Personal Effectiveness

and Professionalism
Professor Sheila Corrall
Chair in Librarianship & Information Management
Head of Library Management & Public Policy Research Group
 E is for Effectiveness
Aston University – November 2004

“Personal Effectiveness and Professionalism”

Presentation outline
• Definitions of key terms
• Changes in the professional landscape
• Continuing professional development needs
• Competency models and skills toolkits
• Sources and options for professional learning
 Definitions
Personal . . .
Belonging to or affecting a particular person rather
than anyone else.
Effectiveness . . .
Success in producing a desired or intended result.
Professionalism. . .
The competence or skill expected of a professional.
Oxford Dictionary of English. 2nd ed. 2003

Personal Effectiveness and Professionalism

In a work context . . .
Personal Effectiveness is often conceived as a
set of competences, capabilities or qualities, eg
 Concern with impact • Use of oral presentations
 Diagnostic use of • Managing group
concepts processes
 Efficiency orientation • Use of socialised power
 Proactivity • Perceptual objectivity
 Conceptualisation • Self-control
 Self-confidence • Stamina and adaptability

Boyatzis, R.E. The Competent Manager:

A Model for Effective Performance. Wiley, 1982.
Professionalism is a broader concept –
Profession . . .
A calling requiring specialized knowledge and often
long and intensive preparation including instruction in skills
and methods as well as in the scientific, historical, or
scholarly principles underlying such skills and methods,
maintaining by force of organization [and] concerted opinion
high standards of achievement and conduct, and committing
its members to continued study and to a kind of work which
has for its prime purpose the rendering of a public service.
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 1966.
 Professions and Professionals
Defining characteristics Continuing
 Body of knowledge Professional
 Code of conduct Development
 Framework of qualifications &
 Maintenance of competence Personal
 Independence of judgement Responsibility
 Relationship of trust  self-appraisal
 Responsibility to colleagues  target-setting
 planned learning
Professionals and Organisations
• Lifespan of initial professional education is
shortening as the pace of change accelerates
• Knowledge is becoming more volatile with the
depth and breadth of its boundaries expanding
• Expansion is leading to increasing specialism and
web of intra- and inter-professional relationships
• Boundaries among specialists and between
professionals and managers are blurring
• Professionals are working in new flatter structures
with devolved responsibilities and team working
• Information-intensive professions are adopting
Evidence-Based Policy-making and Practice
 Key Professional Development Needs
 Specialist information-related knowledge, skills are
necessary, but not sufficient for professional competence
 Information work at every level involves management of
something, eg collections, budgets, projects, time, etc
 Research suggests the most significant skills gaps and
shortages are in business and personal competencies,
especially strategic management and critical thinking
 Information professionals also need to understand how
different disciplines use information and technologies
 Library staff need to work across traditional boundaries
and be proactive in collaborating with other specialists
Battin 2001, Skelton & Abel 2001, Fisher 2002, isNTO 2003
All professionals need a complex mix of specialist, generic and
contextual knowledge, skills, behaviours and values
Survival Skills
Essential Enablers (needed by all
(both generic and professionals)
context-specific
skills/knowledge)

CPD

Professional
Core Competence Knowledge Base
(necessary, but not – will evolve and
sufficient) expand over time
Overlapping Professional Partnerships
Boundaries

Teaching & Research &

Learning Consultancy
Infor Project
matio Libraries
n Liter
acy
Roles
Team & Electronic
Library
Work Information
d y S kills Services
Stu
Learning Information
gy

Development Technology
lo
no
ch
Te

Increasing
i ng
rn

Specialisms
a
Le

Expanding Knowledge Base

Broadening and Deepening Professional Competence
More Comprehensiveness at Higher Capacity
more
technical capacity
Professional
specialisms depth
Subject breadth
knowledge
Business
understanding
Information
formats
Service
less offerings
functional comprehensiveness User
less more population

Adapted from Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure. NSF, 2003
Personal Development Planning Tools
LTSN-ICS HIMSS Learning Framework
Key skills: Communication,  Managing activities
IT, Working with others,  Managing finance
Application of number,  Managing people
Improving own learning  Managing information
Personal skills: Self-mgmt,  Managing projects
Organisational mgmt,  Strategic management
Interacting with others,  Leadership
Decisions, Intellectual
 Specialist skills and
Professional skills: Info res, knowledge
Info service and org mgmt, 31 questions
Info systems, Environment 4 levels
Other models of professional development have 5 or 6 levels (eg see Eraut 1994)
www.ics.ltsn.ac.uk/ILS/recordingilsskills.html

Recording Skills
Development for
Information and
Library Skills
www.tfpl.com/skills_development/skills_toolkit.cfm

Knowledge
and
Information
Skills Toolkit
www.himss-lfo.bham.ac.uk/intro.asp

Career Development to
Senior Management
 Sources of
Professional mentors
Learning tutors supporters managers
of learning
interpreters purveyors
of knowledge of experience
People

insights
into
readings keeping
routine
for courses things going

briefings Publications Experience putting

on issues things right
solutions doing
to problems new things
lessons
learning from innovation from failure
 Personal Development Options
 Challenging assignments
 Cross-functional projects
 Mentoring relationships
 Networking activities
 External secondments
 Speaking at conferences
 Reading, thinking and
writing about professional
initiatives or issues
– UC&R Award
 Carrying out research or
consultancy work
 Undertaking further study
eg MBA, MEd
University of Sheffield
Masters-level modules
– Educational Informatics
– Information Literacy
Research NEW for 2005-06
or MPhil / PhD
 Any Questions?
Prof Sheila Corrall
Department of Information Studies
Regent Court, 211 Portobello Street
Sheffield S1 4DP
s.m.corrall@sheffield.ac.uk