Managing records and information programs: a new blueprint for success.

• Author: Dearstyne, Bruce W.
• Position: MANAGEMENT WISE

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There has probably never been a more challenging, frustrating, but also promising and rewarding time to be in charge of a records and information management (RIM) program. Organizations of which they are a part are experiencing "fast, turbulent ... exciting, scary" change; leading a company these days is like flying through a hurricane, according to Leading in Turbulent Times by Kevin Kelly and Gary E. Hayes. Bob Johansen calls it "VUAC"--volatility, uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity--in Leaders Make the Future.

RIM programs are navigating in comparable rough weather. These obstacles include managing with limited resources; aligning information with enterprise goals; struggling with scattered information produced by social collaboration technologies; making information available for analytics, decision making, and other strategic purposes; ensuring legal compliance; and continually making the business case for information management demand constant attention.

RIM programs need creativity, improvisation, and the ability to rapidly adapt to thrive in this turbulent environment. Managers can expect several management dilemmas over the next few years:

* Managing with limited or modest and, at best, very slowly increasing resources as organizations emerge from the recession

* Continually defining, redefining, explaining, and advocating for their programs even in settings where information is recognized as a key strategic asset

* Meeting the challenge of measuring the outputs, outcomes, impact, and bottom-line value of their work

* Dealing with constantly evolving information technologies and tools, including guiding their deployment and managing the avalanche of unstructured information they produce

* Fostering compliance with legal requirements, which shift as court decisions are handed down

* Networking and partnering to get things done while at the same time preserving autonomy, visibility, and a sense of professional distinctiveness

* Integrating younger, more tech-savvy, but also more independent, workers into RIM program teams

Bill George, former CEO and now a business professor, provided a useful, integrated overview of the new style of leadership and management that is needed in his April 30, 2010, article "The New 21st Century Leader," on his website, www.billgeorge.org/ page/the-new-21st-century-leaders.

"The craftsman-apprentice model has been replaced by learning organizations, filled with knowledge workers who don't respond well to 'top down' leadership," George wrote. In the future, "the most successful leaders will focus on sustaining superior performance by aligning people around mission and values and empowering leaders at all levels, while concentrating on serving customers and collaborating throughout the organization."

This management work has four aspects:

* Aligning. Align people around the organization's mission and shared values, and align your program with its priorities. Aligned employees "commit to the mission and values of the organization and want to be part of something greater than themselves."

* Empowering. Empower leaders at all levels, but hold people accountable for results, and they will respond with self-motivation and dedication to the work.

* Serving. The compelling focus needs to be on serving customers--anticipating and meeting their needs, and when possible, exceeding their expectations.

* Collaborating. Challenges these days are often too fluid and complex for individuals, or even individual programs, to solve alone. Collaboration--between people and between a particular program and other offices in the organization--is needed for lasting solutions. Eliminating internal silos, politics, and competition and replacing them with a culture of cooperation and information sharing are essential.

Seven strategies should be useful to managers of RIM programs.

1. Develop your own management style.

   In unsettled times, managers need to develop and apply their own management approaches that fit the setting, circumstances, and their own personality and values. Some useful actions:

   Anchor in your own "true north." Former CEO George advanced the notion in his book True North that managers need to identify fundamental personal values, articulate them clearly, and stay true to them, particularly in times of crisis...