What I've Been Reading

The Romani Gypsies Yaron Matras

I was reading a romance novel last spring that made my spidey-sense tingle in relation to stereotypical representation of Romani people. But, I don't know much about the Romani, so I've been doing some research so I can flesh out my thoughts and share them more fully. Matras's book was a great look at the Romani in Europe, historically and today. It can be academic at times, but I found it extremely useful (and horrifying. This whole project has been an exercise in realizing things you thought were bad are even worse than you imagined.)

Unterzakhn Leela Corman

I first heard about this from the wonderful podcast, The Worst Bestsellers (it was not a Worst Bestseller. It was discussed in their readers' advisory section). This comic follows two Jewish twins growing up in Manhattan's tenements at the beginning of the 20th century. One apprentices to a "lady doctor" the other works for madam who runs a theater and brothel. With bold, heavy black-and-white work (it reminded me a bit of Marjane Satrapi in terms of how both artists use line and fill) it's a moving story as their stories diverge and where their separate paths take them.

Get Your Ship Together: How Great Leaders Inspire Leadership from the Keel Up D. Michael Abrashoff

I read a lot about management. Abrasoff is a former naval commander and talks a lot about his experience in running a large ship, but also profiles other leaders he admires in many fields-- yes some military, but also a bakery, and insurance company, and more. Abrashoff's style is really easy to read and engaging, and it said somethings that really sparked some ideas for the library. (Mostly about how it all comes down to making sure our daily operations are flawless because that's what everything else is built on. As he points out, the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. Also, the bigger and fancier the ship, the more tugboats you need to get it in and out of the harbor.) I also appreciated how he, and the leaders he profiles, place a great emphasis on the individual, and take into account their nonwork lives. After reading Superbosses it was reassuring to see very successful people champion a good work/life balance.



Library Wars: Love and War Vol. 15 Kiiro Yumi, based on work by Hiro Arikawa, translated from the Japanese by John Werry

If you haven't yet read this manga series about Japanese libraries who take the Freedom to Read so seriously they literally fight for it, like, with their own armies, you need to start. This was a perfect end to the story and now I'm just a puddle of happy sighs. My one minor quibble is that we don't get as many of the side-bards and mini-comics like we did in the previous volumes but instead the results of fan polls from LaLa magazine, where it was initially serialized in Japan. BUT! The manga is based on a novel series, two books of which were bonus material and Yumi is currently working on those and I really, really, really hope they get translated into English, but I want more of these people!

At the King's Command Susan Wiggs

After witnessing the slaughter of her family, Russian Princess Juliana Romanov flees to England, where she lives among the Romani. Caught stealing a horse, King Henry VIII himself commands her to marry a baron, Stephen de Lacey. A marriage neither of them wants, it will be in name only until the king gets bored and they can get it annulled, but only if they can keep their growing attraction to each other in check. I didn't realize how much Romani content this had until I picked it up, so that was interesting for my project, but that aside, I really liked this one. Juliana is consumed with the need to avenge her family, but no one really believes her story. Stephen has his own issues and things would have been better if he hadn't kept his secrets for so long and just talked to someone and blergh, but I still enjoyed it.

No Place Like Oz Danielle Page

I really like the Dorothy Must Die series. (I reviewed the latest, Yellow Brick War, for RT Reviews.) This is the first in a 6 novella prequel ARC, showing how Oz ended up in the twisted mess it was in at the beginning of the series. This one shows how Dorothy returned to Oz and seized power. I loved seeing Dorothy in Kansas, missing both Oz and the notoriety she had when she returned home, but what I loved most is that Auntie Em and Uncle Henry end up back in Oz with her, and seeing their reactions to Oz. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this arc and the fourth book in the main series.



All Books Provided by... my local library

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Creativity, Inc.

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace

Part Pixar-history, part management how-to, Catmull lays out his management philosophy with examples of how he’s implemented it.

