Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person—not just an employee—are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.
––Anne M. Mulcahy, former CEO of Xerox1
In order to sustain a service leadership organization, the internal policies and practices must reflect that commitment. Undeniably, it is those with management authority who determine the policies and procedures in an organization; hence they tend to have the best chance of success in instituting a service culture (or other paradigmatic changes). These are clear indicators of the cultural values and climate in the organization; they may, or may not, be aligned with the explicit mission statements and values documents. The ideal, of course, is that they would be. The values or mission may espouse service values while the policies are more focused on following the rules. When there is this disconnect, the impact on the organization can be profound; individuals may be confused, unsure about what the priorities are, and frustrated. Sometimes the lack of success is due to not following through. But sometimes it is because the values of the organization and the desired change are not aligned—they are not a good fit. Does this mean that an organization that is very hierarchical and authoritarian with a tendency toward micromanagement and risk-averse behavior cannot change? Of course not. But it does mean that the organizational values and the organizational behavior need to be explicitly examined and discussed, and all parts of the organization need to be included.
The overall transformation of leadership in an organization can be increased substantially by suitable organizational and human resources policies.2 “Transformational leadership presents opportunities for improving the organization’s image, recruitment, selection, promotion, management of diversity, teamwork, training, development, and ability to innovate.”3 It also frames the context for a sustained environment. Covey asks, “How do you get this concern for the individual customer? I see three ways: hire it, train it, or cultivate it in the culture.”4 Having the values of the organization permeate every policy, every process, demonstrates that the organization is committed. There are opportunities everywhere, and nowhere are they more obvious than in human resources:
• hiring and promotion;
• training and development;
• career development and succession planning;
• job design and workload;
• performance evaluation; and
• rewards and compensation.
These policies, among others, inform employees’ relationships with and perceptions of the organization. How it handles more conflict-laden situations, such as termination, disciplinary action, or grievances, says something about how the organization comports itself. Just as an individual’s response to negative circumstances says the most about him, so does an organization’s response to its problems. If it models integrity and service, that exemplifies its values.
Human resources (HR) may have a bad reputation internally in an organization among those it is there to serve. At worst employees can view HR’s role as covering for the organization, pushing paper, and forcing time-consuming and unnecessary procedures down everyone’s throat. There are HR offices that believe this is their role and responsibility and that they are there to manage those human resources (which seems somewhat dehumanizing when people are managed as assets or inventory). However, service leaders recognize that this view can be altered for the positive and that employees do not have to feel this way, especially if HR efforts focus on the service ethic of the library.
I spent more than 25 years as a corporate head of HR in large corporations and currently consult in the field. Last year I attended a conference where the Container Store shared how it trains and develops employees. There is no HR department, but there is an HR function that originally was part of the marketing department. This caught my attention as I have been arguing for some time that effective HR needs to be a marketing effort. Marketing builds brands. Many companies spend little time helping develop and market their people. The real value of human-resource management is identifying, recruiting, managing, developing, retaining and compensating people to help build successful businesses and brands.5
In this chapter, we will examine the processes that can model organizational values from the beginning of the employee-employer relationship through the various relationship ends, and what their implications are for the formalization of values for the organization as a whole.
It can readily be argued that people who value service are drawn to service organizations. While hiring is not necessarily the most important action to impact an organization, its culture, and its success, it is arguably the most visible. Every organization wants to hire the best and brightest. The hiring process is not just about weeding through applicants to get the best, however; it is also necessary for the organization to make a good impression. How the process is conducted says a lot about the organization to the candidates.
