Two Kinds of Organizational Problem, Part 2: Posts and Beams
Sometimes our workflows and practices are set up in such a way that they provide support to programs that are supposed to be supporting them. What does that look like?
Many years ago I was reading a novel in which the main character purchases a ramshackle second home in the country with the intention of fixing it up and turning it into an escape from his first home in the city. As he's inspecting the basement, he notices something alarming: an upright post that should be anchored to the floor and supporting a transverse beam in the basement ceiling (and thus helping to support the floor above). Instead, for some reason, the post doesn't quite reach the floor and is hanging from the beam that it was meant to support – thus not only failing to perform its intended function, but actually contributing to the problem it was meant to solve.
This mental image – that of a beam holding up a post instead of being supported by the post – has come to my mind on many occasions during my work as a library manager and a leader, when I've encountered workflows and practices that were created in order to facilitate tasks that were of questionable value, or found that our library had created elaborate protocols in support of programs that were intended, themselves, to provide support to the library and its staff.
For example: have you ever worked in a library that held lots of professional