AGREEING ON
MISSIONS, GOALS, AND OBJECTIVES
COMMENTARY
ON THE GROUP PROCESS AND RESULTS
Two groups of graduate students are given
the assignment of creating a statement of mission, goals, and objectives for a
public library. The two consensus processes
that ensue do not of course occur in a vacuum.
Each student has arrived at the University with experiences of what
libraries are, and ideas of what they should be. In this instance “arrived” is a relative
term. This particular class is online,
and the students are geographically spread across the
The fact that these students are in a
graduate class is indicative of the fact that they are very entrenched in the
dominant value systems in education. In
this assignment, they know they must demonstrate that they are familiar with
what has been covered in class readings, papers, and projects. The assignment states as much. The document must also conform to English
conventions of highly educated people, and to the current mode of expressing
institutional intentions in a hierarchical mission/goals/objectives
format. As in all class assignments they
have ever had, it must exist in a narrow range of acceptability, finally
defined by the expectations of professor and the grade he will give them. Because this assignment is a group one, a
consensus process must also take place, allowing for individual input, but in
the end suppressing a lot of it, in order to arrive at a document that all can
agree to let represent them. The process
itself is a fine mini-demonstration of how dominant value systems come to be.
Let’s turn to examining the actual
documents produced by this consensus process.
The mission statement of Group One is:
“To provide resources,
services and programs to all people in the community so that they will look
first to their public library as a center of community life and as a gateway to
information that supports and enhances lifelong learning, personal leisure and
their quality of life.”
That of Group Two is:
“With the leadership of a
board of directors, anticipate and meet the educational and recreational
information needs of a diverse community through a variety of material,
outreach efforts, and programming.”
A comparison of the two shows some major
similarities once you get past word choice.
Both focus their mission on a “community”, and indicate the intention to
serve everyone, using “all people” or “diverse population”. Both indicate that supplying “information”
for “learning/education[al]” and
“leisure/recreation[al] is important. What will be provided is
“resources/materials”, “programs/programming”, and “services/outreach
efforts”. Only this
last word pair indicate to me a possible difference in the extent to
which certain values have become dominant in the two groups. Group One’s statement seems to focus on
providing services within a building, further emphasized by the words “public
library as a center of community life”, while Group Two highly values the
library’s move out into the community, further emphasized in their document by one
goal, and multiple objectives under other goals as well.
It is likely that the other phrases in the
mission statements, “lifelong” added to learning and “quality of life” in the
first, and “with the leadership of a board of directors” and “anticipate” in
the second, are additions that individual members lobbied to have raised to the
level of mission. As a participant in
Group Two, I can testify that there was such a lobby to include “lifelong
learning” in our mission statement which ultimately failed, although one should
note that it received prominence in being the first goal. I’ll talk more about our interactions
later.
I submit that the similarities in the
documents are not indicative of some ultimate and true mission of libraries
that exists outside the framework of our culture. Rubin’s discussion of the evolution of
various library missions from an historical standpoint supports this view. As he says, “It is clear from the history
that the mission of libraries is shaped by the societies in which they exist.”
(p.244) The student-produced documents
are therefore influenced by the dominant value systems of the culture of the
United States, the culture of existing libraries, and the culture of this
particular class whose written tenets are Rubin’s book, any other assigned
readings, and the professor’s output, which in the case of an online class, is
all written, sometimes more formally than others.
It should be said that the ethnic origins
and the geographical locations of some of the students vary. Though some might not be considered, or
consider themselves, part of the dominant group at some or all of the above
levels, they are still very familiar with the value systems inherent in
them. Presumably all students’ primary
goal in the microculture of the class is to produce assignments that will allow
them to pass the course. They were also
charged with covering all issues. For
these reasons, one would expect the documents to be more similar than
different, and from my point of view, they are.
So did both documents adequately cover the
issues brought forth in the class? I
would say yes, but in this and any further critique, I am hardly an unbiased
observer. I can only analyze from the
viewpoint of my personal value system, a product of my experiential interaction
with the dominant value systems I exist within.
I am also, in this case, a Group Two member, somewhat enrolled in its
output, and more inclined to invoke the Fifth Amendment than heavily criticize
that document. That said, what follows
are my personal observations.
