Comments on: Who Makes Policies? http://wanderingeyre.com/2006/06/30/who-makes-policies/ A bibliophile's musings on books, libraries, the world, life, and anything else that comes to mind Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:40:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: T Scott http://wanderingeyre.com/2006/06/30/who-makes-policies/#comment-2380 T Scott Fri, 30 Jun 2006 19:35:10 +0000 http://wanderingeyre.com/2006/06/30/who-makes-policies/#comment-2380 As someone who has been a library director for over fifteen years, your post struck a chord (Bb major, I think). You are absolutely right that it is essential that policy development be done ground up -- with those who have the greatest stake in the problem that you're trying to solve, or who will be on the frontline of trying to enforce it, intimately involved with developing policy. When that works the way it should, the director's job is to just try to be sure that every necessary question has been asked, that every unintended consequence has been considered (never foolproof, of course), and that we have a decent consensus. Of your three setting for the birth of bad policies, the one I consider more insidious, however, is the second one -- creating policy to do with one particular situation. On any given day there are going to be things that happen that drive people nuts and create frustration and rippling angst through the organization. Someone is always there to say "We Need A Policy On This!!". Part of my job is to say, "Why? Maybe we just need to try to use good judgment on these wierd situations that only show up rarely." Policies are important, so that we can have consistency in how we treat people -- but they're never a replacement for good people exercising good judgment and knowing when to break the rules. As someone who has been a library director for over fifteen years, your post struck a chord (Bb major, I think). You are absolutely right that it is essential that policy development be done ground up — with those who have the greatest stake in the problem that you’re trying to solve, or who will be on the frontline of trying to enforce it, intimately involved with developing policy. When that works the way it should, the director’s job is to just try to be sure that every necessary question has been asked, that every unintended consequence has been considered (never foolproof, of course), and that we have a decent consensus.

Of your three setting for the birth of bad policies, the one I consider more insidious, however, is the second one — creating policy to do with one particular situation. On any given day there are going to be things that happen that drive people nuts and create frustration and rippling angst through the organization. Someone is always there to say “We Need A Policy On This!!”. Part of my job is to say, “Why? Maybe we just need to try to use good judgment on these wierd situations that only show up rarely.” Policies are important, so that we can have consistency in how we treat people — but they’re never a replacement for good people exercising good judgment and knowing when to break the rules.

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