One of the things that Catmull really values is candor and building a culture where everyone feels free and safe to give honest feedback, and where speaking truth to power is welcome and encouraged. He shows this well in his book, because he illustrates his ideas with real-life examples, and he is very honest about his missteps and what happened when things didn’t work.

And I think that’s what I appreciated most about this book--Pixar isn’t a perfect company. Many beloved movies failed multiple times before hitting the theaters. I don’t want to say this is a “warts and all” because it’s not a tell-all airing out the dirty laundry, but, at the same time, it is very honest. Catmull shows where things have gone wrong and then parses it to try to examine why and what they changed to make things better.

One the other big underlying themes is letting go of ego. When people point out ways your project isn’t working, it’s not personal. (Of course as he readily admits, not taking it personally is really hard and much easier said than done, but it’s something to strive for). You should hire people smarter than you are, and then trust them to grow and you should listen to them. I think another very good point he makes is that when managers first learn about problems in meetings, or when told about something not-in-private, it’s not a sign of disrespect and that they need to GET OVER IT.

Personally, this is something I strive for in my own management. I told everyone who works at the library in my first few weeks here that if something isn’t working, I need to know. If I’m doing something that’s not helpful, they need to tell me. I have bigger things to worry about and deal with than being personally offended when you rightfully call me out on my bullshit. (Easier said than done, but I’ve been working on separating stuff out. Dealing with the issue, and then going home and acknowledging my sad feelings and wallowing a bit, and then getting on with it.)

He’s also a big proponent of creating a culture where it’s safe to take a risk and it’s safe to fail. (As Robert Reich said in his commencement speech when I graduated from college, if you’re not occasionally failing, you’re not reaching far enough or trying hard enough.)

I like that he gets into the specifics of culture clash issues when Disney bought Pixar and he became the head of Disney Animation. He then talks about what he did to change the Disney culture and that, like most things worth doing, it didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t always smooth.

But, one of his big things, and I think this is a good take-away for libraries is that everyone’s responsible for quality. And this ties back with his points on candor--everyone should feel empowered to look for quality issues and to go ahead and fix them or bring them to the attention of someone who can help fix them. Problems are not solutions. Often the person who notices the issue won’t have the solution, because often solutions aren’t that easy, but everyone is responsible for quality. One of the ways they foster this is to bring people from different areas and departments together. When movies are in progress, works-in-progress are routinely shown to, and commented on, by people who aren’t involved in the movie. When Pixar had grown so big some of the candor was being lost, they had a notes day where people from all across the company (including kitchen staff) got together to talk about issues and possible solutions.

I spent a number of years in a large library where departments were very separate--the children’s staff had a different work room than the adult services staff, which was different than circ, etc. Since switching systems, I’ve been at branches, which are smaller. At my last branch, only 1 person could physically be on the desk at a time, so they did reference and circ, and helped people of all ages. There’s much more fluidity between departments because that’s how we need to function. I love it. We all have the areas we specialize in, but we all have our fingers in other things, which makes us understand each other a lot better, and we have a bigger pool of people to bounce ideas off, because even if it’s not their department, they know the basics of your resources and constrictions. It doesn’t always work and it’s not always good, BUT one of things I really want to do as a manager is foster this type of cross team collaboration and minimize some of the us vs. them dynamic that I often see in libraries that can get really poisonous really quickly. And this is where Creativity, Inc. really spoke to me, both with ideas on how to nurture this, but in just reaffirming its great importance. (And, here I’m going to plug my friend Rachel’s new blog, Constructive Summer: Building the Unified Library Scene which is about this very thing)

So, overall, obviously, I loved this book. I found a lot of inspiration, but it was also just a fun read (let’s face it, when your examples are about making Toy Story, I will find it more engaging than an example about making a car.) Also, the Afterword: The Steve We Knew made me cry, which was embarrassing, because I was on the bus. Steve Jobs (owner of Pixar) came up frequently in the bulk of the book, but the afterword really looked at his role, but more importantly was Catmull talking about a friend who died. Catmull really looks at the biographical books and articles about Steve and talks about how they jived and did not jive with the person he knew. As someone who’s read Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different a countless number of times, it was really interesting to see some of the big points directly rebutted.


