Appendix 1:
Charge to the Steering Committee on Improving Organizational Culture
The Library would like to move into a future where staff hold a shared sense of the Library's
purpose and a common vision about how the organization should develop over time. Changes in
our environment - a new Library administration; advances in technology; changing patterns of
research, instruction and publication; the chance to fill several staff vacancies -- provide
unique opportunities to create an organization to support an expanded role for the Library in
the academic and information communities. The time is right for the Library community to
envision and build the organization it wants to become.
The work required to envision the organization the Library wants to become can be divided
into two interrelated parts: 1) a vision for the services the Library intends to provide, and 2) a
vision for the ways in which the staff work together to deliver those services. The charge to
the Steering Committee on Improving Organizational Culture is to address the latter
component, the vision for the ways staff work together. (A separate group will be charged
with articulating a vision for services, to identify strategic priorities, and to determine their
budget implications.)
The ways in which we work together to decide issues, the norms we adhere to in pursuit of
goals, the messages both verbal and non-verbal we tell ourselves and our patrons-define our
organizational culture. To "improve" the Library's organizational culture is to create greater
congruence between the aspirations of staff for how work is done and the administratively
supported structures and methods for communication, decision-making, and accomplishing
work.
Key challenges to our community are to envision the kind of organizational culture we want,
to muster collectively the will and perseverance to realize the vision, and to identify and
secure the resources and skill sets needed to achieve it. Toward those ends the Library needs
the guidance and hard work of the Steering Committee on Improving Organizational Culture.
Committee Charge
1) draft a vision process for a desired organizational culture that includes all Library staff;
2) present the process to Roundtable for discussion and to Cabinet for approval;
3) implement the vision process when it is approved;
4) deliver the following products:
a) a concise statement of the fundamental reasons the Library exists as an
organization (the mission).
b) a set of statements (the vision) which describes the organizational culture we think
is necessary to carry out our purpose. (These statements will express values and
aspirations for how the staff conducts its work; will mirror why staff choose to
work in the Library; and will provide a context for choosing among possible goals.
c) a list of library-wide initiatives needed over the next three years to achieve the
envisioned organizational culture.
5) recommend a process for monitoring progress toward achievement of initiatives (4c) and
for renewal of the vision process to ensure that the Library's ongoing organizational life
remains vibrant and productive.