Group One’s document has a more
professional appearance on the surface.
The title page is a nice feature, although I don’t particularly like the
one chosen. The bibliography
acknowledging sources consulted is also a nice touch, and makes me think my
group should have included one as well, although in a group process an accurate
one could become pretty extensive. After
the consideration of website problems that were an important part of my library
project, I appreciate that they included mention of this aspect of library
service in several places. I have to say
I also very much like the one-word description over each goal in their format. It clearly delineates the area of service or
value addressed in the goal that follows, making it easier to quickly grasp the
scope of the document.
It also makes it easier to propose that
everything has not been covered. How is
it, for example, in a document that includes lifelong learning in the mission
statement, that none of the goals encompass education? The training goal, especially considering the
limited objectives included, really does not address it. It is also not clear how the chosen goal
areas will accomplish placing the library first in the minds of the public,
make it a center of community life, or enhance the quality of life, also items
which were chosen as important enough to appear in the mission statement. Is the outreach, considered so important in
our group, covered adequately by “awareness”?
Perhaps.
I don’t believe that the areas of evaluation and assessments are covered
either, and at least in my mind, they are very important. After experiencing our group’s process, the limited
number of objectives under each of their goals surprised me. Finally, the professionalism of this
document, and its clarity, is severely called into question when one carefully
reads the objectives, a great many of which are awkwardly worded. These last
two faults no doubt have a lot to do with how their process differed from ours,
which I’ll discuss later.
In contrast, Group Two’s document has a
precise mission unfettered by a lot of extra words, phrases, and extraneous
thoughts not supported by the rest of the material except for “with the
leadership of a board of directors” which proved a conflict within the
group. It also successfully addresses a
lot of issues in a total of 44 objectives, quite a few more than the other
document. These are also much better
edited for word choice and phrasing that the other document. I do think that some of the goal statements,
especially the first one, try to combine what is really more than one idea, and
I don’t particularly like the ordering of the goals. Though I knew we needed to cover a lot of
issues, I was unhappy that our final document had such long lists of objectives
under each goal. To me it makes the
document intimidating and hard to digest.
I was also unhappy with the look of the last edit when all our names
were included vertically, but it seemed a point too small to consider calling a
last minute consensus.
If I had the opportunity to combine the
two documents now, I would tend to use the formatting techniques from Document
One to create a better appearance, and decrease the possibility of overwhelming
the reader with huge blocks of words. I
would probably use the mission from Document Two without the addition of the
“board”. I would sift through the
objectives in both, tossing ones I have no commitment to, and adding others I
tried to suggest, but which met no group approval. I would still end with a long list because
the assignment requires all issues to be covered, but they would be placed
under a larger number of goals to at least present the material in smaller
chunks. I would never suggest that I
could have invented or discovered all the formatting ideas or the comprehensive
objective list on my own, so the group process definitely has its advantages. A document produced on my own would no doubt
have been much shorter than the combined one I propose here. Also, having had this consensus experience,
and seen the long documents it produces, if I were charged with creating one in
“real life”, without the requirement of including all issues, I would tend to
follow the advice of the Public Library Association, who now suggest that
libraries limit their scope to just a few of the possible roles of libraries,
rather than try to include aspects of every mission that has appeared over
several centuries.
It is somewhat difficult to analyze the
process of Group One, in which I didn’t participate. I don’t have access to the email traffic,
which according to several comments was quite heavy. I do have access to their threaded discussion
and the chat logs, and it is possible to see that there were definitely
differences in the way the two groups handled the work involved. In Group One it appears that one very strong
leader emerged. One would hope email was
used to check the availability of group members preceding the first entry in
the threaded discussion (TD), and that it was not the edict it appears. The same individual wrote the majority of
entries in TD, using it as a means to restate what was happening in emails and
chat, and reminding group members of agreements, deadlines, and the need to
offer input. From the communication I
see, it appears to be a process that I would have been rather uncomfortable
with, but I have no evidence that the members of the group actually were. The majority of the chats included only a few
of the group members, and the comments entered by other group members in TD
only include positive reviews of the group process. Another large difference in the approach of
this group is that each member took responsibility for the written work on one
goal. Dividing up the work was an idea
proposed in the initial meetings of Group Two, but it was continually rejected
in favor of using all minds in all areas.