It starts with the framing of the position description, which indicates the job design and workload. Candidates have significant questions and the position description or position announcement helps them answer these (or not, which can be an answer in itself):
1. How much autonomy does it have?
2. Who does it collaborate with?
3. What are the priorities?
4. How does this position fit into the organization?
These are all questions that the organization has answered within the position description, which is the first attractor for potential hires. If the position description is very narrowly written, it is an indicator that there is an internal candidate; this will deter many experienced librarians and high performers from applying. The question about how the position fits into the organization raises the more significant question about fit; while most organizations are looking at candidates to see how well they fit the position, most candidates are looking at the organization to determine how well they might fit within its culture. Overlooking the fact that potential hires are interviewing the organization is a colossal, yet common, mistake that many hiring organizations make. There are organizations that pay attention to this detail as well: they coach their employees to be positive and sell the organization, as if the library were being interviewed by the candidate (and let’s be honest, it is). Unfortunately, this strategy has some significant pitfalls as well, particularly if the candidate is chosen and takes the position. After the honeymoon period, however long that may be, the recruited individual will discover the real culture in the organization and likely feel that she was fooled. Hosting candidates professionally is advised, but it is also in everyone’s best interest to have a realistic job (and organization) preview. If the organization has issues that it does not feel would attract a candidate, this is probably an excellent indication that this issue needs to be addressed and remediated within the organization.
SERVICE LEADERSHIP IN PRACTICE
Jason was hired into the college library as a law librarian. He had initially applied for a senior librarian position, but the college library had three very strong applicants so they hired all three at entry level. While this was unusual and not what he anticipated, Jason was excited to get the job at a place that would invest so heavily in his subject area. After a couple of years, one of his colleagues left. The position went unfilled and unposted until the director of the library decided to invite a librarian who she was mentoring to interview for senior librarian. Jason and his colleague were both upset at this turn of events; it was the position that they both had initially interviewed for but instead had been offered the entry-level position. Both were interested in applying for the senior library position and, without a posting, they would not get the chance.
The candidate, Pamela, interviewed with the director and other librarians. Comments were minimal and noncontroversial, except for Jason and his colleague, who asked probing questions about the candidate’s experience and vision. The candidate was indignant about what she called their aggressive demeanor and told the director about it. The director scheduled a meeting with Jason and his colleague, during which she chastised them. She said that their behavior was not appropriate, that this was not the way to treat candidates, and that they were entirely unsuited for the job anyway. She then asserted that the director can hire whomever she wants and it didn’t matter what they thought.
Pamela was hired as senior librarian, supervising Jason and his colleague. Jason’s colleague quit two days later. Jason followed after a couple of months, sending a scathing letter to the college president. While this situation may have been specific to the organization, the fact that these individuals left because of it indicates that it is likely to be news in the larger professional community as well.
Speaking of internal candidates, the hiring process also sends signals to employees in the organization. If, as in the above example, a position is written with one specific employee in mind, this can, and will, send a message to other employees about the objectivity and fairness of the process. It can lead to accusations of favoritism (or more likely dissatisfied grumbling), and in extreme cases, it can completely undermine trust in the hiring process and in the decision-makers.
There are number of issues in this case: the initial interviews and decision to hire three candidates into lower-level positions than what they applied for, the decision not to post the senior librarian position, bringing in someone with whom the director had an existing relationship to interview for an unposted position, and taking input from affected individuals but being very resistant to any feedback. In addition, Pamela exacerbated the situation and perpetuated the issues of procedural justice while subverting the process by going to her mentor, the director. While she ultimately gets the position, her credibility is undermined and she is not trusted by anyone in the organization who witnessed this. Another issue that is most relevant to hiring but may be overlooked because of the blatant favoritism is the dilemma around Jason’s hire, that the position he applied for was not the one that he ultimately was offered and that it was a lower-level job. This bait-and-switch tactic makes an impression on Jason, his colleagues, and others in the organization. While administrators may say that each situation is unique, it sends a message about fairness and the values.
