Why is it important to renew ourselves and find meaning in the workplace as we provide library services? Today’s guest Cathy Hakala-Ausperk—librarian, speaker, trainer, and author, helps us answer that important question with information from her book, Renew Yourself: A Six-Step Plan for More Meaningful Work.
It is important to stay engaged in our own development so that we may offer the best library services possible, creating meaning for ourselves and the communities we serve.
Transcript
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
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This is Adrian Herrick Juarez. You’re listening to Library Leadership Podcast where we talk about libraries and leadership and speak with guests who share their ideas, innovations, and strategic insights in the profession.
Why is it important to renew ourselves and find meaning in the workplace as we provide library services? Today’s guest, Cathy Hakala-Ausperk, librarian, speaker, trainer, and author helps us answer that important question with information from her book, Renew Yourself: A Six-Step Plan for More Meaningful Work. It is important to stay engaged in our own development so that we may offer the best library services possible, creating meaning for ourselves and the communities we serve. Enjoy today’s show.
Welcome Cathy.
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Thank you very much, I’m happy to be here.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #1: Well, we’re going to be talking today about your book, Renew Yourself: A Six-Step Plan for More Meaningful Work. First of all, why is it important for all of us to renew ourselves in our work? 01:19
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Well, I do a lot of training and speaking and working with other people around the country to help build stronger libraries and stronger leaders. One thing I’ve come to realize is that you can’t really have a successful library if you don’t have successful people in it. By successful, I mean contented, and happy and striving for the goals that are important to them. In a lot of my travels I have lunch, or I have casual opportunities to talk to people and I hear a lot of people saying, you know I love where I work, I sort of like what I do but I just feel like I want to do something else, and I don’t know how to go about it, I’m sort of stuck in a job. I just wanted to write a book to give people the opportunity, and the steps, and the process to really take a look at what their career is doing now, where they want to go and how they can get there.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #2: That’s fantastic. So, that’s where meaningful comes in. Before we start, can you define meaningful a little bit? You’ve probably talked to a lot of people in the field and have a good sense of this. 02:32
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
When people are interviewed, and surveyed, and asked, what do you want to get out of your job? You would expect the number one answer to be, I want to make more money. But surprisingly, that’s not the number one thing they respond to. They normally will say, I want to make a difference. I want to make a contribution. I want to know that what I’m doing everyday matters. And that’s what I mean by meaningful.
I don’t think it’s really possible to find truly meaningful work if it’s completely opposite or off-target of what it is that your passions are, and your strengths are. You’ve got to find a way to tie those two together. I’ve been very fortunate in my career, I was one of those people who would go to bed at night thinking, oh, good I’m working tomorrow. I mean that’s the kind of level of passion, and dedication, and commitment that we really need in our library staffs and certainly in our library leaders.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Isn’t that great? I feel like so many librarians get up every day excited to come to work. We’re lucky in our field we have interesting work and make a big difference.
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
That’s right. And, more and more every day.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #3: Yeah. So, let’s start going through the six steps in your book, Renew Yourself. They revolve around questions. Who are you? What do you want to do? When is the time right? Where should you be? This is interesting, why bother. And, then finally, how do you do it? So, let’s go through them one by one. First of all, who are you? 03:53
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk: In my book, the way I approach each of these steps is to give people, as I said, a chance to really reflect on themselves. And, I have to say that the idea for this book kind of came from one workshop I taught once. I do a lot of strategic planning with libraries and I decided to work with this group to do a strategic plan for themselves. So, in answering these questions it’s kind of a mirror of the vision, values, goals, and objectives that you would apply to an organization.
When I talk about figuring out who you really are, I talk about finding what you value. Sometimes that’s easy and sometimes it isn’t. One of the ways I suggest you start by doing that is to think about who your heroes are, and who they’ve always been. For me even though I have been a librarian for over 30 years, my passion is writing. And that’s probably why I’m writing books right now. But, my heroes in the ’70’s were Woodward and Bernstein, not because of the Watergate political background but because they were writing things that really mattered. They were changing the world for the better in my opinion. If you start by thinking about who your heroes have been and who are your heroes now, it can help you to really get down deep and identify what matters to you and what you want to contribute, as well.
When we talk about strengths, that ties into who you are. A lot of people think that strengths are things you do really well. But, in my book and in my presentations what I talk about is when I was new in libraries the things I did really well were book drop, and checking in books, things that I had mastered the task of. But, those were not the things that motivated me. Your strengths aren’t always what you do well. And, as a matter of fact, quite often you don’t do them at all. And, that’s why you’re unhappy, to begin with. You really have to examine what makes you want to get up in the morning, what assignments do you get that really get you excited and get you motivated. That’s how you find out who you are?