I do wonder, looking at their final document, if Group One’s choice
created boundaries that made it more difficult to edit the document. Again, any mention of editing is only
positively referred to in the evidence I have, but at least in my opinion, the
final document is not well edited within the objective sections.
Group Two, on the other hand, had several
strong leaders. One offered a fairly
extensive document before the group met for the first time. If the membership had been different, that
particular person might have taken more extensive control as happened in Group
One. It wouldn’t necessarily have been a
bad thing, because the document was very good for a first draft. There was resistance to unilateral control,
however, and even resistant to allowing individual members or mini-groups have
control of small sections. I don’t mean
to imply that this produced overt conflict, but most did seem to want to step
back and consider how they would individually approach the entire document
before proceeding, and wanted input into all sections. The different leaders also took charge of the
document one after another, as the edits proceeded. One could view this as unselfish
contributions to the workload. Being
more cynical, I view it also as a way these leaders each had the opportunity to
put their stamp on the document, even if it was later changed again.
What actually happened was that the early
document was used as a base with every member suggesting additions or
deletions. This process allowed more egalitarian input, and offered the
advantage of eliciting comprehensive ideas to fulfill that parameter of the
assignment, but its results were in conflict with another widely held value in
the group, the desire to somehow have our finished document appear clear and
concise. In some ways the last value was
applied from the top of the hierarchical document down, and the comprehensive
and egalitarian values from the bottom up.
We were left with concise mission statement at the top level, a huge
list of objectives at the bottom level, and some unwieldy goals as we tried to
limit their number. I, for one, was
personally less supportive of the later drafts than the first one, and offered
some suggestions to address that in TD.
Others did as well. However, we
needed to abide by time limitations, and it also appeared that we were moving
away from consensus rather than towards it, so I also, in email messages, noted
that I was sincere about my suggestions, but willing to give up most of them in
favor of producing a consensus document.
I would not characterize most of that process as conflict, but some
might.
I would like to emphasize that overall
there was always high level of agreement about what should or could be
included, but disagreement about where it should appear, and without the
implied necessity of squeezing everything into an established hierarchical
mission/goals/objectives statement, we actually might have come up with
something more original and more acceptable to us all. On the other hand, more possibilities might
just have made consensus more difficult.
As some members said, the overall intent of the group was “to agree to
agree”. This manifested in group members
making many suggestions, but only pushing for inclusion or particular placement
if they felt very strongly. Most
compromises seemed to be reached this way.
Individuals just conceded issues not strongly held, in favor of coming
to agreement. There was also a definite
tendency towards “majority rules” in the consensus process.
The only thing I would particularly
characterize as conflict in our group had to do with whether we were going to
include a mention of the board of directors in our mission statement. Even this was handled politely of
course. Reviewing the conversations in
chat, email, and threaded discussion, it appears that originally, Group Two was
pretty evenly split into those who thought “board” should absolutely be in the
mission, and those who saw no reason to mention a board anywhere in the
document. Opinions were expressed on
both sides over the weeklong process.
Coming to a decision was of course a necessity, but the views in this
instance seemed strongly held, and given the fairly even split, majority rule
didn’t help. In my evaluation, our
consensus decisions were actually finalized in online chat. Intentionally or not, this particular
decision was made in a chat where all members could not, or did not,
participate. Opponents to the inclusion
of the board were outnumbered, and submitted to the majority. In the next chat, I asked about its
appearance in the latest edit, because I still had strong feelings against it,
but found that those who had originally agreed with me now seemed reluctant to
reintroduce conflict by retaking their original positions, so I too, now
seemingly in the minority, conceded the issue.
One
of the most interesting parts of the process, as it was happening, was how it
differed from my other experiences of consensus, because it was occurring
online. As I noted in TD, I initially
missed the non-verbal cues that I have in the past counted on to gauge the
importance of a particular suggestion to its proposer. I also look for signs that people are getting
upset or feeling left out of the process.
However, I was impressed with the overall efficiency of sharing ideas in
online chat. As others
mentioned, in face-to-face processes, a lot more words are exchanged, many of
them totally off the subject.