As alluded to in the situation above, the interaction in the interview accounts for a lot. It is largely accepted that 70 percent (or more) of communication is nonverbal, and so being able to watch the candidate’s reactions, mannerisms, and demeanor is very revealing. The reverse is also true, that being, how employees and managers within the organization interact with candidates. Those brief interactions say a lot about the organization at large and influence a candidate’s decision to accept a job offer or not. Legally, there are questions that you can and cannot ask, but beyond that, the questions asked and conversations pursued in an interview are telling about what is important to the organization, how it approaches situations, how engaged its employees are, and how valued they feel. Many organizations do training about hiring to avoid legal entanglements, but many also coach their employees to put on a good face. This is a little ironic—if you have satisfied and motivated employees, they don’t need that kind of coaching. In addition, in terms of the integrity of the process, it is a little shift—kind of like selling a used car.
We will make an assumption about sustaining a service culture—that these practices can be taught or inculcated into new hires. Bass argued that transformational leadership behaviors can be learned, and Haass said “technique can be taught,” although taught is probably too concrete a word.6 It is really a process of socialization. It begins with the job posting and interview and really ramps up when a new person comes on board.
Augmenting or sustaining a culture is difficult enough, but what if there is a need to change it? So often there is training and discussion and values documents, but Lueneburger offers an alternative view, addressing a case study that advises that the “trick is not to think yourself into a different way of acting … but to act yourself into a different way of thinking.”7 This is particularly compelling, particularly in terms of trying to bring change to an organization. Management theories often teach modeling your organizational values; this is the reverse—molding values through practice. This builds on the adage that actions speak louder than words; if individuals start to model the change they strive for, others will see it and do so as well.
Training and organizational development usually focus on skills acquisition or technical knowledge, but they are also an effective way to socialize new employees. Although less successful with long-term employees, training can also help orient them to changes in focus or climate. It is most effective if there is an effort to “chunk the work” or break up an project in manageable segments or tasks. A more incremental approach means that it is easier for people to adjust, easier to make modifications as the situation changes, and, overall, makes what seems a monumental task less overwhelming. In addition, for specific projects or initiatives, it allows discrete parts of a project to be assigned to a broad range of individuals who have diverse skills that each best fit a specific goal, thereby providing an inclusive environment and promoting buy-in.
Berry quotes a vice president of Service Master:
Providing an environment which promotes the development of the whole person (from orientation and initial job skill training to personal development), enhances the dignity and worth of the individual service provider. In honoring the dignity of service through people development and people-focused management, we increase the motivation of the ‘service partner’ and thus can provide service that exceeds customer expectations.8
Interestingly, there are a number of excuses trotted out by organizations to abrogate the responsibility. One is that in a down economy, people are lucky to have a job (so it shifts the focus back to Maslow’s lower-order needs). Another is that the next generation of workers won’t stay in the job for very long before they go on to something better (so there is no need for loyalty of investment from either side), defaulting to a transactional relationship wherein individuals are disposable.
Play to people’s strengths. Berry asserts that “People naturally gravitate to those roles for which they feel most competent—and avoid those for which they feel ill-equipped.”9 This also contributes to resistance to change and to lack of innovation. If an individual has no interest in a job or task, she is unlikely to put forth a lot of effort—which naturally impacts performance. This tendency is described in Bandura’s theory of reciprocal determinism, which discusses the relationship between personal factors, behavior, and environment.
Equity is not about treating people the same; it is about fairness. “Every employee needs something different from a superior in order to perform up to his or her potential.”10 In terms of service provision, it may be that a subject-specialist librarian works with a specific department but focuses on instruction because she has both talent and commitment there, while a different specialist may focus on collection development or scholarly communication. Admittedly, this presents gaps in the services for different subjects, but these can be addressed if there is a more team-based structure that allows opportunity for collaboration and individual growth—and also provides a model that has support and built-in redundancy in the event that it is needed.
A collective groan is often heard in an organization when it is time for performance evaluations, not merely because it is often a laborious process but also because even employees with positive performance are usually given feedback about improvement, so criticism is expected (and feared). This is generally when the process is pro forma, focused on ranking individuals for purposes of merit raises as opposed to developing their potential and remediating concerns.
