Working Smarter: An Applied Model for “Better Thinking” in Dynamic Information Organizations

Mary M. Somerville is Assistant Dean, Information and Instructional Services at California State Polytechnic University, email: [email protected]. Anita Mirijamdotter is Head, Research Division, Social Informatics and Systems Science at Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden, email: [email protected]. Dynamic and even turbulent environmental conditions, driven by rapid technological change, aggravating financial uncertainty, and escalating community expectations, fuel widespread recognition that libraries must reinvent organizational processes, procedures, and services. Typically, however, workplace systems, structures, designs, practices, and cultures continue to be based on earlier industrial models. In contrast, today’s fast-paced, rapidly changing workplace environment requires dynamic and flexible responsiveness with a focus on learning and innovation. To achieve these workplace ideals, we must change how we think and what we think about, as we ready ourselves for new roles in the academic enterprise. In this paper, we present an applied model for cultivating ‘better thinking’ for ‘working smarter’ within dynamically changing information organizations. Based in systems thinking, it reflects ‘lessons learned’ from action research projects conducted in Sweden and the United States since 2002. For the past fifteen months, since September 2003, we have embedded this model for deep organizational learning (Senge et al. 2004) at the university library at California Polytechnic State University (“Cal Poly”) in San Luis Obispo (SLO). Both projects leverage thinking (ST) tools, enhanced by information literacy (IL) and knowledge management (KM) principles and practices, to advance ‘better thinking’ for ‘working smarter’. In this paper, we primarily focus on the systems thinking dimensions of these workplace innovations. We conclude with discussion of interactive assessment results which corroborate the usefulness of systems thinking to frame real world inquiries, inform information exchange, and guide purposeful dialogue in the workplace. Within this context, information literacy and knowledge management shape and sustain purposeful enabling relationships.