As much as many of us might like to not think about it, it is indeed August. Although stores have had their back-to-school displays up for weeks now, many of us have committed to holding on to summer break until the very last moment.
While I have been a year-round employee and have not had a full summer break since 2014, I remember the feelings of going back to school – the excitement, the anxiety, the joy of a new beginning. I started each year hopeful that I am prepared for the challenges the year might bring, and present to all of the joy that I get to experience serving as a school librarian.
Part of starting the new school year is setting goals and priorities. While many of us may be thinking about planning for our collections, programs, or instruction, I’d like to toss something else into the mix – relationships. To be honest, this is an area that I have to intentionally work on every day. I like people just fine, but I’m far more comfortable working with spreadsheets, learning new tech, creating videos, and teaching either adults or kids than spending my working hours on chitchat or in meetings.
In the Curate Shared Foundation book I co-wrote, I discussed the importance of putting as much thought, time, and effort into curating relationships as we do in curating collections. It is vitally important that we know the members of our communities well, and that they know us. When the poo hits the fan, having colleagues who know us and care about us and are willing to go to bat for us can be the difference between a success and a disaster.
Relationships – The Difference Maker
I’ve moved around a lot over my career, and I’ve learned that I’ve been the happiest, most productive, and best supported when I’ve had strong work relationships. When I haven’t had those in place, due to my own hesitation in engaging in chitchat, work cultures that allowed me to shut the door, put my head down, and just crank out work, or colleagues that didn’t make relationships a priority, I had to struggle to get support or visibility for my programs or initiatives, and the overall friction of everyday work just made each day that much harder. I also tended to not hang around as long.
Image: Work Colleagues. Adobe Express, Adobe, new.express.adobe.com/. Accessed 3 Aug.
2025.
Introverts Unite!
I’ve met thousands of school librarians over my career, and the vast majority of us are introverts. I have become pretty good at faking extroversion, because it is part of my toolkit, alongside my knowledge of library fundamentals, policy, technology, etc. Every day, I fight my natural inclination to avoid people in favor of knocking things off of my to-do list. It took me years, but when I figured out that I needed to add relationship curation to my to-do list, I became more successful in taking the time and making the effort to build and maintain the connections and bonds that have helped me become a more integrated part of my district. These relationships actually help me get my other work done more smoothly and effectively, garner support for my library program, and generally enjoy my work and the people I work with so much more.
Here are a few strategies I use to curate relationships:
- Schedule time to get up and walk around, stopping to greet and chat with anyone who’s available – this is great for exercise, and it helps me break up the day, refocus, and have all-important face time. I put this in my calendar for mid morning and mid afternoon. I also try to do this whenever I go to a different building, such as our district offices and schools.
- Send thank you emails to people I collaborate with from other departments, copying their supervisor.
- Have a stack of thank-you cards ready for anytime someone does something just a bit extra.
- Take time to ask about family, hobbies, passion projects, or anything else my colleagues might be up to that doesn’t involve work (this is a growth area for me, as I have always preferred to avoid personal chitchat at work)
- I can’t stand icebreakers, and I am annoyed by colleagues who stand around talking incessantly about non-work stuff, but I know I must bear these burdens if I am to curate those essential relationships. I often pause to remind myself of this when I’m ready to jump through a window or take a “really important call” and excuse myself.
One of our district’s core values is relationships, and having this as a central part of our work culture makes everything smoother – think of strong relationships as the engine oil of schools and districts. Relationships must be maintained just like a car’s engine, or friction builds up and things break down.
How do you prioritize your work relationships? I’d love some tips, so please drop them in the comments below. Have a terrific school year!
Thanks for these great reminders. I am also one who often prefers to get things done rather than engaging in chitchat. Something that helped me realize the importance of engaging in small talk to build relationships was the idea of building social capital. In a management class in my master’s program, we read a book about the importance of building social capital as a way to forge relationships. When I changed my mindset from thinking of informal work conversations as “building social capital” rather than “wasting time talking,” it helped me to see the value and necessity of slowing down and making time for these types of interactions, which often lead to opportunities for collaboration with colleagues.