Tag: leadership

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ATTN: Higher ed leaders,

Step away from the generative AI. Put it down. That’s it. Now, slowly back away. You didn’t need AI before this moment. And now that it’s here, no one wants you to use it.

According to Pew Research, as of August 2026, 52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life. That’s up from 37% in 2021; this is especially pronounced among younger generations. The concern about AI among folks ages 18-29 (you know, the ones that make up most of the campus communities we serve) is rising faster than all other age groups. Contrastingly, excitement about AI among all age groups has fallen since 2021. And in light of recent announcements, I suspect public confidence in companies like Anthropic will continue to plummet. 

But who needs rigorous survey data and whistleblower reports when you can just look at all those college graduates booing pro-AI speakers at commencements last year. Students don’t trust AI: it is a threat to their careers and they are notedly aware how it undermines their confidence in their own critical thinking skills. Sure, talking to a chatbot feels less risky than asking for help from their faculty, but it turns their educational experience into something devoid of value, hollow and empty.

It’s not just students. It’s your colleagues and all folks who make up your organization. Using generative AI might save you time, but your employees are gonna hate it. Messages thought to be generated by AI are rated as less helpful, less trustworthy regardless of whether they came from a real human or a chatbot. So if you’re using AI to write your missives for you, you sure as hell better not let anyone know it!

I know, I know. You’re dedicating as much as 24% of your day to electronic communication. If only you could free up that time for more important work! But remember: you were hired to be a leader. Leaders are expected to communicate effectively to their organizations; and effective leadership rarely happens via proxy. It might have worked for Grima Wormtongue, but only up to a point. (see also: Gen-AI is the One Ring)

I don’t want a leader who sits in their office pontificating all day (ok, “strategic thinking”. You say potato…). I don’t want a leader who uses technologies to further ensconce themselves from those of us here on the front lines, working directly with students day in and day out. I want someone I can trust. Someone to inspire me. AI-generated pontifications do not inspire. Like the students mentioned above, it leaves me feeling hollow and empty.

Besides, I get enough emails throughout the day. The last thing I need is you having the ability to triple your word counts. Personally, I have no intention of reading, much less caring about, something that wasn’t written directly by the person I’m communicating with. If you didn’t take the time to write it or make any of the intentional choices that come with putting thought to page (writing is thinking, after all), why should I take the time to read it? There is no “you” there.

“In simple terms, people place more trust in and find more value in statements they believe come from a human rather than technology. This suggests that while AI can produce helpful information, people’s perceptions play a big role in how it is received” (HBR).

And that may not matter if it’s an email from Joe in accounting. But if you’re a CEO, VP, or in some other leadership position speaking to direct reports, then that perception matters. Optics. It always comes back to optics.

I’m reminded of a recent quote from Clay Shirky in the Chronicle of Higher Ed: “AI decouples output from effort, which threatens learning.” In the context of higher ed communities, I would take this even further:

AI decouples decisions from discernment, which threatens conviction. 
AI decouples action from information gathering, which threatens understanding. 
AI decouples agency from reasoning, which threatens everyone.

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It should be no surprise to the readers of this blog that librarians are passionate. Even the most common librarian stereotypes depict us as passion-driven people (cardigans, cats, what not). But more often than not, time, workload demands, and the office environment dampen our drive. Thankfully, there are tactics library administrators and leaders can use to mitigate these darker moments of our professional lives. Paul Alofs, author of Passion Capital, offers a number of ways to create a passionate work culture in an article for Fast Company (h/t G. Hardin). These three are my personal favorites:

2. Communicate.

“Once you have the right people, you need to sit down regularly with them and discuss what is going well and what isn’t. It’s critical to take note of your victories, but it’s just as important to analyze your losses. A fertile culture is one that recognizes when things don’t work and adjusts to rectify the problem.”

In my experience, we are too quick to sweep communication problems under the rug and, perhaps, in slower technological times it was possible to wait for issues to resolve themselves. But we have the tech and the tools to create quick and easy (and relatively inexpensive) fixes to our communication problems. The first step to solving any issue is admitting we have a problem, but we can’t do that without easy-to-access channels of communication.

7. Create the space.

“In cutting-edge research and academic buildings, architects try to promote as much interaction as possible. They design spaces where people from different disciplines will come together, whether in workspace or in common leisure space.”

I’ve talked about this before. We need fewer cubicles and more break rooms (with better coffee).

8. Take the long view.

“We tend to overestimate what we can do in a year, but underestimate what we can do in five years. The culture needs to look ahead, not just in months but in years and even decades.”

Jenica Rogers recently spoke about this at the CARL 2012 conference and it continues to stick in my brain. We need to think strategically in relation to where we want to go, not where we are now. There is no way we can know what the future of libraries will look like, so let’s focus on creating one we will enjoy working within.

Check out the full article.

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From Back to Work, Ep. 58, about 56 minutes in:

“The incentive that you want to give people is to do the right thing… It’s [your] job to enable people to do their best work, to protect them from people who would try to undermine that, and to make sure that they have the tools and resources they need to get it accomplished without anybody screwing with them… A [good] leader is somebody that you trust to do the right thing.”

Merlin Mann is my hero.

 

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What if, as academic library organizations, we radically empowered our employees? What if, instead of leading our organizations through individuals or select groups, we lead through the collective energy of our staff? What if we created spaces for the free flow of information where the best of ideas could quickly take shape and immediately be integrated into our service models?

These were some of the questions I asked while watching the video above by Gabe Zichermann, author, consultant, and creator in gamification studies.

I’ve been thinking more and more about ways to use technology to improve large academic library systems that, in short, allow them to function more like small libraries: to be nimble, open, and innovative (rather than sluggish, exclusive, and obstructive). Here are some of the points from Gabe’s talk that speak to that:

  1. Games and game-like systems provide a constrained system for expressing creativity, which has been shown to inspire more creativity than unconstrained systems
  2. Gamification is about creating a process and not about badges or simply turning work into a game.
  3. Feedback. Feedback should be systematic and immediate. See Gabe’s comments on improving annual reviews (15 minutes in).
  4. Friends. Adults love social activities just as much as children. See Gabe’s comments on the company gym (20 minutes in). Also, teams must be authentic to work.
  5. Fun. People will work for free (and enjoy it) given the right motivations and circumstances. Cf. the “creds” system on StackOverflow. (Me: As academics, the idea of “creds” should appeal to us!)
  6. Don’t ignore the potential for hidden creators. Cf. the tutorials developed by Codecademy users (19 minutes in)
  7. You cannot legislate game-play or simply hire people who have game-play potential. It must be inspired from the ground up.

Most importantly, the things that motivate people are:

  1. Status
  2. Access
  3. Power
  4. Stuff

… in order from most meaningful to least meaningful. Also, from least expensive to most expensive interestingly.

As organizations, we often focus our creative energies on ways to improve the library experience for our users and ultimately this is our goal. But what if we took more time to reflect upon how we run our organizations and how we can both inspire our employees to do more (and better) and how we can create spaces where that inspiration is nurtured and encouraged? My prediction is that by creating these spaces and processes, we will ultimately need to spend less time seeking out ways to improve our services, since many of the solutions will naturally present themselves through new ways of communicating and work.

I would love to hear from you, dear reader, about any libraries academic or otherwise that have used gamification models to improve professional development, communication, and/or problem solving.