen?

Army Crew Teams
• I use a Harvard case of Army Crew Teams
• The varsity team is individually quantiﬁably
faster, stronger and better
• The JV team beats them about 50% of the
time

Team Learning

The Wisdom of Teams
• If we looked at high performance athletic
teams we would see a commitment to the
team
• It doesn’t mean the players like each other,
often they don’t, but they are committed to
each other

• Team learning is not synonymous with team
building

Community of Practice
Theory
• We now have research that supports an
intuitive idea...we learn together
• Why?

Statistical Groups

Blindfold Exercise

Tying It All Together

Story Exercise
• If time permits

Gaps
• As we approach the end of today’s talk you
will notice sizable gaps
• There are two reasons for this
• First, time is a factor
• Second, you learn when you ﬁll in those
gaps by constructing your own knowledge

Once upon a time...

Even now, as adults, there’s something in most of us
that perks up and starts to listen when we hear those
words.We love stories.And stories have always served
important functions for us.They bring us together and
reinforce our sense of community.They engage, amuse,
enthrall, and titillate.And they teach: throughout
history, before most people could read and write,
stories, told by ﬁresides and in village gatherings, were
the mechanism by which we handed down laws and
values, religions and taboos, knowledge and wisdom.
Fast Company (November 15, 2012)

95
Blue Buckets
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Oak Park Public Library Staff In-Service Day

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Oak Park Public Library Staff In-Service Day