Change and the Information Professional
We're quickly approaching the midway point of 2000, which brings to mind two things. First, the 91st Annual Conference in Philadelphia USA is upon us. Second, we still have seven months to fulfill our resolutions for this year! My own personal opinion is that your attendance at the former can help achieve the latter.
Many of you may recall my list of proposed resolutions for the profession from a few months ago. They all spoke to one primary theme that exists in everyone's life: CHANGE. That beautiful, horrible, challenging, and intimidating word that we face in a multitude of ways. What better way to describe the diversity of humanity than in the manner we each approach change.
Change is the lifeblood of progress, the catalyst for innovation, and the enzyme that breeds new thinking. This is the way change is perceived by those of us who embrace it, and probably by the rest of us when we aren't dealing with it. Most of us can talk about change, but many of us are fearful that change will bring about irreversible damage to our professional or personal lives, or both. That fear is a totally human concept, and one we must all accept if we are to manage change with and through others.
The phrase "change management" is often used to describe the process by which individuals, organizations, and societies go about dealing with change. I'm here to tell you that change, like knowledge, is something that can't be completely "managed." We can jump in the saddle and ride with it, we can be run over by it, or we can be dragged kicking and screaming along with it. And maybe in either scenario, we can say we are "managing change." In the end, though, change always occurs, just as time cannot be stopped.
Well, I don't claim to have all the answers for dealing with change in the future. But I'm certain of a few things that can make change a much more palatable process for anyone.
Change brings about an entropic environment, where chaos and disorder can reign. This kind of unsettled experience can persist unless the enablers, champions, and recipients of change work together to generate understanding and acceptance. How do we do that?
Life-Long Learning. Fear (which many of us experience as a result of change), is the result of ignorance. Wait! Allow me to explain my use of the term "ignorance." It is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary (third edition) as "the condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed." Therefore (if you buy the notion that fear is the result of ignorance), fear is the result of being uneducated. SLA has always worked to create opportunities for information professionals to share experiences and learn about developments that can make us all better professionals and people. Through our collective learning experiences, we can take new knowledge with us into the battle -or dance -with change. And this makes us better prepared to face such unknowns.
Communications: Feeding off of the need for learning, fear of change will occur unless we are informed and aware. SLA's leadership -your Board of Directors, chapter and division officers, and staff -are constantly striving to communicate our ideas and prognostications for the future so that you can anticipate change. Conversely, we need you to communicate with us so that the changes you need in your professional life can be anticipated. Without interaction and discussion on the changes that the profession and the Association encounters, we will cease to work cohesively and for a unified goal: to promote the information professional as a valuable resource in today's working world.
David R. Bender, Ph.D.
Executive Director, SLA
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