Comments on: Try It And See What Happens

By: Andy Burkhardt

Andy Burkhardt — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:39:56 +0000

Jake, I like your post. The idea of treating the library like a laboratory seems really freeing. I’m looking forward to hearing how it goes, but simply the environment you’re creating seems really positive. It’s not proscriptive, it’s empowering. It seems like it will allow people to be creative and bring their own personal interests, touches, passion to the table. Keep us informed on how it goes.

By: Jake

Jake — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:45:22 +0000

Excellent. I’ve got something like this going on where I work as well, and I’ll keep people updated via the usual channels. The gist of it is here: http://beerbrarian.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-year-new-library-kind-of.html

By: Andy Burkhardt

Andy Burkhardt — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:15:20 +0000

Gary, I think you are definitely hitting on an important point. Sometimes working environments don’t support just trying something, let alone failure. Managers and leaders need to realize that no one is perfect and that by believing in people and allowing them to fail it opens up they’re real potential. Potential is wasted when people are afraid to act. A lot of good ideas are left for dead when experimentation isn’t supported.

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:05:37 +0000

I completely agree. When you see this hesitation going on, in my humble experience, it’s because people either are not allowed to “just do it” or they are punished for trying something and not achieving 100% success. Of course, some of the common justifications for this are things like money and time are scarce and we can’t waste them. That may be true, but standing still is no way to move forward. Even little leaps of faith can generate some positive results.