Keep Your Supporters Close, and Your Naysayers Closer
Compulsive naysayers are not always wrong – and sometimes they see realities that neither you nor your more compliant and agreeable employees see. And they can save you time.
Every library has at least one; many libraries have two or more: the employee who reflexively objects; who seems constantly to be looking for reasons to be outraged; who thinks everything the library currently does is wrongheaded, but looks at every proposed change in policy or practice and sees only potential disaster; who doesn’t seem to listen to the actual content of what leadership says but hears a million subtexts, all of them offensive.
If you are now, or have ever been, a leader in a library, I’ll bet money that when you read the paragraph above at least one specific person you’ve worked with leapt immediately to mind.
So here’s the question: what do you do with someone like that?
And I have a suggestion: try to pull them close. Why do I say that, and what do I mean? Read on.