Help me create an ACRL Leadership Discussion group?

I have put together a petition (with assistance from the always awesome Beth DuPuis!) for the creation of a Leadership Discussion group within ACRL.

I envision this group having 2 sessions at each ALA, one discussion group and one program.

Creating a Discussion Group requires 10 signatures from ACRL personal members, so, if you meet those qualifications, please sign the petition!

The text of the petition is as follows:

The Leadership Discussion Group provides a forum for conversation, communication and collaboration about leadership and management issues important to academic librarians. Leadership and management challenges in the higher education environment are unique in many ways from other non-profits or corporate arenas. Developing a platform for sharing our experiences, insights and challenges is important for enhancing librarians’ skills and developing future leaders and managers. This group embraces leadership in the broadest sense including topics such as leading from the middle, leading project teams and informal groups, leading within professional organizations, career paths for leaders.

 

Julian Treasure on Listening

I just watched Julian Treasure’s TED talk on listening, and found it fascinating.  I have so deep in thinking about listening as a part of communication between people, as a key element in team work and collaboration, as a feature of varying strength in the various DISC personas, I forgot about listening as an active action. Attention, attending, being present are all such important behaviors, and I am so glad I took the time to let Julian Treasure remind me of them

On a  disappointing note, though, he spoke about his book on listening, and I wanted to check that out. It looks like the book is about the ways businesses can use sound to improve their business, which to me is not the same thing as listening at all! Have you read the book? Is it worth the time, if what I’m interested in is listening as a social act, about communication, not sound applications for profitability?

Here’s the talk.

5 ways to listen better

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

pretty cool

My personal innovation challenge: write more!

I’m laying down a challenge for myself here.

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading about innovation and leadership, and thinking about organizational culture. But I haven’t really been sharing the thinking.

The Harvard Business Review blog recently “asked the most progressive thinkers and radical doers from every realm of endeavor to share a story, a hack, a disruptive idea, or an experimental design that illustrates how the web can help overcome the limits of conventional management and create Management 2.0.” That page links to their top selections and also to the entire tonnage of solicited responses.

Here’s the challenge I’m setting for myself. As I read through the hacks and stories and innovations, I will post my responses and thoughts here. I’d like to try for 2 each week, but that seems both optimistic and painfully slow, so we’ll see.

I’ll be tagging the ones I plan to read in my delicious feed (my Leadership tag bundle has been newly added to the right).