Change Ahead: Working in a Post 9 11 World

215 Pages·2005·6.33 MB·English

by  Pat Gill Webber

CHANGE
AHEAD
W o h i n a
Post 911 1W orld
Copyrrght O 2005 Pat Gill Webbet
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-4196-1388-X
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Change Ahead
Working In A Post 9/11 World
Dr. Pat Gill Webber
Change Ahead
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Ways to Read this Book
Forward
Narrative Objective xix
Part I: The Big Picture
Synopsis and Implications
Chapter I - Background
Chapter 2 - The Economic, Political, and Cultural Context
-
. Chapter 3 The Nature of the Organization
Chapter 4 - Conclusion
Part 11: Phase I Research: The Myth of Change Resistance
Synopsis and Implications 33
Chapter 5 - More Pro-Change than We Knew 35
Chapter 6 - 9/11 and Other Change Levers 51
Chapter 7 - Conclusion 69
Part 111: Phase I1 of Research: A Closer Look at Attitudes and
Behaviors Related to Change at Work
Synopsis and Implications 73
-
Chapter 8 A New Group of Participants 77
Chapter 9 - S~tetsh at Shlned 95
-
Chapter I0 Our "Mixed Bag" Sites
Chapter 11 - Conclusion
Part IV: Recommendations for Action
Synopsis and Implications
Chapter 12 - Making Meaning from Research
Post Script
Biographical Summary
Part V: Resources
Synopsis
Statistics Appendix
Reference Bibliography
Resource Bibliography
Organizational Change and Transformation
Personal Change and Transformation
Post 9/11
Starting Over
Index
SPECIAL RECOGNITION
This book would never have happened without two very special people.
Although dozens of colleagues and friends helped make the book happen, two
were there throughout and deserve special thanks and recognition. Simply put,
they made the book possible and they made the book what it is. They are both in
a sense my coauthors in this endeavor.
The first is Dr. Thanos Patelis. Thanos is a brilliant statistician, a wonder-
ful thinker and educator whose work at the College Board and at many universi-
ties is respected and admired. His clear mind, and his ability to synthesize and
organize cannot bc overestimated. His help in shaping the ideas of the book, and
most importantly his help in discovering the best ways to find the data we were
looking for, made this book possible.
Dr. Thanos Patelis was my SLIpport, colleague, and partner in this endeavor.
Without his hard work, advice, support, and strength this book would never have
seen the light of day. Thank you Thanos.
The second person whose work made this book possible is Noel Appel.
Noel is a woman of many talents-a writer, editor, and executive in development
in her own right. No:] has been a help, support, and g~~idinliggh t from the earli-
est days when I was starting to think about the book, pull together resources,
and think through what I wanted to write about. Noel did many things in this
book-she edited, worked to develop bibliographies, and oversaw and organized
the whole writing process.
Noel Appel was my coach, colleague, and supreme helper In lnak~ngth ts
book posstble. T h ~tss also your book Noel. Thank you.
WAYS TO READ THIS BOOK
Many people love to read research. More do not. Much of this book is a
review of research we conducted and an analysis of what that research means. If
you are a person in Human Resources management, a leader interested in the
details of how one or another site or group responded to questions, a researcher
or professor who wants to know the details-read the book cover to cover-you
will love the detail, the graphs, and all the weight of research behind our elid of
book recomn~endations.Y ou might also add your own thinking to our research
findings and come up with some new and different ideas of how to use the re-
search data for your own needs. We welcome and encourage such interaction
with our work. .
If you are a "bottotn line" sort of person-a leader looking for an idea of
what in the world your colleagites and staff are thinking, an answer to the ques-
tion of whether or not people are change adverse, an individual wondering what
others are thinking at work and if you are alone, or an organizational change
leader looking for some clear and straight forward strategy advice that is based
on reality and facts rather than just someone's opinions, you might want to look
at specific portions of this book and get the key points we learned from our re-
search initiative and consider our specific strategies based on the research results.
Here is how to do that.
Read the Forward to know who Pat Gill Webber is. I wrote the vast major-
ity of the book and am the key author. This tells you where I am "coming from"
so you can understand my biases while reading the book. Read the Narrative
Objective to understand what the research and the hook was designed to do.
Then read the synopsis and implications for Parts I, 11,and 111 of the book which
cover all the research we did to understand the world'at the current time, what
people are thinking about change, and how people are handling change at work.
At that point poceed directly to Part IV to read the synopsis, the implications,
and the whole chapter for specific recommendations based on our months and
years of research and hundreds of hours of thinking. Finally, look at the synopsis
of Part V which tells you about the references and resources available here. This
recommended set of material is less than 60 pages. I€ you have the time or inter-
est, you can go back into the first three parts to read the details of both phases of
our research and our overview of the "Big Picture" as we call it, the details of the
organizations we worked with in depth and the analysis of the FopuIations we
worked with-over 300 people in phase one and over 600 people in phase two.
We hope this helps you navigate the book and gain from it what you need
and want. We hope as well that if you have any unanswered questions or want to
share your thoughts or thinking on some aspect of the book, yo11 will contact me
at [email protected]
Pat Gill Webber
Sumlner 2005
For Derlnis
We love you and miss you. Your suppon earb 011 meant the world to
me arzd still does.
And) For BilL
For all we have shared,for all we are, atid all we will be) tharik you.