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A key role for leaders is encouraging your team in thinking through and exploring potentially radical routes to new solutions...
INSIGHT
President’s View
Moving into a new chapter B
Y the time this column goes to print, a new chapter for CILIP will have already begun: our old headquarters
at Ridgmount Street was sold at the end of March, and CILIP’s new offi ce is in the British Library, in the heart of Euston’s Knowledge Quarter. This completes the relocation started at the 2021 AGM, although we’ll keep contact information updated at
www.cilip.org. uk/relocation for a while longer. Relocating lets us reorganise and adapt our operations to recognise a new world of remote and hybrid working, and careful planning means we can invest a signifi cant portion of the proceeds of the sale on behalf of the membership, ensuring a long-term, stable fi nancial footing for CILIP as we move forwards. Ridgmount Street was custom-built for the Library Association, designed to give us a permanent home that met our needs, and our predicted future needs, as they existed back in the 1960s: over the years it has played host to events, celebrations, and training days that inspired thousands of information professionals, including – as I said in January – myself!
So for me, as the Chair of the CILIP Board when we began this relocation project, the prospect of leaving the home that served CILIP for 57 years felt a little daunting – as large changes often are. In leadership, though, it should always be possible to explore the possibilities opened by applying big changes to solve complex problems.
Change is always uncomfortable, initially disruptive, and the end results usually fail to please everyone – when considering change, the temptation to
April-May 2023
“stick to what works” can be strong… But, on closer scrutiny, “what works” often turns out to rely on unintuitive accommodations that already fail to please everyone, feel awkward, and usually aren’t so much eff ective as familiar.
Still, enabling an organisation or a team to face change, and fi nd the best paths forward is often a challenge in itself. A key role for leaders is encouraging your team in thinking through and exploring potentially radical routes to new solutions, and one vital tool in achieving this can be so obvious I think we sometimes fail to mention it to aspiring leaders: listening. In fi lms, the moment where The Leader tells The Team “Right: here’s the plan,” pointing round a huddled group with precise and detailed instructions for the subsequent montage certainly creates a dramatic scene… But as a real-world approach to leadership, it makes for terrible meetings.
I’d argue that, in most cases, a better leadership model is one where strategies can be developed, supported, and refi ned through collaboration and challenge from colleagues.
A leader should develop the knack of giving everyone on their team the space they need to off er their thoughts and perspective, and should feel confi dent enough to draw on input and experience from internal and external partners: the goal should be creating the best outcomes for everyone.
And, as we settle into our new home, CILIP will be working in partnership with the British Library on a number of joint initiatives, particularly those focused on digital skills and development for libraries.
No project of this scale could be John Trevor-Allen is President of CILIP.
successfully completed without a huge eff ort from the staff at CILIP, working for the organisation and the members – they all deserve our thanks as we continue to further enhance our member benefi ts, and to increase our sector-leading training off er.
With our relocation complete, and in a world where so much of CILIP’s work is taking place across the Devolved Nations and the Regional Networks, this is the right time to invest for our organisation and our members, to strengthen our position and rise to whatever challenges await us in the future.
Yes, the prospect of relocation felt a little daunting – but the project was discussed, planned, refi ned, and delivered thanks to the input, assistance, and expertise of multiple stakeholders and decision-makers. It’s amazing how eff ectively listening to others can clarify where the right decisions lie. IP
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