Adrienne Hannan summary

In the second weekend of March, 2014, SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau successfully hosted the resourceful, multi-talented, high-achieving, Adrienne Hannan from Wellington. 

Adrienne Hannan is the Children's and Youth Services Co-ordinator at Wellington City Libraries as well as a combat medic in the New Zealand Army Reserve. Being a soldier has given Adrienne useful skills and knowledge, particularly flexible thinking. Her talk was a meshing of the two environments she works in. 

Adrienne called her presentation The 10 Commandments of Manoeuvre Warfare, claiming that they are essentially a set of commandments that will enable librarians to achieve success. As the decision makers that our students / community see daily, the librarians need all the information on the running of the library - what the library is trying to achieve, what resources they have and how and when to use them, the history and reasoning of high-level decisions that have been made. This sets the librarian up to make sound strategic decisions without the unnecessary delays of gaining permissions from authority; they can implement the library's objectives and mission, be adaptive, responsive and take initiatives.

Twenty-one people from Northland attended the session to see what librarians can learn from the New Zealand military in the 21st Century. It was an entertaining and engaging presentation, and indeed, the military do have valuable lessons for librarians.

Adrienne Hannan's 10 Commandments of Manoeuvre Warfare:

Focus on the enemy, not on the ground 

·         ground = environment, enemy = students, the flexible element

·         must have policies and practices that are student focused rather than on the environment

·         need to be adaptive and responsive to students, flexible to change as students change

Act more quickly than your enemy can react 

·       be quick to grab initiatives

·         need to keep up to date

·         be an early adopter, adapter, initialiser

·         don't wait for the students' demands to reach a certain level before implementing a new service, policy or platform

Issue mission-type orders 

·         big picture mission, we are doing this in order to achieve this

·         what is our intent, what is our end state, how do we work to get there

·         specifics of people, resources, timeframes

·         communication is key

 Avoid strengths, attack weakness 

·         identify weaknesses honestly, find the gaps in your services

·         concentrate resources on strengthening those areas, fill the gaps

·         work with the ones who will support you

Exploit tactical opportunities, reinforce success, not failure

·         "success should be seen as a culture, not the result of a task"

·         need to create and celebrate successes no matter how small

·         slowly build up a culture of success (Major Slim) 

·         recognise relative successes of different people, who are your pln 

Always designate the main effort 

·        key push to achieve the mission

·         define the school library's mission

·         clearly defined roles of who is part of main effort and who is supporting it

·         strategic planning

Avoid predictability

·         don't let students get bored as they may well stop using the library

·         capture their attention by doing things they won’t expect

·         show you are a mover and shaker of library world

·         change perceptions, be flexible

Support movement with fire 

·         adequate resources for the mission 

·         coordinated mission with those that are moving forward - evidence based practice

·         back each other up and support each other in a co-ordinated way

Command from the front 

·         management is task and object focused

·         leadership is about setting standards, initiatives, influence, visibility

·         emphasis on leadership rather than management

Act boldly and decisively 

·         create environment that people make decisions

·         praise decision-makers

·         be flexible, change tack if it doesn't work 

·         take risks on board, try them anyway, 

·         reinforce success - specific praise

·         be essential, proactive

We finished the session with group discussions on how we may exploit tactical opportunities to reinforce success in our libraries.