Evaluations are not just uncomfortable for the employee being evaluated but also for the manager doing the evaluation. Ideally, there should be ongoing and honest conversations about the employee’s performance and progress on individual goals. It seems that this hardly ever happens. It does require the difficult conversation, face-to-face, with specific examples so the employee knows what the problem is and how to address it.
Another point of frustration with evaluation processes, for personnel and also programmatically, is that the metrics are often meaningless in terms of the big picture: “measuring what you have accomplished is often impossible, given the absence of relevant yardsticks.”11 It is easy, in any profession, to measure activity—classes taught, books cataloged, patron visits—but that really is a measurement of activity and not impact. But even that measure of activity only fair in a superficial way—an engineering librarian may have few consults as compared to the English librarian who had a great number. They are comparable, right? Wrong, and it is this perspective that can bring up concerns about procedural justice. It is necessary to measure the right things—and individual activity should be aligned with organizational priorities. That way the impact on the big picture is always in sight. “Service leadership significantly impacts organizational performance,”12 which is indicated by the following:
• “Higher return on assets.
• More consumer and commercial accounts opened during the year.
• Higher reported levels of customer satisfaction and service quality.
• Higher levels of organizational commitment (loyalty) in employees.
• Higher levels of esprit de corp (teamwork) in the retail unit.”13
Evaluation and rewards are inextricably intertwined, both in the formal process and in the potentially less formal decision-making. To see what is truly important to an organization, don’t look at mission statements or strategic plans, just follow the money. Organizations invest their money in what they truly think it important, whether it is what they purport to value or not. Employees in organizations spend their time doing what they are rewarded for, particularly when they have line of sight to the payoff for their efforts. Reinforcement theory payoff, similar to motivation, varies depending on the individual and may not be monetary—the motivating factor may be something else. This is especially true in public service organizations. Individuals can probably go elsewhere and make more money, so there is some other factor that keeps them there.
That is not to say that money does not play a role. In the most basic sense, employees need to be paid a living wage—that sends a powerful signal that the organization cares that they are taken care of and is not trying to take advantage. In the sense of procedural justice, the way that rewards are distributed and the comparison of pay needs to be transparent. This is not to suggest that transcripts of negotiations be made available, merely that what is valued is known and that individuals that do relatively similar jobs are paid relatively the same. “When resources and rewards or punishments are distributed to employees, the leader plays a major role. The rules that are used and how they are applied say a great deal about whether the leader is concerned about justice and how he or she approaches issues of fairness.”14 Too many discrepancies can demotivate people. When someone brings up a concern about pay, administrators are often heard to say, “We’re not here for the money; it is about helping people.” This is no doubt true, but there is some irony when an administrator making over $100,000 annually says this to a library employee making $35,000 a year. So, yes, we’re not in it for the money, but we do expect fairness.
SERVICE LEADERSHIP IN PRACTICE
Lammert, a seasoned librarian known for his strong project management background, is facing yet another library reorganization. However, unlike the countless number of reorganizations before, Lammert was not consulted about who he was going to be reporting too. Soon after the reorganization was announced, Lammert discovered that he would be reporting to Wayne, an associate dean with a reputation of burning out his staff and taking all the credit for his staff’s hard work. Within a week Lammert is given a new assignment—to complete an impossible project in an impossible deadline. When Lammert approached Wayne to discuss his concern, Wayne quickly dismissed his concerns with a simple “don’t worry, you are a magician and you always end up pulling rabbits out of your hat.” Lammert laughed nervously, knowing that he would have to put in a lot of overtime and work every night for the next two weeks to complete this impossible project. Two weeks later Lammert was sitting in the conference room proudly waiting Wayne’s announcement to the rest of the library that Lammert had completed the project. To his surprise, it was the dean who walked up to the podium to make an the announcement that he was pleased that Wayne was able to complete an impossible project and that as a reward Wayne was to win the Librarian of the Year Award. Not only was Lammert confused but he was shocked to see Wayne stand up and accept the award without giving any recognition to Lammert or acknowledgement of the work that he had done.
