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Conferences are a wonderful way to step beyond that self-imposed silo...
INSIGHT
President’s View
Speak up and join the conversation I
N my last column I spoke a lot about the importance of listening for those in leadership roles. It’s a skill that I think makes a vital difference, but it’s very often overlooked.
It’s an essential tool which I think a lot of new and aspiring leaders should be aware of, but which might be missed unless they’re fortunate enough to see it being modelled for them.
But, if I take the time to stress the importance of listening and considering all points in a discussion, I think it’s also important I advocate for speaking up as well. Just like listening, the ability to speak up and put your point across is vital in developing effective strategies – the two work in tandem, allowing discussions to develop and drawing on everyone’s input.
This, of course, is part of why it’s so important that leaders and managers work to ensure they’re leading an environment where people can be their authentic selves (in addition, of course, to the basic ethical requirement that everyone deserves to work in an environment where they can be themselves without feeling the need to conceal core aspects of their identities). Because a key element in effective discussions is the capacity of colleagues to bounce ideas off one another, taking inspiration from each other’s ideas and sharing their own perspectives, informed by each individuals’ own knowledge, background, and understanding. Those experiences and ideas can come from anywhere – from experience in the voluntary sector, from knowledge gained in previous roles, and of course from things heard or picked up during CPD activities.
June 2023
That’s part of why conferences can be so valuable – as broad and far-ranging as the information profession is, it can feel easy to become siloed in a particular sector. Academically, we understand that our core skills are equally as applicable in a public or prison library as in a medical or corporate knowledge service, but our natural day-to-day focuses at work often lead us to describe ourselves with phrases like “I’m a ______ librarian”, filling the blank with whatever sector happens to best-match our current role.
Conferences are a wonderful way to step beyond that self-imposed silo: networking, taking notes, and storing up ideas for later can ensure that attending a conference provides long- lasting benefits both for you and your organisation, but the real benefit is often in the active participation, as many of those who’ve attended conferences before can attest.
So those attending their first professional conferences this year, then, I want to commend the virtue of speaking up, as well as listening. By joining in with the discussions and workshops, or participating in the online chatter linked to the conference, you can better immerse yourself in that fantastic sense of being part of something bigger, growing your understanding of that wider professional context, to share your personal expertise and experience, and – as a bonus – to remind yourself how transferable your skills are, too. The melting pot of a conference works best when everyone feels able and eager to add their contributions, when everyone is networking and making the most of the opportunity to build and reinforce their understanding and appreciation of their skills. You might
John Trevor-Allen is President of CILIP.
www.cilipconference.org.uk
not know it when it happens, but the comment you make in a discussion might well be someone else’s ‘Aha!’ moment which they take back to inform their own service delivery.
This year’s CILIP Conference is taking place in Birmingham, on 12 and 13 July. Just as in the last edition of Information Professional, I recommended that a vital skill for aspiring future leaders is learning how to listen to opinions from a broad range of sources, I’d like to end this column with a recommendation to those attending (or interacting online with) the conference for the first time: Speak up! The brilliance of a conference is the way it can bring together a multiplicity of perspectives and experiences from across the whole of the profession: and those of us who are already trying to practice listening in leadership want to hear your thoughts too! IP
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www.cilipconference.org.uk INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 13
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