Library Strategies

Nick Poole, Chief Executive, CILIP &Kathy Settle, Leadership for Libraries TaskforceCILIP Wales Conference 2016

By the end of this workshop, you should:

• Understand what a ‘strategy’ is and how it relates to your work

• Have analysed the strengths and weaknesses of your existing strategy

• Have developed a set of actionable ideas to improve your impact

Aims for this workshop

Over the next 5 minutes:

• Introduce yourself to the person next to you

• Share whether you are currently working with a strategy

• Share one thing about strategy that you would like to cover in this session

Getting to know you

• Your organisation has a Strategic Plan

• Your organisation inherits a strategic plan from a funder/parent body

• You feel that the strategy directly relates to your daily work

• You can quote your organisation’s vision or mission statement (without looking it up)

Put your hands in the air if...

So, what is a ‘strategy’?

‘Good strategy is the exception, not the rule. More and more organizational leaders say they have a strategy but they do not’.

There can be a lot of confusion around defining strategy. Strategy is not well intentioned but vague goals. Strategy is not:

• Vision : indeterminate future goal• Mission: why the organization exists• Values: what we believe in and how we will behave

Good strategy, bad strategy. The difference and why it matters (Richard Rumelt)

Bad strategy (with thanks to Ken Chad!)

‘A good strategy has…a kernel [that] contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy and coherent actions.’ Good strategy is ‘a cohesive response to a defining challenge’. So strategy is about what organisations do.

• Customers – who are your customers and which of their needs are you uniquely able to serve?

• Competitors – where else do your customers go to meet their needs and how is your solution different/better than the competition?

• Capability – it’s not what you’d like to do, or what you might be able to do, it’s what you can do, right now, with your existing team, resources and skills

www.kenchadconsulting.com

Good strategy

Are these captured in your strategy?

Objective

The single measurable

objective that will drive the

organisation for the next 5 years

Scope

Who will be your customers? What services will you

provide? What will you stop doing?

Advantage

The distinctive value you can bring to your customers that nobody else

can

(c) David Collis & Michael Rukstad

Over the next 10 minutes, we’ll discuss:

• What your single measurable objective might be

• The scope of your library’s services

• The unique advantage your library offers (that nobody else can!)

Discussion session 1

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”

Very often, organisations develop strategies in a fit of enthusiasm (or new management), then revert to organisational culture for the next 7 years.

Take time to step back from your organisation (get away from it if necessary) and reflect on:

• What’s working?• What’s not?• What are your strengths?• What needs to change?

Step 1 – Step back, take stock

“The single most useful thing any library can do to secure its future is to create relationships, and focus on servicing them. I am less interested in what you can do and much more interested in what you can do for me.”

Influence is the real currency of the modern world.

• Who is in a position positively to impact on your future?• What is the quality of your current relationship?• What have they said about what they’re trying to achieve?• How can you gain access to them?• Is it you, or do you need a champion/envoy?• What can you do (short term) to position yourself as an ally?

If your line manager is no good at securing influence, then you may need to be opportunistic in finding ways to be more visible yourself...

Step 2 – Make friends, talk to them

“A good case for support tells a story. I’m less interested in helping you, but if I believe that by helping you I am helping that group of people that I really care about, then you become useful. Show me the people who benefit.”

• Who is in a position to provide you with resources/funding?

• Who do they really care about?

• What is the story you want to tell them? (“The City’s living room”)

Step 3 – Case for support

The temptation is always to fill in the ‘audience’ box by writing ‘Everyone’.

Failure to segment and clearly target audience (including specific targets for market share) leads to mission creep, overblown expectations and ‘saviourism’

• What is your audience?

• What do you know about their location/behaviours/preferences?

• How can you use data to segment your audience?

• Which audience segments will you prioritise?

• How will you use ‘user journeys’ to refine your targeting?

Step 4 – Audience segmentation & insight

By developing a strategy for your library, you are essentially trying to create the conditions for it to succeed. So it is useful to spend some time defining the principles by which you will achieve this.

• What do you want your customers to feel about your library (welcome, supported, included)?

• What do you want them not to feel about your library (excluded, challenged, frustrated)?

• What kind of library do you and your colleagues want to run (fun, noisy, formal, welcoming etc)

These ‘design principles’ act as an ongoing reference as you implement your strategy – are we still heading in the right direction? Is it working?

Step 5 – ‘Design principles’

Over the next 10 minutes, we’ll discuss:

• Do you have your key relationships in place?

• If not, what is preventing you?

• Have you segmented your customers (or made your target audience explicit?)

• Do you have your ‘story’ straight – the case for support?

Discussion session 2

Leaders of successful organisations can reel off a list of numbers, facts and anecdotes which articulate the ways in which the organisation is succeeding.

• What is your organisation the best in the world/country/city at?

• What are your 3-5 top-line ‘facts’ about how you are succeeding?

• Do you have your quotes and testimonials in place?

• Are you helping others to support the library by visualising your success?

These ‘magic numbers’, facts and stories are the gauge of the success and progression of your strategy.

Step 6 – Magic numbers

Your library’s ‘brand’ is the visible expression of the story you want to tell. Being a ‘library’ is already part of an incredibly strong brand (sometimes too strong...), but a good library brand helps your customers and potential supporters ‘situate’ you in their world view

• Does your library have a ‘brand’

• Does it excite/enthuse/inspire you?

• Does it adequately reflect the organisation you want to be?

• Is your brand consistently and confidently applied?

• Does your brand reinforce & reflect your location/building

• Is it clear how your customers can become part of/support your brand?

Step 7 – Brand

Most people buy into conviction and authenticity. They may or may not agree with your strategy, but they make a value judgement about how much you believe it, and decide whether to support you accordingly.

Leadership is not about your job title or salary.

• Do you believe in your strategy?

• Are you able to be an authentic champion for your library’s strategy?

• Are you able to communicate your vision of the library’s future with honesty, enthusiasm and clarity?

Step 8 – Leaders

Over the next 10 minutes, we’ll discuss:

• Is your library clear about its ‘defining challenge’?

• If your library were a campaign, what would it be a campaign for?

• Is your strategy a ‘living’ document – do people in the office refer to it?

Discussion session 3

• Strategy is not a vague articulation of vision, mission and goals

• Strategy is about how you organise your effort, resources and capabilities to meet the needs of your customers better than your competitors can

• Relationships are the key to the success of any strategy – does your library have the relationships, friends and influence you need?

• People need a story – a clear, compelling case for support that focuses on the people whose lives you improve

• You are the face of your strategy – people will respond to the extent that you believe in it

• A good library brand acts as the most visible interface to your strategy

Summing up