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #4: Great. I think that’s fabulous advice and a very good place to start. Then, we move to step two. What do you want to do? 06:22
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Again with the people I’ve written the book for, they usually know down deep what they want to do. They think about those values and those passions, and those strengths that they have and they look for ways to be able to use them, to apply them. One of the things I stress is that when you renew yourself you don’t necessarily have to quit your job, and go live on a beach, and sell seashells. You might be able to find things that are within your current job description that you can add. Or, you might be able to find things that are completely outside of your workday that you can add that can help you to meet those things that you really want to do. It’s not necessarily a book about changing careers, or even getting promotions, or leaving where you are. It’s about adding to what you’re doing now, so that you can have at least that element in your life somewhere of what it is that you love.
One of the examples I use is that when I was in library school I was working as a reference assistant, and I was able to volunteer to write the press releases for the library. That just really enhanced every single day that I was at work. I loved all the other stuff, all the reference work, and programming, and things like that. But now, I could write. Now I was really moving towards what I found meaningful in my career. There’s lots of different ways to add it in. It doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a full-blown change in jobs.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
That’s great. And in libraries, things are changing all the time so new opportunities for growth are continual.
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Absolutely. That’s absolutely true. I surprise people, I guess, when I talk about the fact that I was working in libraries when the internet was brand new and they wheeled in the first computer. But at that point, I was so excited about thinking about how it was going to impact our customers, and I immediately went and took the class when the world wide web was introduced. And now I really do sound old. I went out and took a class at a local computer store so that I could go back to my library and work on developing coursework to help the patrons learn how to use this new phenomenon.
You’re right. All we have to do is look at the opportunities and what other libraries are doing. If they match our strengths and our passions then we can add that to our library. That’s only going to enhance your standing as a staff member too, to be the kind of person who wants to grow and who wants to bring new things to the library.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #5: Which is perfect because it leads us right into step three. When is the right time? 09:00
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Well, my primary comment when people ask me this is that if you picked up this book—now is the right time. I mean, the only time that it isn’t right is if everything in your work life, in your life is perfect. It’s always a good idea to take a step back and to analyze where you are and where you’re going.
When I coach graduate students in library school or other staff members, I always encourage people to do a strategic plan, so to speak, for themselves every January. Every year start off look where you are, what are your goals, maybe one or two goals. Maybe it’s just to enhance or improve the skills you’re already using. But, I’d be willing to bet there’s something else that you want to add.
A lot of times when I talk to people who are trying to get jobs or who are trying to advance their careers, I suggest look at the job that you want to have and compare what you already know how to do, and what’s missing. Then go ahead and add that. Find a way to build that in. For example, when I was a librarian after I’d gotten my degree, I knew I wanted to go into management and I also knew that one of the criteria for being a branch manager was that you were going to be very community involved. And, I didn’t do any of that in my reference work. So, I volunteered to become the advisor, or the assistant to the Friends group so I could start getting more involved with the community.
You should always be able to find the time to spend a little bit of time focusing on your own career. My suggestion is always to do it every single year because, as you said, not only do the opportunities change but our life possibilities change too. Maybe you are at a position in your life where you can’t take on anything in the evenings because you have young children. Maybe at some point, your children grow up and move away and you’ve got a lot of time on your hands. Everything changes every single year. It’s a real benefit to take the time out to examine yourself so that you can make sure you’re staying on the right track.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #6: I like that new year renewal idea. Something good for all of us to look at. And then, we come to step four, which is, where should we be. 11:16
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Well, that’s a good question. And, we have to be really honest when we do our examination because occasionally the answer is not where you are right now. That’s not always the case but sometimes it is. I have worked with people and met people, I’m sure you and your listeners have too, who are just really miserable in their job. That’s not the right place for them to be. They need to find something else that’s a better match that can make them more professionally fulfilled. You have to be very honest with yourself. You have to be very patient, and sometimes you have to realize that if you come up with an answer that’s going to take you to a different place when you’re looking for your where. That it isn’t something you can do overnight. But, often when you identify that opportunity and you begin to work towards it, you feel like you’ve succeeded already.
I guess I would use that branch manager example, again, to support this. I loved the reference desk. I loved my job at the time, but something was missing. When I decided what that was and where I wanted to be was management, even the time it took me to get there, which believe it or not was several years, I still felt successful because I knew I was on the path going in the right direction.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #7: Sure, sure, so, on step five. This is an interesting one. Why bother? 12:45
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
I guess the answer to that is valuing ourselves. We have to make sure, as I said earlier, that if we’re not happy, if we’re not satisfied where we are, we’re not going to be very successful staff members. We’re not going to be giving 110% that we’d need to give to our libraries. We’re not going to be giving ourselves opportunities for advancement or improvement or even pay raises. We have to make sure that we care enough about ourselves and our own careers to keep ourselves happy if you will, or at least motivated, and encouraged and excited about going to work.
