What I am after is not flexible bodies, but flexible minds. What I am after is restoring people to their human dignity.

Movement is life. Life is a process. Improve the quality of the movement and you improve the quality of life itself.*



Louis Choquette was seeking flexible minds at his 2012 OLA Super Conference session, Better Teamwork for Greater Efficiency in Public Libraries. His formula was simple:

Re-imagine library work not simply as a matter of heralding/advancing your position [title], but actually focusing all of our game on the foremost reason for our existence as public institutions: serving our communities and the public good. Civics 101.

Now imagine that every member of your staff/team are equal in value to achieving this goal (optimal service). Each one’s unique talents/ideas are sought and recognized and each are entrusted with the charge/authourity to do so, encouraging all to bring their best thinking to work as they would approach a favourite hobby.

Equal value and recognition as a team member in advancing the vital services of Public Libraries. All actively contributing to a common goal greater than ourselves, work we can believe in. Libraries as sanctuaries from chaos, a refuge. Public spaces devoted to making societies better. Actually shaping/modeling the world we want to live in.

Shocking.

The major obstacle to all of the above: systemic entropy. No team. No vision. No shared responsibility. No new thinking. No movement. No joy. Why try? Same old. They don’t listen. Don’t rock the boat Don’t say anything Stop/Dontcare/alltoofamiliarbusinessasusualsucks

Abundance mentality + teamwork = innovation, expansion and renewal [vs. entropy/extreme rigidity]

Workers (v. team players) automatically tend to resist change based solely upon their personal fabrications of what change looks like to them (usually, in the negative, or “more work”). Therefore—”We don’t want that. I’m happy staying put.”—completely eradicating any ideas, thought, imagining, investigating, or naming what that change might actually look like/entail and manifest for the advancement of the goal/good. “If it ain’t broke…”

Well, if it doesn’t allow/value (better still, actively encourage and suss out) fresh input and show any signs of new movement, it isn’t just broke, it’s dead.

And then change happens to us.

A solid example Louis presented was, at his branch, there’s a large population of Mandarin-speaking older adults who seek assistance. Who, on their team, were best suited to meet this public need/demand. Turns out, a page and a janitor spoke Mandarin. And, as team members of equal value on the floor in service to the public, they were able to step up and meet the need. This also means other team members will have to pitch in to see that the public restrooms are serviced/maintained.

This was all met with a fair amount of push-back in a room chock-full of MLIS’s. A few attendee’s came up afterwords, calling him “brave.”

Imagine. Librarians. Stewardship. Flexible. Brave.

LOUIS CHOQUETTE Better Teamwork for Greater Efficiency in Public Libraries (Session 1221) can be viewed in it’s entirety at OLA Scholarlab

Graphic: source unknown
*Moshe Feldenkrais