As some readers may have noticed, the basic sales pitch for this newsletter has always been “this is your chance to learn the easy way a bunch of things I learned the hard way.”

In that spirit, over the next few weeks I’m going to share eight very specific things that I’ve learned the hard way over the course of my career as an academic library leader. Some take the form of brief aphorisms, some describe a particular organizational posture, some may sound kind of like philosophical observations. I hope all of them will be useful.

My original plan was to share four of them today, and four more in my next post. But by the time I had said everything that I felt needed to be said about Point #1, I realized that each point will likely need its own post. So let’s start that way and see how it goes.

Point #1: Err on the Side of Too Much Communication

Effective communication is essential for library leaders. Blah blah blah, everyone knows that. However, not every leader who understands that principle intellectually has actually internalized it, and among those who have internalized it, not all have operationalized it. I won’t go so far as to say that you can’t communicate too much — you absolutely can, and by doing so you can drive your staff completely insane. However, in my experience it’s very rare for a library leader to make the mistake of communicating too much. Instead, most err on the side of communicating too little, by which I mean both too infrequently and in insufficient depth.

Let me share a quick example.

Earlier in my career, I served on the leadership team of a research library dean who was feeling frustrated that people in the library didn’t seem to understand an important element of the dean’s vision.

“You can’t just assume they’re understanding your vision,” we said to this person. “You’re going to have to say it explicitly.”

“But I have said it explicitly!,” the dean objected.

The rest of us looked at each other, then at the dean, and said “Yes, but you’re going to have to say it over and over, more times than you think should be necessary. You can’t assume that just because you’ve said it, everyone has fully understood or even heard it.”

I’ve seen this principle borne out over and over again over the course of my subsequent career: in particular, I’ve regularly had the experience of saying something to my team or to an individual in the library or to a department or division and had people respond as if hearing it for the first time — despite the fact that I had said that thing (it seemed to me, at least) over and over and over already.

This isn’t anyone’s fault; it’s just how human brains work. We not only listen selectively, but we hear selectively, according to patterns of perception that are not always systematic or rational. If you want everyone in your organization to hear something, you’re going to have to say it over and over. Accept that early in your leadership career and you’ll be happier.

But that only addresses one dimension of erring on the side of communicating more. Other dimensions include:

• Say important things in both large groups and small ones, and to individuals
• Explicitly ask people to serve as vectors of communication for you: “Hey, I know you really get what we’re trying to do with professional development in this library. Whenever you can, would you try help others understand it too?”
• Communicate through multiple platforms and fora: share information in a public meeting, then share the same information in an organization-wide email, then put it in the library newsletter, then bring it up again in a relevant committee meeting.
• We’ll talk more about the importance of documentation in another post, but it bears saying here as well: Share information in places where it can be referenced later.
• Follow up to ensure understanding. (Just because they heard what you said doesn’t mean they know what you meant.)

What other principles have you found to be important when it comes to leadership and communication? Please share in the comments.