Why in Practice

I recently had the opportunity to practice starting with why in my role as conference director for the Maryland and Delaware Library Associations' Annual Conference. 

I had pitched the idea to the conference committee's top leadership (exec. directors, assistant directors, etc) of not printing our conference programs this year in favor of simply offering them online - with no change to the design, just abstaining from printing and mailing them. My original pitch was just that - no why to speak of other than the usual trap many of us fall into: to save money. 

This was not very inspiring nor motivating. But as I worked my way through Sinek's book and his course, and I started to see a draft of my why, I discovered my motivation for wanting to pursue this change and immediately I could feel it in my gut; it was the right thing to do. Now I just had to communicate that better. 

Here's how I did it:
[The actual text of the email]
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Long email ahead but it’s very important that you read and respond. I apologize for the very short notice but I have to give Margaret my final decision on 4pm on Monday, Sept. 8^th.

*Delaware friends: please forgive my overwhelming use of ‘MLA’ but it’s all I know in this context. My intention isn’t to exclude you, I just can’t speak for you. Please know that Cathay and I have spoken and she is supportive.

My motivation: I’ve been involved with MLA as an active member for 5 years but I’ve learned more in the last 18 months through participating in the most recent Strategic Planning Process. Based on the feedback we received from the strategic planning survey, I believe MLA members want to go further with technology efforts – and we have! The MLA Office received, and is using regularly a smart board which easily facilitated online meetings and Google Hangouts. They’ve also received an upgraded phone system, and more improvements are in the works. But I have a feeling that the membership is also ready for us to jump in feet first and boldly go where we haven’t gone before…

The proposal: I don’t want to print the conference program this year and instead only make it available via online PDF. The same PDF style we’ve used in past years (See 2014 Program here: http://bit.ly/MLADLAConferenceProgram). This will not change how people register for the conference. We will still print the small onsite conference program.

How we’ll make it happen: Timing and communication. Time is on our side because if we make this decision now, we have 5 months before registration opens to communicate this change, our motivation behind it, and our support for it. MLA has several strong communication outlets and I believe in the power of each and every one of them to spread the word: MLA Happenings, The CRAB, The Website, The Facebook Page(s), The Twitter Feed(s), The Listserv(s), Lanyrd, and all of us! I will also ask the Statewide Staff Development Coordinators to help us champion this change by spreading the word internally among their colleagues.

My request to you: I need to know that I have your support; that you can feel the fear and speak positively about it anyway. It’s perfectly ok to say, “Yes, I’m nervous about this but I totally support it!” Whenever we change from doing something the way we’ve always done it to doing it completely different, it feels very scary. And that’s ok. I feel the fear, too, but this seems so right that I’m willing to make this change but I need you to make it with me.

Julie

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After I waded through the emails from the committee members who were enthusiastically supporting this initiative (I received 2 phone calls from folks who were hesitant but not 100% resistant, they just needed more info) I made the final decision on Monday, Sept. 8th. Then I shared this decision with the membership at large. I used the same email with only a few changes to the wording to let them know that the decision had been made, the conference committee was in support of it, and that a communication plan was being put into place. I also wanted to encourage them to voice their concerns with me in case more information was needed.

Within the first hour of clicking the send button at 4pm I received 22 emails from the membership at large in support of this initiative and willing to help us spread the word to their colleagues. And I continued to receive more such emails this morning.

Many of the folks who've replied to my email thus far have felt this decision was kind of a no-brainer but having gone through the process of uncovering why I felt the way I did and why I wanted to make this particular change boosted my confidence and my ability to communicate with others why I felt this was so important. I think that passion and conviction comes through diplomatically yet strongly in my email and I'm proud to share my first Why in Practice experience with you and I hope to have many others.