The Dysfunctional Library: Challenges and Solutions to Workplace Relationships

by Jo Henry, Joe Eshleman, Richard Moniz

Frankly, it’s not something we like to talk about. There is an unfortunate stigma to acknowledging workplace dysfunction, let alone trying to grapple with the problem. But negative behaviors such as incivility, toxicity, deviant behavior, workplace politics, and team and leadership dysfunction not only make the library a stressful workplace, they also run counter to the core values of librarianship. An important tool for library leaders and managers as well as library staff, this book examines these negative relationship-based issues and suggests practical, research-based solutions by

* discussing the importance of understanding oneself as related to the library workplace;
* identifying attributes specific to libraries that foster personal success;
* showing how organizational dysfunction is rooted in problems such as poor communication, inadequate leadership, and lack of employee engagement;
* breaking down relatable scenarios to analyze what’s behind them and how to defuse them, ranging from a gossipy coworker who fails to contribute to the organization to workplace bullying and mobbing;
* exploring causes, results, and potential solutions in the areas of cyberloafing, fraud, theft, and sabotage;
* delving into the importance of conflict management, surveying a variety of approaches and applications;
* examining the use of teams in libraries and the impact of favoritism, nepotism, and sexism; and
* providing techniques for successful collaboration, leadership, organizational communication, and other key management topics.

By tackling the dysfunctional library head on, managers as well as library workers who find themselves in a toxic situation will be poised to better meet library goals and move the library forward.

Genres: Nonfiction, Library Science, Leadership

216 pages, Paperback

Published December 12, 2017

Reviews

[Tina Panik · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a tool for building and understanding the vocabulary of workplace dysfunction (regardless of industry), this book is excellent, and will aide in understanding. The chapter in civility is especially good. However, if you’re looking for repair strategies or step-by-step improvement ideas, you will need to look (and read) elsewhere, as the authors’ most common suggestion is to “practice mindfulness”.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, memories...

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a useful book to help you describe how dysfunctional the library you work in is (if your library is dysfunctional). The authors provide ways of exploring this, and of working to decrease dysfunction. They start with the individual library worker providing advice about how to explore one's own level of disfunction. They encourage an outward looking focus, and highlight the importance of professional development.

They make effective use of research and highlight work being done in a range of libraries (and provide these references to follow up). This book is about encouraging library staff, and then libraries to be the best we can be, working well with each other, and for our communities. Being proactive and planning is important as is professional development for staff. Good leadership is important, but it must be the right style of leadership.

This may not be a book to read cover to cover, however, it has some very useful information as well as reference to follow up for further reading.

I am trying to increase my professional reading, which I usually do as commute reading, but have been working from home since late March.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book shows off to leaders and library employees how things go awry and then how to change it. It does address more issues of a leader handling employee situations, though the author holds the leadership accountable in these regards as well.
Every possible issue in the workforce that can be thought about has been included in this book:
-resistance to change, teams and teamwork, favoritism, nepotism, diversity, empathy, tokenism, rankism, racism, incivility, micromanaging, stress, bias (conscious or otherwise), cell phone use, overtalking, passive aggressive behavior, lack of collaboration, misplaced rewards, POOR COMMUNICATION, conflict management, sexism, distrust, overbearance, dictatorship, and high turnover

I have admittedly been guilty of some of these things, but so have others. This book will address each of these issues in turn (from both the employee and leadership (mostly leadership) standpoints) and how best to cope with them from the most minute change to the boldest.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting advice, guidance, opportunities for reflection— more of a toolkit or workbook for planning and implementing change. But this book is essentially extended literature review. Good background info, not so much in terms of practical help.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The question of function and dysfunction in the workplace can be a very touchy one. People tend to approach it by identifying certain people or systems as “problems” rather than looking for solutions. In libraries there can be a particular tendency to hide or ignore dysfunction, in part because libraries are publicly funded and under constant scrutiny, so any airing of problems is seen as a danger to the institution, and in part because librarian culture has internalized a certain amount of liberal arrogance regarding the library’s mission and its superiority to individual concerns.

It is likely that most readers will come to this book in a period of stress or crisis, when things at their workplace appear particularly “bad.” The book will help somewhat in re-adjusting that perception by assuring the reader that all libraries (indeed all workplaces) have elements of dysfunction, and that there are steps they can take to alleviate it from any position. Much of the emphasis is on what managers and “leaders” can do, but the book offers some practical suggestions that can be applied at any level. Much of the emphasis is on communication and avoiding “silos” within the library, and one practical suggestion I drew from it is that a good leader speaks to each employee within their unit everyday. Being a librarian who likes process, I made up a list of my immediate co-workers and began applying this immediately, checking off each name daily.

