Event Report for the SLA Leadership Summit, Savannah, Georgia

Event Report for the SLA Leadership Summit, Savannah, Georgia

PALINET Staff Person: Donna Wolfe

Date of Report: March 6, 2009

Date and Duration of Event: January 14-16, 2009

Primary Contact: Linda Broussard

Purpose: Leadership Training for new chapter and division leaders

Summary of Meeting:

At the recent SLA Leadership Summit, the focus this year was on three things: realignment of purpose and marketing, international unification of the membership, and the celebration of our Centennial. JaniceLaChance, SLA CEO, and Gloria Zamora, President, described the changes the SLA has been making in response to economic pressures.

Zamora said they are seeking to make the organization a “real professional lifeline.” Anyone making $18,000 or less can be a member for $35. ClickUniversity sessions are now free instead of $125. Replays are free instead of $89.00. They also will be saving by not doing the salary survey this year.

They are putting money into research that will help the organization identify, align and market its essential identity and core purpose. Fleishman Hillard and Outsell are consulting. We can all benefit from this very expensive research of the kind used in presidential campaigns.They are using dial sessions to gather interactive evidence to discover the richness of the words that resonated with their toughest audience, the CEO’s. If you look at slides 42 & 43 in the attached PowerPoint presentation, you will find a list of “Key Messages for the Professional to Use.” I, myself, have already used this language in a conference presentation proposal.

The presentation is on the Web site at

It is also saved to the walnut I drive under marketing>SLA.

They have discovered that one of the main things members want is for the SLA to educate their CEO’s and companies about the value of information professionals. In the new vision statement, this idea is worded as “promoting its members as invaluable assets to their organizations.”

The testing illuminates what words create the most positive responses. In the examples below, the bolded words were results of this research.

Recruitment ideas

They advise recruiting at job fairs and career days at library schools. Have pop night. Give memberships to whoever wants to join from among the students. Answer questions like “How can I become a Professional?” Help them by critiquing their resumes. Pay membership for a student liaison willing to head up a student SLA chapter. Some chapters have a quiz on their website and give free membership to whoever answers the questions correctly. Give scholarships to draw students into the chapter.

Steven McGarvey was a keynote speaker speaking about Life Skills. He talked about how one creates a vision that is powerful enough to lead people to make a change. He used Barack Obama’s campaign messages as an example of good persuasive techniques. See for “Yes We Can” and “We Are the Ones”, two very powerful videos.

When leading people one has to understand their beliefs, needs, and value systems of the people who are following. At some point they will want to know, ‘What’s in it for me?” Whatever the leader does rationally will impact the members or followers emotionally.

Our brain does three things: deletes, distorts, and generalizes. In order to have an impact, ask yourself, ‘Where is his or her brain and where do you want to guide it?” How do you move them from their present state to the preferred or desired outcome state?

The brain does not process negation. If I say, “that is not a fire.” What your brain thinks is “fire.” That is why it is better to say, “Let it go,” rather than “don’t grab it.” In the second example, the brain processes, ‘Grab it.”

Instead of saying “Don’t touch” one museum posted a sign saying, “Only touch me with your eyes if you want me to survive.’

Don’t use “try”, “but,” or “understand.” We use the word “try” to presuppose failure. “I’ll try to make it.”

In order to give the experience of being understood use “Yes. . . and. . .,” “ “I respect your situation and . . . ,” I appreciate your position and. . . . ,” I agree with you and . . . .”

Garvey spoke about the power of asking questions and gave the example of a young boy who wants a pet asking his father about it. Instead of asking , “Why can’t we get a pet?” which would only cement his father’s position, the boy said, “I know in the past we have not gotten a pet, but if we were going to get a pet , what kind of pet would it be?” The father played along and said things like, “It would only need to be fed once every couple of weeks, it would have to live in a small space,” and went on to give several criteria. The boy went away and researched it and came back and said,” I know we aren’t going to go get it, but can’t we at least go look at it since I did all of this research? And of course ended up with a pet.

After that particular speech, a man in the audience came up to Garvey and said the exact same thing had taken place in his family. They ended up with an African Sand Snake. So use questions to guide perception and imagination. Give people a reason why to do something.

Example: “If you were to move to a full time membership, what value would make you want to make that commitment?” If you were to join, what would you get out of it?”

Event Report for the SLA Leadership Summit, Savannah, Georgia

Follow-Up Items: Share realignment research with PALINET & SOLINET