It’s like they say this isn’t a dress rehearsal. This is all we get. And, these years fly by. When I got my very first retirement card, I retired from my day-to-day job and went full-time into my consulting and teaching work almost three years ago now. The first card I opened said I thought getting old would take longer. And, I thought, boy, isn’t that the truth. The reason that we need to bother, and the reason we need to take this time every single year, and the reason we need to focus on our own careers is because they’re flying by. Although you may have great mentors, you may have great coaches, you may have great bosses, there’s really nobody else who’s going to really push your career the way you wanted to go but you.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #8: Definitely and I know when I walk into a workplace that’s happy and engaged and people love their roles, you can feel it. It’s palpable. 14:24
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Absolutely. And on the contrary, when you walk into a library where people are very frustrated, and unhappy, and unchallenged, and bored, I’ve seen way too many of those places, especially recently. And, the customers can tell that too. It’s our job when we accept the job and we take the paycheck to give that 110%. And, that doesn’t come naturally. It’s like anything else that’s worthwhile, it takes work, it takes focus, and it takes commitment.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #9: It sure does. So, the final step is really committing to this. How do we do it? We all know the saying: eat the elephant one bite at a time. But, how do we manage doing all of this? 15:03
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Well again, we have to commit to caring enough about ourselves and our own career to make the time. When I lead these workshops on individual plans, career plans, I break it down very much like a strategic plan. I usually ask people to limit it to one or two goals for the year. We get a couple really, really honest and achievable objectives that they can meet. We put a little bit of a timetable to it. And then again, you’ve got to make time during the year, month to month, week to week. However you operate—to stop and check in with yourself and see how you’re doing.
One of the best expressions I’ve heard about strategic planning is this: if what you’re trying to do isn’t working, change what you’re doing but don’t change the goal. Because that goal, again, is based on what’s important, your values, and your strengths, and your dreams for yourself. But, you’ve got to be able to put that time aside. When I was in library school back in the ‘80’s the dean of the school, at the time, was one of my professors. I’ll never forget one thing she said was, if you can’t find at least one hour every week, or two weeks to just close your door, whether you’re at work, or at home and just take stock of what you’re doing, and where you’re going. You’re going to get caught up in the wave and just float along until the end of your career.
It’s a big commitment, but if we aren’t going to invest in ourselves then nobody else will either. Again, we’re just not going to be the best that we can be. And I know, from the quality of library staff members I meet all around the country, we all want to be the best we can be and we all want to make that significant contribution. It’s one step at a time and it’s measured, and it’s thoughtful, and it’s intentional, and we just need to make sure that we’re giving ourselves the time to do that.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #10: Time is precious, and I like that you advocate for setting that aside and not getting pushed aside by the wave of everything else that’s coming at you. So, that’s marvelous. And, I’m so glad you’re sharing this message with us so we can be fully present in our work and happy in our work. As you did put your book together, I imagine you came across a lot of resources and I wonder do you have some you’d like to share about leadership, and why? 17:18
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
There’s so many. I have a whole two bookshelves right behind where I’m sitting right now. But, I do have a favorite author, and that’s Jim Collins. At one time, his book Good to Great, was very, very popular in libraries. I refer to it quite often. He actually wrote a full text called, Good to Great. And then, he published a smaller monograph that’s called, Good to Great and the Social Sectors. And, that’s very, very applicable to libraries. What I like about Collins is that he gives you five or six concepts that you can apply to how you work as a leader.
And then after that, it was a couple years ago now, he came out with a new book called Great by Choice. In that book he had many, many, many researchers working with him, looking at thousands of successful companies trying to figure out, are these companies great by accident, or by choice. Again, he came up with a handful of concepts that proved that they were great by choice. And, these are also extremely applicable to any kind of a business really, but certainly to libraries. He’s one of the people I quote probably most frequently.
But, one of my all-time favorite quotes was in the first book I wrote which was called, Be a Great Boss: One Year to Success. I ended the book with a quote by Erma Bombeck. Who lots of younger people probably don’t even know who she was. But, she was one of my heroes and she said, When I stand before the Lord at the end of my life I hope I can say I have absolutely nothing left. I used everything you gave me.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #11: Use it all up. Let your talents shine. I like that. Fantastic. And Jim Collins, we hear a lot about his work. And, I like that ‘by choice’ message. 19:32
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
It’s an excellent book. I highly recommend it. As a matter of fact, I wrote to him at one point and I asked for his permission to create a presentation, probably a series of webinars or presentations face-to-face that I wanted to call Great Libraries by Choice. Unfortunately, they said his publisher said, no I couldn’t. I never did that. But, I still use a lot of his examples in my work and in my writings because I just love the way he puts things.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #12: Yes. And, us choosing to renew ourselves and to create meaningful work is fantastic. Anything else you would like to share? 20:13
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
I always emphasize how lucky I’ve been in my career. I worked all of my years in public libraries in Northeast Ohio where there were plenty of libraries. And, I’ve been associated with Kent State University’s library school since the ’80’s. I’ve had so many wonderful coaches, and mentors, and people who encouraged me to try new things.