Distractions abound. My
conclusion is that the removal of non-verbal cues may, in fact, make consensus
more efficient without any significant negative affects. Others seemed to have reached similar
conclusions.
I also want to note, as I did in TD, that
the only scarcity issues in this particular process were either self-imposed by
the group membership, or in relation to the expectations created by familiarity
with existing mission/goals/objective statements. For the most part,
participants could be generous with including most ideas. I imagine that real life situations involving
budgets would be more difficult. I have
also participated in jury decision-making.
When someone could be incarcerated as a result of the group process, it
somehow seems more important to firmly support the position suggested by one’s
personal value system and analysis of evidence, and the jury process is
constructed with that in mind. Still,
decisions are reached most of the time, even though most jury members come to
the table already fairly set in a position, whether they are supposed to be or
not. Since in felony cases it is a
higher standard than the majority rule we used here, and compromise doesn’t
enter it to it most of the time, my experience is that the process involves a
lot more persuasion than was necessary here, and at least in those who change
their vote, a lot more abandonment of what were once pretty firmly held
beliefs.
As I stated earlier, library missions are
not formed in a vacuum, but in relation to the society in which they
exist. The dominant value system of the
overall culture influences the value systems that come into being within library
cultures, and in all other microcultures.
As the first changes, the others do as well. It should be noted though, that change is
actually quite difficult and only occurs in slow increments. There is a great deal of consensus in the
dominant value system as a means of keeping chaos in check, and allowing
individuals to pursue their lives in some safety from the negative impulses of
others. In addition to that, the process
is not an egalitarian one. People who hold more power, which in the case of our
society often coincides with more money, have the means to make their vote
count more, and they have a strong investment in maintaining the status
quo. This is true on a smaller scale in
libraries that are also hierarchical in nature.
Those at the top of the hierarchy hold more power, and have reason to
maintain the status quo.
Even things that are thought of as
innovative, like new technologies, are allowed to come into existence in
support of the current value system and those in power. Rubin quotes John Bushman as saying “the
implementation of technologies is not democratically controlled; it serves the
interests of the people who control them.”
Ursula Franklin espouses a similar viewpoint in her book The Real
World of Technology. She also notes
that those not in power support the process by
accepting imposed changes without even analyzing their ramifications. It is also true that those in control do not
accurately assess all possible effects.
Consider for a moment the Internet, which was initially designed to
maintain the status quo in a nuclear attack by decentralizing computer
connections. Though it still serves to
support the dominant value system for the most part, there exists an edge of
danger to it, something not quite under control. Individuals can actually use it as a means to
widely distribute ideas not congruent with the dominant value system. Governments and communities rush to impose
filters, and many libraries are happy to comply. Others at least voice the thought that individuals
should actually have free access to whatever information they want.
So yes, libraries are part of the dominant
value system, and have dominant value systems of their own, but like the
Internet, there is at least a hint of non-compliance in those library missions
that have appeared over the centuries.
It is that edge of danger that attracts me to the profession now. At least in some of what they say and do,
libraries are too inclusive and too egalitarian to quite fit with the economic
culture currently dominated by global corporations where the stockholders
(owners) reign supreme. It is still true that when I stand in a
library, the expanse of knowledge and entertainment that I can access for free
still seems like magic. I feel I am
getting away with something in a culture in which cost is usually attached to
value. Those actualities coupled with
the values already expressed in library missions makes me hold out hope that
the right kind of leaders can actually move practices further in the direction
of rhetoric. Let’s just say that I have
more hope for libraries as institutions that could affect positive change
within their sphere of influence than for most others. There seem to still be those in the
profession that seriously espouse those inclusive and egalitarian views, as
opposed to other institutions which, from my point of view, have sunk to pure
pretense.
Most librarians and administrators in a
position of power in today’s libraries are not leaders in the true sense. The merely organize people and materials in
support of the status quo and their position in the hierarchy. A lot more merely work in libraries,
compliant to whatever is imposed from above.
True leaders, in my point of view, would be taking a strong stand in
opposition to the status quo because it falls short of expressing the mission
of libraries. This would also entail
persuading people to support them.