The Strong, Silent Librarian
I was honored today by the distinction of serving in the capacity of a table constructed from four male librarians. You read that correctly. Jim Snack, a magician and motivational speaker, used the four of us to demonstrate the importance of interdependence and cooperation.
Mr. Snack is married to a woman whose maiden name is Treat. He has many other important credentials, but none as impressive as this.
Motivational speakers aren’t normally my cup of tea just because of the unabashed narcissism of the whole self-help genre. But Mr Snack won me over with what I thought were some good points about the success of a group being based on a shared vision and interdependent human relationships. Shared visions, he said, are the strongest and the ones most likely to become reality. Plus Snack is a magician too, and I do like magicians. A card trick here and there softens the disappointment of being told you can’t always accomplish great things all by yourself.
Anyway, he went out into the audience looking for men. He had to walk around for awhile, of course, but did eventually find the four of us. If you were a man in that audience and he passed on by where you were seated but didn’t pick you, we all know why. He was going for a sturdy table.
He got us all up on stage, made some jokes about The Full Monty, and then asked us to take off our jackets. Very funny. I saw what was coming as soon as we were seated in that square. We leaned back across each others laps as instructed and he pulled out the chairs from beneath us.
Everyone admired the sturdy Man Table and the camaras flashed. It was a proud moment.
To accomplish the shared vision of the Man Table we each had to give up our individuality and engage in an interdependent formation of entangled limbs and torsos. I do get it.
Still, we started with four, strong individuals. And every shared vision begins in just one silent person’s thinking head. So it might still be worth asking, in the words of Tony Soprano, “Whatever happened to the strong, silent type?” We still need them in libraries.
Seth Hershberger, Cass County Public Library
October 5, 2007 at 8:22 am
The whole Awards Banquet was wonderful! The meal was very tasty, especially that dessert,yummy. The speaker, Jim Snack was very good. He even knew we were librarians and could relate to us. (I rmember many years ago hearing a nationally known popular psychologist who NEVER mentioned libraries at the Ohio Library Assoc.!) The magic tricks were REALLY good. You guys were great! That was a great way to demonstrate the importance of interdependence in a group. The “find the object” activity was another one of those that makes us stop and think how we support one another in our work and life. An enjoyable and thought-provoking evening.