“What is Past is Prologue.” You can interpret in many ways the phrase inscribed on the east end of the front of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). I’ve been thinking about that in the context of change and knowledge professionals (librarians, archivists, historians) and records managers.
Sometimes, I see the phrase in memes that suggest that history repeats itself. At other times, users (I among them) link it to an inscription on the west end of the National Archives’ building: “Study the Past.” What happened in the past is reflected in the present. Fittingly, as a photo I took last year shows, the door to the Research Center stands between the two inscriptions on the building.
This weekend, I bought That’s Not How We Do it Here! at a Washington area book store. Much of the book is an illustrated “fable for adults,” which I flipped through, followed by a text summary. I thought about organizational history and situational context as I read John Kotter’s latest book about leading and managing change.
As with most management books I read, many parts resonated, a few did not. For me, the most useful part of the book was the summary at the end. Create an environment that rewards creativity, solutions, and progress. Look for and celebrate wins (generally good advice but I would add, they need to be ones that resonate with employees). And accept that change requires leadership and management (an excellent point).
I like most of the advice but a few parts of the text made me go, “hmmm.” I found Kotter’s framing of change messaging (rely on “relentless” communication) surprisingly negative. Words such as “relentless” inadvertently cast change leaders as embattled “heroes.” (That doesn’t mean they see themselves that way.)
My suggestion? “Sustained” is a better way to look at using opportunities repeatedly to explain strategic vision and goals. I believe positive framing is more productive than negative. It helps ease tension by effectively yet strongly placing change leaders within (not apart from) the larger workplace community.
As in his other books, Kotter doesn’t air out what affects adjustments in the change vision. (Ashley Stevens’s approach–plan but be flexible, ready to adjust, even discard what doesn’t work–resonates with me because it fills that void.) Effective leaders embrace learning and adaptive behavior, up and down the ranks.
I’ve come to understand that some of my reaction to generic change management advice comes from my focus on particular Washington elements. So I’ve learned to pick and choose what strategies might work, what might not. Kotter provides a very good framework that best is used (as I’ve seen effective leaders do) with environmental and cultural customization.
Understanding an organization’s past is part of managing and leading change. This includes knowing the reasons for and impact of past change. And why veteran employees sometimes become jaded due to what I call re-invention fatigue. This is why fresh approaches that incorporate lessons learned from past efforts work better than generic change templates.
I strongly support AOTUS David S. Ferriero, whom I know in person and admire, in his current efforts to position NARA so it can meet the challenges of rapid change in how we create, preserve, access and share historically valuable records. You see two generations of archivist-historians in the 2012 photo of David with Dara Baker, then a recent library and information school graduate, and Rod Ross and I, who came into NARA with history degrees.
Dara Baker, Rod Ross, Maarja Krusten, David Ferriero, 2012. Photo by Bruce Guthrie.
Ten or fifteen years ago, I saw a number of federal agencies rely on change management offices; the results were mixed, at best. David and his team are working instead to weave change throughout NARA’s operational culture, rewarding achievement while also being mindful of past contributions. This takes more time and effort (and patience!) than other types of approaches but has a better chance of creating sustainable results.
The National Archives has seen change in the past, although none with the urgent technological and time-driven elements it faces now. New national needs during Word War II, accompanied by an increase in paper records, created challenges for the National Archives at the end of its first decade as a government agency. Other change has been situational, such as the involuntary organizational placement of the National Archives into the General Services Administration in 1949.
One of NARA’s blogs, Prologue: Pieces of History, features posts written by staff and interns. A recent post by Sarah Basilion about Robert M. Warner, Sixth Archivist of the United States, includes a portrait with a poster marking the agency’s 50th anniversary in the background.
Warner and an aide cut the cake at a 50th anniversary picnic that I attended with colleagues in 1984. You see on a card my signature as well as that of my late twin sister, Eva, also a NARA employee. But I look at the anniversary differently now than when I received a 1984 independence button at the National Archives.
Although I worked for the agency he headed, I only came to know Bob Warner well five years after he returned to academic life in 1985. He served on a federal history advisory committee that supported me in my historian job during the 1990s. We talked about what led him to decide to work on publishing his journal of the independence movement, Diary of a Dream, in 1995.
By then, I had come to understand better than early in my career, in a process still ongoing, the complexities and sensitivities that surround many Washington issues.
Since 1984, I’ve “walked around” in Washington more than I did years ago in my career as an archivist and historian. I’ve developed an appreciation of issues I once rarely considered. Among them the complicated policy and operational decisions officials on Mahogany Row, as we once called it, must make. But I also know more about the richly diverse contributions of staff throughout the ranks than I did back then.
I started out as an archives-technician, then did archivist rotational assignments in mission and mission support units. But 7 years into my archival career, as a team leader in 1984, I best knew the work of my own unit (Presidential Libraries). And that of my twin Eva (pictured, right, below with NARS national security records declassification colleagues).
