Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Leadership Transition


I'm winding down my time at my current institution - I've basically got 3 weeks left here, but I'm taking a week off in the middle to take care of all those details that need attention when you're moving states away. And in anticipation of my move, I've been co-writing a document with the person who will be interim director. This document is partially to help the interim director between when I leave and when the new director is hired, but also to help my boss (the provost) as well as the next director. We've spent hours so far on this document and will be spending more time between now and my last day. Thought I'd share with you all the kinds of things we're including.

  1. Who to talk to, and how, about what. Sure, people have job titles that are easy to find, but job titles and knowledge don't always correspond. There are always people in any library/college/government/etc., who are great but you really need to talk to their administrative assistant if you want action on something. Some people respond better to email whereas others you need to call. And then there are the people who will promise you the moon but won't deliver unless you can prove they made a promise. This transition document we're writing has things like who to contact when you need new keys or have questions about student workers, who to call about accounts payable and how to get changes made to the website. These are all little things I had to learn for myself, so I might as well pass on the knowledge.
  2. What ongoing projects will need attention soon. Because of the way things worked out with my job transition, I'm going to be able to handle pretty much all of the big projects that are in motion, but not all. Some things are sort of on hold because we're in summer session, for instance.
  3. Overview of what I do in an average month. Everything from "pay bills" to "biweekly staff update email" to "work with local and statewide library oriented organizations" is listed. I've also included a rough estimate of how much time I spend on each of these, but that is more for the higher ups so they know what the interim director will be trying to fit into their 35 hour work week.
  4. A list of projects I never got to. Of course, each person new to a job will want to come up with their own projects, however I did some preliminary work for some of these and wanted to share in case the interim, the powers that be, or the next director have the same ideas.
  5. My contact information. As exhaustive as we are trying to make this document, I know we're going to forget something. Some event I said the library would host or some DVD I said the library would buy or even the idea I had to handle a specific set of circumstances if they ever came up. I won't work here anymore, but I also want to make sure the transition is smooth.
So, what about you? Is there anything else you wish your predecessor (actual or future) would let you know?

3 comments:

  1. great list! I always left lists for my successors, and never got them from my predecessors!

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  2. Because I had an in-person overlap with my successor last time, I also focused on areas where I hadn't made progress/was failing at. I covered some of the things I tried that didn't work and encouraged them to either try a different approach or wait for an opportunity to arise that might make it more successful.

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  3. I'm leaving a job soon as well and this was very helpful as I prepare my documentation. Thank you@!

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