Photo courtesy Geof Wilson
Or is it? This last year we’ve had many lively conversations at the Libraries/Press about distinguishing the strategic work from the operational work we do. Those conversations, coupled with this morning’s early yoga class, have me reflecting on how strategy and operations need to work side by side.
How do we balance these two ways of describing our work? The conversation often goes, “Well, there is just so much time for strategic (perhaps code for “new”) initiatives when we have our operational work to do.” That makes sense.
But what is that operational work? And if we describe it as operational, does that provide it some immunity from scrutiny or assessment? Will we continue to purchase books using the same procedures, just because it’s “operational” or “what we do”? The reality is that we are continually changing up our methods, procedures and operations in acquisitions and collection development – to save money, to meet new needs, to save staff time, to explore new access models. It’s continuous improvement, and it can be labeled strategic as readily as the purchase of a 3 -D printer for the Digital Scholarship Center.
Another great example is the mapping collections project in the Special Collections Research Center. With use data, the staff is making strategic decisions about where collections should reside, at what level they need description, and what collections might be digitized for wider accessibility. How we optimize our space, staff skills, and staff time while providing for improved access / or preservation – those are strategic moves.
Perhaps it’s my own rosy lens on the Libraries/Press but I’d like to call all of our work strategic, in that it has intention and direction – the work is continually changing (some aspects more quickly than others) to meet new needs of the organization, institution and community.
Rather than separate, strategic and operational are balancing forces that are dependent on one another. To grow and meet changing needs, we need to strategize our operational work. Likewise, we must consider how our strategic work can be operationalized, with goals, objectives and measures of success. The yin and yang that keeps us both grounded and moving forward.
Photo courtesy Geof Wilson