The dichotomy of evaluation can lead to another outcome: disciplinary action or termination. As uncomfortable as the evaluation process may be, it also should be done with respect and care—and not only because of federal, state, and institutional regulations. How individuals are treated in a performance-development process, disciplinary action, or termination is watched closely by other employees with more than prurient interest: they want to understand how to avoid similar action themselves. If the process is not transparent, then it may inspire fear or mistrust. This is not to say that the personnel details should be made public; they should be kept strictly confidential. But the process should be adhered to and understood. In short, employees want to know that they are in a safe work environment.
While holding individuals accountable is a requirement for procedural justice, there should also be procedures to hold the organization accountable. These should provide a regular process for feedback about managers and administrators and an established mediation and grievance process. Employers, like employees, are entitled to feedback about their performance. This presupposes that there are expectations or standards for managers as well as individual goals; if not, they are working in a vacuum.
In this tough economic time, pay raises are no longer the sole incentive for motivating an employee to do a good job, and in service organizations, they are usually not the prime motivation regardless. People drawn to service organizations tend to be motivated by more altruistic factors. Dwindling library budgets mean that pay raises are becoming smaller and are unable even to match the increasing cost of living. In fact, over the past decade, a number of libraries across the United States have faced salary and hiring freezes, forcing many library employees to take on more work responsibilities for less money and to be thankful that they just have a job. Consequently, pay raises, or a lack thereof, can actually be a demotivator if library staff feel that their hard work goes unnoticed by the library director who, through no fault of her own, constantly tells them that there is no money for salary increases this year. However, there are additional incentives that service leaders can turn to in order to motivate their staff.
Personal and situational leadership theories, such as the Great Man theory, claim that the leader “created what the masses could accomplish,”15 that people’s imaginations were captured by the unique qualities of the leaders and that this was what motivated society to move forward.16 These theories postulated that people were motivated by the personal traits of the leader, not because of what the leader was doing to support and serve the people.
One of the first formative leadership experiences is dealing with an individual employee. The experience leaves a footprint, regardless of whether the leader is effective or whether the experience is positive. If this experience is profound enough, it will determine, to a large degree, how the leader deals with others—in other words, what kind of leader she will be.
Succession planning is fundamentally about an organization’s sustainability, having individuals in the pipeline to move the organization forward. In some organizations, there is a hand-picked heir apparent who has been molded in the image of those in positional authority. This form of sustainability tends to be perceived as favoritism. However, it is possible to develop talent across the board so that there are individuals with varying skills and expertise to meet whatever situations the organization may face. The benefit of this approach is that it is perceived more equitably and the organization’s talent pool is larger.
The additional benefit of having a large talent pool is that the organization’s proverbial eggs are in a diversity of baskets. This matters for purposes of sustaining service, not just leadership. What happens when the librarian who administers the electronic course reserve system is on vacation for a week and the system goes down? Does someone else know how to address it? The issue can occur with any position that requires a specialized knowledge, access, or skill—service just stops. Telling a library user that the individual who can solve their problem won’t be back for a week does not provide good service nor reflect well on the organization. Diversifying skills and promoting cross-training are ways to address this potential issue.