To the extent that the book suffers from dysfunction, it is mostly due to a rather clunky writing style, no doubt due to the collaborative nature of the writing. As important as collaboration is for library work (and this is a major point as well), it tends to weaken clear, direct communication. Each paragraph is essentially built from a series of assertions from other sources, and sometimes those sources are not adequately questioned or evaluated. A better approach would have been to present the ideas in more of a conversation with one another, and to avoid sources like Wikipedia and Internet blogs.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe a 3.5. Introduction to the topic. Number of places I wish the authors had elaborated further or provided concrete examples. For my own concrete example, in a list of conflict management skills, one of the bullets begins: "Establishing egalitarian norms while reinforcing understanding for hierarchical differences... " and this was so obtuse I immediately tracked down the citation to try to figure out what that would look like. (It's not like I don't understand the sentence itself, but what does that look like in a library? And just what does a balance of hierarchy and egalitarianism look like?) The most relevant passage from that citation (Carton & Tewfik, p. 1130):

Another way to reduce hierarchical differences is through the establishment of egalitarian norms (Pereira et al, 2009), which can lead to a balancing out of a variety of cues that send status signals (De Dreu and West 2001). Egalitarian norms can “flatten” teams in a number of respects, including how members are recognized, the order in which they speak during meetings, how long they speak in meetings, and how they dress.

So Henry et al kind of did the lazy paraphrase thing I tell students to avoid while skipping on the meat of meaning and application.

I got some food for thought, though a lot boils down to mindfulness and growth mindset. The establish early on, quite fairly, that people tend to want to place blame externally when they need to work on themselves first and foremost to resolve situations, but I'm still left with a little of that Corporate Help Book flavor of "the company isn't wrong, you are." And sure, the whole is made up of the individual parts... but still. Not a lot to work with on handling and managing and working around the dysfunction that's external to you.

[Warren Wulff · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book provides a fair overview of dysfunction in libraries, but it seems more like reportage of others' research than something more developed from the authors themselves.

The basic message of better communication is well taken, especially between library administrators and library staff. However, I find that the "how" is typically missing in this book. Saying, "establish clear guidelines" is not the same as explaining how that is done. That being said, the last chapter describing how leaders must have a guiding plan for their library AND communicate up, down, and out was the strongest part and resonated for me.

I disagree fundamentally with one theme of this book: that technological change is inherently good and must be embraced. I simply do not agree. As we are seeing with AI and other tech "innovations" coming out of Silicon Valley, I consider them to be inhumane and counterproductive for the establishment of a critically-thinking populace. Embracing AI is simply not the same as libraries shifting from card catalogues to OPACs. Granted that this book was written in 2018, before the AI onslaught, but still, just because everyone's doing it (e.g., using social media) doesn't make it an inherent good. A real value of libraries is to stand apart from IT noise and provide a large-scale information-scape to patrons, one that is based in critical thinking, the ability to find and use information in multiple formats, and to show patrons that serious research takes time and effort and is simply not typing in a prompt to ChatGPT. I can't entirely fault the authors of a book from 2018, but this uncritical "embrace the change" mantra throughout the book has not aged well.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was expanded from the authors' 2017 survey of more than 4,000 librarians on incivility in libraries. More than half of those surveyed found that they worked in a significantly dysfunctional workplace at least part of the time. The authors explore major themes as studied in the scholarly literature. These themes arise at multiple levels and impede performance, efficiency, and effectiveness, especially as viewed by managers. The dysfunctional self may be lacking in emotional intelligence skills and ability to interact with others. A dysfunctional organizational culture may not effectively address rankism, incivility, organizational deviance, and toxic behaviors. Conflict may not be addressed. Communication may be poor, and collaboration/team efforts may be lacking or ineffective. The role of libraries in today's world may be unclear. The role of effective leaders in encouraging diverse points of view and engaging all staff toward effective change is emphasized, with an emphasis on academic libraries.

This book is recommended as a very good survey of an important issue with talking points gleaned from the authors' research and review of the literature.

[Jeimy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Main takeaway as it relates to my experiences, “Unfortunately, bullies target some of the best and well-meaning employees in an organization. Most targets escape by moving on or transferring from the department, but the bullies remain to repeat their toxic behavior with other workers.”

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty decent overview of dysfunction in academic libraries and various solutions/approaches to fixing it. Nothing mind-blowing, but the authors cite a ton of other articles and resources that look helpful.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had high expectations for this.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit too academic for me. More like a literature review than a helpful guide.

[Jory Kunzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book starts out great but gets repetitive. OK overall but some of the things seem very common sense, others seem like they would be more relevant to libraries in larger areas.