At the June 1984 picnic, we talked optimistically about legislation that would administratively make our agency independent of the General Services Administration. The President would sign the legislation in October, with the National Archives regaining independence effective April 1, 1985.
Among the first employees transferred to NARA from GSA were building engineers and facilities staff. One of the challenges they faced was prioritizing which upkeep issues to tackle first. Among them was resolving problems such as why the Rotunda was not cooling properly in hot weather.
Building engineers also developed more efficient ways to hang the big banners that showcase exhibits on the museum side of the building. The behind-the-scenes work managers such as Tim Edwards have done is invaluable in keeping facilities and real property in order.
We often talk about “what don’t they teach you in library school?” We develop deep knowledge due to our experiences which can’t readily be replicated or shared outside.
As do many archivists, historians, librarians, and records managers, I use Social Media to build community and find go-to people in academic, corporate, and government organizations for questions about what, how and why. But in doing so, I’ve come to see and accept some limitations on knowledge sharing.
Outside our communities, there are silos, knowledge gaps, and information asymmetry, even among related professions. And I see the impact of the human element in varying appraisal judgments people bring to sharing links (news, commentary, blog essays) on Twitter, Facebook, and Listservs.
No two people “appraise” value the same way; even with Google alerts, everyone applies subjective professional and personal judgment to what they see as newsworthy and relevant. It’s like having an electronic records management system and asking thousands of employees to manually declare which records have long-term value. And hoping they have time to do so!
I first learned the value of group accepted, collaborative standard-setting in my early work at the National Archives. A statute required employees to differentiate between personal and governmental information in historical records. Absent close collaboration (necessary in actual archival work), casual choices in random online “news and information libraries” always show diverse judgments.
Even in links on similar subjects, some offer inaccurate or skewed information which may not be evident to everyone in selection, sharing, and reading. As a result, there always will be some knowledge gaps, or incomplete perspectives, especially on complex governmental issues.
Still, we can share what we can. I’ve thought off and on about putting up a resources page at Nixonara. A go-to page for learning about archives, records, and history issues.
Archival terms (accession, declassification, finding aid). How disclosures from historical records in NARA’s custody occur. (Not all national security declassification results from public requests. Some is due to systematic (NARA-planned) review and processing. And even unclassified records require other review.)
Supervisory Archivist Eva Krusten and NARA recxords declassification team, including Jay Bosanko, right. Archives 2, 1994.
How NARA acquires and preserves records. The value of work by officials such as Leslie Johnson, first as NARA director, digital preservation and now as director, development and tool management. I had the great pleasure of meeting Leslie (pictured below) at an after-hours personal digital archiving workshop last year.
How NARA increasingly is looking for technological solutions to records management and declassification challenges. I admire and support the work records policy managers, such as Arian Ravanbakhsh, and executives are doing on complex records issues. Capstone is a creative solution which bridges prior unsuccessful efforts in federal agencies to save electronic records manually and future automated solutions.
A resources page could focus on context and contain links to statutes, regulations. Some issues become clearer when you look at how they affect others.
Keeping temporary records beyond the date when they should have been destroyed takes up space. And Freedom of Information Act officers have to spend time combing through dozens or hundreds of files or records boxes when earlier scheduled disposition might have reduced greatly what should have been preserved as permanently valuable. Business units that keep only properly scheduled historical records shorten internal research time and FOIA processing and save everyone time and frustration.
Other elements of our work are ineffable and learning about them best left to random encounters.
As I read the brief essay at Prologue about Bob Warner, I remembered a history advisory group meeting we attended in the early 1990s. As sometimes happens, when one official present learned that I had worked with then still closed records at NARA, he asked jokingly, “So what’s in them?” I gave my customary laughing answer, “Oh, you know I can’t tell you. I’m sworn to secrecy.”
Ten years earlier, as Archivist of the United States, Warner had presented my wonderful colleagues and me with awards for our work on the move of records out of the Carter White House. I thought of that when Bob looked across the table in 1991, nodded, and exclaimed, “Maarja’s just proven my point!”
Archivist Robert M. Warner, front, right, Maarja, front, second from left, with NARS White House move awards recipients, 1981
Warner then told a story from a Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library event where a former Cabinet secretary expressed surprise to him that with all the sensitive records NARA holds, nothing ever leaks from inside. As he finished recounting the conversation and we turned back to formal agenda items, Bob pointed at me and said, “now you know why.”
Mike Anderson, Pat Anderson, Jeff Boswell, Scott Parham, Bill Joyner, NARS Office of Presidential Libraries team, 1978
Jay Bosanko, David Mengel, Jeanne Schauble and other members of NARA records declassification division group, A2 1996. Photo by Eva Krusten.
He knew I was only standing in for thousands of National Archives employees, past, present, and future, who would have responded and will answer the same way.
Some work done at NARA is visible, some is not. But I see quiet commitment to public service and civic literacy in Washington when I walk past the National Archives.
As I walk, I smile with appreciation at the people of various ranks in different functions, working to make access happen by “releasing what they can, protecting what they must.”
Many challenges. But so much bright light in Washington.