Mentoring is also a great way to build talent, pass on institutional knowledge, and promote collaboration: Beck states that “I’ve always tried to do more teaching or coaching or serving versus leading.”17 Haass discusses the role of a mentor or leader, saying “make sure they receive their fair share of the credit … shield them from criticism … help them develop their skills and advance their careers.”18 These relationships promote a sense of empowerment as well. “Empowering servers to serve is a necessary condition for delivering great service.”19 Berry describes empowerment as a state of mind in which one “experiences feelings of (1) control over how the job shall be performed; (2) awareness of the context in which the work is performed and where it fits in the “big picture”; (3) accountability for personal work output; (4) shared responsibility for unit and organizational performance; and (5) equity in the distribution of rewards based on individual and collective performance.”20
Implicit in succession planning is the sharing of power or empowerment of others. This may be not be prevalent in libraries that have traditionally had a command-and-control culture: “Poor change leaders …do not willingly share their power with others. Great change leaders, in contrast, allow those around them to take ownership, rather than monopolizing the change.”21 Instead of holding their authority close, people must give it away to others in the organization for the benefit of that organization. Ford asserts this as follows: “Transforming leaders are those who are able to divest themselves of their power and invest it in their followers in such a way that others are empowered …”22 So does Wilkes, who says, “servant leaders multiply their leadership by empowering others to lead.”23
This investment in the individuals in the organization models the commitment to the organization. While an extreme example, Northouse discusses the alternative: “For Burns, leadership has to be grounded in the leader-follower relationship. It cannot be controlled by the leader, such as Hitler’s influence in Germany. Hitler coerced people to meet his own agenda and followed goals that did not advance the goodness of mankind.”24
1. Think about the library’s organizational priorities. Do your job expectations and annual goals align with them?
2. What is the process of promotion in the library? Are expectations formalized so that individuals know what it takes to get to the next level?
3. Are there development opportunities for those who seek to advance or grow? How are these opportunities offered, do individuals indicate interest or are they selected?
4. Does the service culture permeate the organization? In other words, are internal patrons and colleagues treated as well as patrons?
NOTES
1. Darcy Jacobsen, “Wednesday Wisdom: Ten Quotes from Smart CEOs,” www.globoforce.com/gfblog/2012/ten-quotes-from-ceos.
2. Bernard M. Bass and Ronald E. Riggio, Transformational Leadership, 2nd ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006), 126.
3. Ibid., 126–127.
4. Stephen R. Covey, “Serving the One,” Executive Excellence 11, no. 9 (1994): 4.
5. Jason Geller, “There Is a Reason Why Companies Have Invested in HR: Without an HR Department the Void Will Be Rilled by Inexperienced Managers,” (letter) Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2014, www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303626804579507461679719386?mod=_newsreel_4.
6. Bernard M. Bass and Ronald E. Riggio, Transformational Leadership, 2nd ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006); Richard N. Haass, The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: How to be Effective in Any Unruly Organization (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999), xii
7. Christoph Lueneburger, A Culture of Purpose: How to Choose the Right People and Make the Right People Choose You (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2014), 14.
8. Leonard L. Berry, On Great Service: A Framework for Action (New York, NY: Free Press, 1995), 190.
9. Ibid., 187.
10. Richard N. Haass, The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: How to be Effective in Any Unruly Organization (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999), 105.
11. Ibid., 19.
12. Richard S. Lytle, “10 Elements of Service Excellence,” Texas Banking 93, no. 6 (2004): 23.
13. Ibid.
14. Peter G. Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice, 6th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2013), 389.
15. Bernard M. Bass, Bass & Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications, 3rd ed. (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1990), 37.
16. Thomas Carlyle, “On Heroes and Hero Worship (1841),” (Boston: Adams, 1897).
17. Curtis D. Beck, “Antecedents of Servant Leadership: A Mixed Methods Study,” (dissertation, University of Nebraska), 76.
18. Richard N. Haass, The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: How to be Effective in Any Unruly Organization (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999), 113.
19. Leonard L. Berry, On Great Service: A Framework for Action (New York, NY: Free Press, 1995), 208.
20. Ibid.
21. Christoph Lueneburger, A Culture of Purpose: How to Choose the Right People and Make the Right People Choose You (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2014), 23.
22. Leighton Ford, Transforming Leadership: Jesus’ Way of Creating Vision, Shaping Values & Empowering Change (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 15.
23. C. Gene Wilkes, Jesus on Leadership: Becoming a Servant Leader (Nashville, TN: Lifeway Press, 1996), 25
24. Peter G. Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice, 6th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2013), 393.