Last week, at Computers in Libraries, I facilitated a session in which the participants defined the direction of our 45 minutes together. It was fun for me and, I think, fun for them as well. After some brainstorming, multi-voting, hand-raising, and discussion, the topic that came to the forefront was “Getting Difficult People to Come Along.”
I asked the group of about 120 people, in 11 minutes, to tell me what worked in their organizations when faced with challenging people. The list they came up with is an absolutely fabulous one. Here is the list:
- pay attention to learning styles~!
- customize the experience
- letting people be a part of the process
- get them to say what is important to them and then empower them to make that change
- honor the past
- demonstrate how the new thing solves a problem for them
- being resistant to change can be good, make them winners, they are the people that can spot problems when the runners are too far forward
- acknowledge and honor that what people are doing is difficult and there are multiple ways to do everything
- have personal conversations with staff that are challenges
- institutional perceptions are not always reflective of the institution – tissue paper example
- all staff took learning or personality style surveys and classes, then talked about the change and put in the job descriptions that change is happening
- involving everyone (don’t panic and carry a towel)
- made training fun and was an often a scheduled thing
- asked people what they wanted to learn
- talking to people outside of your department
- same as managing children (haha because it is so true)
- change is coming, give them time to adjust
To see the full list of topics, check out the presentation notes I took on the session entitled “Unleash the Power of Your People”.
–Jane, mob ruled