Book Provided by... my local library

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The First 90 Days

The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded Michael D. Watkins

I picked this up because Jessica Olin recommended it on Twitter as a follow up to her ALA panel on leadership, What I Really Want To Do Is Direct. If you don’t know, last September I made the leap from librarian to branch manager and in June, I transferred to a much bigger branch in our system.

Basically, the book looks what leaders need to do in the first 90 days (with some groundwork to lay before you start) at a new job, whether you’re new to the organization, new to the department, or just in a new role. It helps ease you into a new role to be successful, and to be successful relatively quickly.

One thing I really appreciated was how practical it was. Instead of being full of blithe platitudes, it was full of stuff like “you need to talk to your supervisor about x, y, and z. You need to talk to all of your direct reports about a, b, and c. You need to map out these 6 things.” Parts of it are a bit jargony, but explained well, and do give a useful framework to think and discuss certain things. It includes a lot of charts to fill in to help you think about the things he says you need to be thinking about.

He really stresses taking the time to learn different things (and he tells you what you need to learn) before you hit the ground running, to make sure you’re focusing on the right things for greatest impact and that you’re doing it in a way that’s most likely to succeed without burning bridges that shouldn’t be burned. It’s just extremely helpful and doable.

While its focus tends to be on high-level private sector/corporate transitions, the overall issues and Watkins instructions scale down and transfer pretty well, even to a public library. (I see he also has one on government jobs, but I haven’t read it and can’t comment on if it’s more applicable.)

I liked that the final chapter was about how professional transitions mean personal transitions, too, and working with your family and other people in your personal life to ease everything.

It also gets points for gender-inclusivity--the examples of new managers were evenly split between men and women, and when it talks about dealing with your new boss, the pronouns switch from he/him to she/her every other section.

Overall, it was really helpful, and I highly recommend that people transitioning into a new role read it, but preferably a month or two BEFORE the transition actually happens. I finished it on day 30, and while I still got a lot out of it, I would have gotten even more if I had finished it on day -30.


Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Five Dysfunctions of a Team

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable Patrick Lencioni

I have a lot of super-awesome volunteers at my library. One of them has a fancy-schmancy day job as a high-level executive. When I became branch manager, we were talking about my new role and management stuff and she highly recommended Patrick Lencioni, this book in general. So I read it.

I loved it. It’s a “Leadership Fable” which made it a much easier read for me. The first 75% of the book is a story about a dysfunctional software company and how a new CEO came in and fixed the team and the problem and successes they had along the way. As a story, it wasn’t that awesome, but as someone who thinks in story, it was a much easier, faster, and accessible read than a normal “how to” management book. I read it in an evening and the points made are going to stick with me for a lot longer because of it. I was skeptical going in, but I really appreciated the style. The last 25% is a little more “how to” that goes a little more in-depth on the 5 dysfunctions, how to spot them, and how to get over them.

I also think Lencioni makes good points on how to make a team work. He really focuses on the overall goal of the team, and not individual success and ego. Part of this is a good dose of conflict (because good conflict creates better buy-in) and holding each other accountable. I also liked how his team-building exercises and overall method wasn’t touchy-feely. (No trust falls!) and stays largely focused on the actual business at hand, while still being broadly applicable.

I also liked how he has five dysfunctions, but they really play into each other and are all part of a larger problem, and how if you have problem in one area, you almost definitionally are going to have problems in another.

Now, I work with an awesome team, so I won’t be putting what I learned into direct process, but I’ll be keeping it in mind to evaluate if we continue to be awesome in the future.

And, I’ll be checking out Lencioni’s other leadership books.

(ooo.. there’s also a manga version)

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.