When I ran into someone who had written a book and who was encouraging me to write one, that was really my intention, just to share all of that great advice, and great support, and great encouragement that I’ve gotten with everybody who might not have the same good fortune. So, I just feel really lucky to have been in this profession and now to be working the way I do, and having the opportunity to speak and teach and write. Because the most important thing to making sure that we keep our doors open is leadership.
I’m sure you’ve seen, I’m sure everyone’s seen the libraries that are successful have great leaders, motivated creative risk-taking, supportive, encouraging leaders. The libraries we see that are not successful do not. I really think that’s the key to the future of libraries.
As a matter of fact, my husband just shared an article with me where Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, was speaking to his staff and he said, It’s likely that in 30 years or so Amazon will fail. It’ll go bankrupt. It’ll close its doors. That happens to businesses. But, he said we’re going to try to stave that off as long as we can by focusing on our customers. That’s the kind of leadership we need in libraries. We’ve spent many, many years focusing on ourselves, on our work, on our rules. Now we need to turn that around completely and be the kind of leaders who focus on our communities and what they need. And then, be successful and talented enough to lead the changes that we need to lead. To turn our libraries truly into community resources.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #13: I really like that. And, on Library Leadership Podcast, that’s why we truly enjoy having leaders like yourself to discuss these issues and keep us all on the cutting edge of what will make us a success for a long time to come. 22:39
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Unfortunately, I feel as though we really fall down when it comes to continual training and growth of leaders. I hear a lot of library leaders saying, oh, I don’t go to conferences or classes, I let my staff go. That’s a real problem. We need to re-emphasize the value of really skilled leadership and make sure that that’s what we have in all of our libraries.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Question #14: We will all continue to grow together as part of these conversations. Kathy, in closing what does being a librarian mean to you personally? 23:19
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
It means I’m proud. I’m very proud to be associated with libraries, especially over this really unique period of time that I’ve worked. It’s my joy to meet someone new who says, why do we need libraries anymore?” We have the internet. And, tell them all the things that our wonderful libraries are doing. Libraries that are opening after-school centers, and even children’s partnering with nursery schools to open children’s centers, teaching adults how to read, and helping people get jobs.
Recently the Cleveland Public Library and Cuyahoga County Public Library partnered to provide social service access, things like food stamps, and things in libraries. I’m incredibly proud to see what we’re doing and how we’re evolving. I feel very, very lucky to be a part of this industry.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
We’re all lucky, and I feel proud too when I look out there and see all the good that’s being done in libraries. So, I’m happy to be a librarian. I’m happy to have a librarian of your stature on my show. Thank you for sharing with us your book Renew Yourself and your six-step plan for more meaningful work. It’s been great having you today.
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
It’s been my pleasure and if you don’t mind I would like to mention a couple other books. I’m in the middle of writing what’s going to be a six book set. These are really unique books the American Library Association is publishing because what they are is planners. They’re the size of a workbook and each of them is focusing on different topics affecting leadership. And, it’s written in such a way that you really work through it. There’s lots of exercises, things to fill-in and when you’re finished, you’ll have a plan for solving a leadership challenge.
The first one was just released recently, it’s called Future-Proof Your Team. The other two that are with the publisher right now are getting edited. The second one is called Win ‘Em Over. That is in response to many, many, many, young new supervisors who will tell me, I don’t have any confidence in myself, people think I’m too young. It’s a book about planning to grow that confidence that you have in yourself and that other people have in you.
The third planner is called Dynamic Discipline. Because that’s another challenge I run into a lot is that there are these existing challenges, usually personnel, but not always. And, people just don’t know how to deal with them they’re reluctant to begin a discipline process because they think it’s so negative. When in fact if you are disciplined for improvement, not punishment you’re really doing your library a service, and you’re doing your job. I’m having a lot of fun writing these planners and I hope that they’re well received and that they’re helpful to library leaders.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
Excellent. I look forward to seeing those in the future. And, for your continuing wisdom in your work as we go along. So, thank you.
Cathy Hakala-Ausperk:
Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.
Adrian Herrick Juarez:
It’s been our pleasure.
You’ve been listening to Library Leadership Podcast. I’m your host, Adrian Herrick Juarez. Our producer is Nate vineyard. More episodes can be found at libraryleadershippodcast.com, where you can now subscribe to have new shows delivered right into your email inbox. You can also find the show on Apple iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. We’ll see you next time.