SOaP Update

I wanted to thank the entire staff for offering ideas and providing feedback to the Strategic Outline and Principles (SOaP) document. As you know, this document will be at the heart of our strategic efforts for more than the next few years, and will also drive out annual tactical and business plans. Because of its importance, we devoted a good deal of organizational time and effort to develop it in a way that sets us up for success.

As you know, I drafted the original language and then modified it based on feedback from the Leadership Team. That first draft was released to all Library staff via the Intranet on September 5, 2015. For a bit more than a month, staff provided feedback on the individual elements of the draft, and suggested alternative insights, perspectives, and language.

Leadership Team members scheduled staff meetings during the end of September and beginning of October with their departments and libraries. This gave me the opportunity to discuss the motivation behind the SOaP while also hearing, face-to-face, proposed changes from individual staff members, and getting a sense of the energy that specific aspects of the document held for them.

After several weeks of listening to and reviewing the feedback from across the System, the Leadership Team reassembled on October 14th to discuss the comments and finalize the document. The wording that was agreed to by the group follows on the new SOaP document that accompanies this memo. The remainder of the memo provides some notes explaining – as much as possible – the reasoning behind the group’s choices.

Mission

In recrafting the Mission, the Leadership Team saw this as the organizational purpose. We wanted the statement to be strong and active, without being demeaning or pushy toward our constituents. While we understood the concerns raised about the word “smarter,” we agreed that the main reason for the Library’s existence was related to the themes identified by the staff at the Ralph Ellison Library – inspiration, innovation, discovery, engagement, and advancement – and that each of these spoke of providing opportunities for individual and collective growth. We also agreed that the use of the word “smarter” was a multi-faceted concept, meant as short hand for all such growth-oriented opportunities.

It did not indicate to us a lack of intelligence, but instead spoke of people being able to build on their innate and developed intelligences (emotional, kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, etc.). The group decided that our organizational purpose was to serve each of our communities, and that to successfully do so would mean affecting the lives of individuals. We agreed that "grow" was a better verb to describe our role in this process, and it was chosen over some of the alternatives considered -- "make", "create", or "build." Lastly, we believed that by growing smarter communities, we position the Library to achieve its Vision.

Vision

After a lot of discussion, we decided not to change the Vision. This statement describes how we want the community to see us at some time in the future when we have achieved the 20-year goal. While some thought that “heart” or “head” best illustrated the Library’s place in the community, in the end, we felt the “Hub” – the place around and through which activity flows -- was more accurate. The group agreed that critical thinking – being able to apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information – is an important aspect of peoples’ ability to learn and succeed. Likewise, the Team saw creative problemsolving as a key component of job attainment and advancement, as well as economic development.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the group felt that the Library will be the community’s platform for personalized and shared enrichment for patrons of all ages. By understanding its needs, analyzing its opportunities, and working with our partners to create a shared better future, the Library will become the community’s hub for critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and lifelong enrichment, and will achieve the 20-year goal.

20-Year Goal

Like the Vision, the 20-Year Goal was kept intact. The Leadership Team heard what staff said regarding the need for measurability and deeper definition, and they felt that this would occur as the Library moves through the years. Twenty years is a long time, and it is likely that the service area, the inventory of services, and certainly how patrons will access those services will change substantially in the time. The thing we agreed on is that by 2035, every person in the community will use a library service.

Core Values

As many of you heard me say during the meetings with staff, the Values are our non-negotiable core beliefs – the things that we must all embrace for us to be able to work live the Mission, fulfill the Vision, and achieve the 20-Year Goal. Overwhelmingly, the Values were supported by staff and by the Leadership Team. We changed a few words to better describe our expectations, but the concepts remained much the same. One notable change included a definition of a “library member” as anyone in our Community or service area.

While I continue to want to hear your feedback, this is the version of the document that we will be taking to the Commission's Long Range Planning Committee for review and approval. I hope we have addressed the issues you raised in our meetings and on the Intranet, and -- while it was not possible to incorporate every idea -- I hope too that you see how we changed aspects to integrate your feedback to make the statements more meaningful for all of us.

Strategic Outline and Principles (SOaP) October 13, 2015