The revolutionary changes that are occurring in our society, our institutions, and by individuals will sweep us out of the industrial/chemical/fossil fuel age into a new information/biological/renewable energy era. Organizations that were once managed by command and control mechanisms within a hierarchical structure will become flat, fluid, entrepreneurial, and managed in a participatory manner. Institutions that do not adapt to the new biophysical and the new social environment will be gone. While some people and organizations see this period of rapid transformation as an opportunity to explore a new vision, for others it will be a time of painful and reluctant compliance to a seemingly chaotic world. Even those who appreciate the need for change may be confused, as the nature of change itself is changing.

Charles Handy's book The Age of Unreason makes the case that "change is not what it used to be." In the past, trends could be analyzed and future directions could be predicted. This allowed for continuous, evolutionary change. Today we are faced with mostly unpredictable, discontinuous, and almost revolutionary changes. This new environment calls for a new organizational model that encourages "front line" workers to quickly react to opportunities as they arise. It means that the worker of the 21st century will require more "process" skills to be able to function in a fast paced, knowledge-rich society.

CHANGE AND THE MODERN ORGANIZATION

One of President-elect Clinton's economic advisors, Robert Reich has described the organization and the worker of the future in his book, The Work of Nations. Reich claims that the organization of the 21st century will: "...not be organized like the old pyramids that characterized standardized production, with strong chief executives presiding over ever-widening layers of managers, atop an even larger group of hourly workers, all following standard operating procedures."

Reich states that knowledge workers of the 21st century; "... need to be in direct contact with one another to continuously discover new opportunities. Messages must flow quickly and clearly if the right solutions are to be applied to the right problems in a timely way. This is no place for bureaucracy."

The successful organization of the future is likely to be modeled after Senge's learning organization, "...where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together."

In The Good Society, Robert Bellah et al. describe how this concept can change educational institutions from a place "for individualistic competition" to learning organizations which "...emphasize the cooperative and interactional nature of learning." In this new educational organization, the "teacher" becomes a co-learner, fully cognizant and respectful of the "students" own knowledge base built upon a lifetime of experiences. Bellah et al write, "we must recover an enlarged paradigm of knowledge, which recognizes the value of science but acknowledges that other ways of knowing have equal dignity."

Much of the current research on organization and management agrees with the basic premises of these authors. But a question we must ask ourselves is; even if we were willing and able to change rapidly into this modern model, why is it so important?

WHY CHANGE?

Organizations like Extension are born, nurtured into maturity, live and are productive, and at some point become physically weak and die - or, if they are able to change, they may be continually reborn. Rebirth however, requires the letting go of old perspectives and outmoded ways of thinking and doing. Organizations where the love of change is an institutional value, will thrive.

Tom Peters management manifesto, Thriving on Chaos, reminds us that: "today, loving change, even chaos is prerequisite for survival, let alone success." He advises us to exchange the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" with; "if it ain't broke, you just haven't looked hard enough. Fix it anyway."

Peters claims that to nurture the love of change as an institutional value, sometimes you've got to change - just to be ready for rapid change when its needed. Constant transformation will allow constant evolution and constant adaptation to shifting conditions. If Peters is right, many of our public institutions are not ready to adapt to the transformations we face today. We can find evidence of this in our newspapers, daily. We are facing a crisis of confidence in many of our established institutions. Public surveys indicate that there is a generally poor perception of agencies like NASA, the EPA, USDA, the military and its suppliers, savings and loans, politicians, Congress, and bureaucrats in general - and for many - public universities.

David Osborne and Ted Gaebler advise public agencies in their new book, Reinventing Government, to follow the lead of corporations which "...have spent the last decade making revolutionary changes; decentralizing authority, flattening hierarchies, focusing on quality, getting close to their customers..." They warn government agencies, schools and other public services to let go of the thinking and the structure that developed during the industrial era of centralized bureaucracy and hierarchical chains of command. They charge us to focus on mission rather than structure. They remind us that "most public organizations are driven not by their missions, but by their rules and their budgets." Osborne and Gaebler's book offers many examples of public agencies that have become more flexible and adaptable. Both Governor Weld and President-elect Clinton are big fans of this kind of entrepreneurial government.

Those of us in public universities must be able to look at ourselves through a "different mirror" and ask if we have not created our own self-serving orthodoxy, incapable of rapid change. Robert Waterman's book The Renewal Factor warns organizations that are not able to "look at themselves through a different mirror," may follow the path of Imperial Spain during the seventeenth century, which he describes as; "Heirs to a society which had over-invested in empire, and surrounded by the increasingly shabby remnants of a dwindling inheritance, they could not bring themselves at the moment of crisis to surrender their memories and alter the antique pattern of their lives. At a time when the face of Europe was altering more rapidly than ever before, the country that had once been its leading power proved to be lacking the essential ingredient for survival - the willingness to change."

THE CAPACITY TO CHANGE

The unwillingness or inability to change is deep-rooted in people and social systems. This is evident in organizations where resistance to change may be described as a tendency to work ever harder to remain the same. Social scientist D.A. Schon concluded that institutions resist change with an energy roughly proportional to the radicalness of the change that is threatened. Dolores Schell claims that the larger the organization the higher proportion of those who seek status quo, compared with those who seek change. Schell describes the status quo seekers as those who hold on to old attitudes, old patterns, and old habits. They talk about how we need to be "careful not to move too quickly." They focus on past glories - that were very real - but may be our biggest impediment to change. Peter Drucker, teacher, business analyst and columnist wrote in his 1989 book, The New Realities; "some of the toughest problems we face are those created by the successes of the past...Some of the greatest impediments to effectiveness are the slogans, the commitments, the issues of yesterday." The inability to let go of the past defines the status quo seeker. Of course, letting go can be frightening.

Schell writes that when faced with the possibility of change most people choose status quo. She attributes this to fear of the unknown, fear of losing power, status, control, orpossessions. She writes that letting go is frightening: like jumping into a void. Henry David Thoreau seemed to be recommending the life of a change seeker when he wrote in his journal on March 11, 1859; "We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and the leap in the dark to our success." Schell concluded that large organizations had the highest percentage of status quo seekers because organizations managed in a hierarchical manner have built-in incentives which discourage change.

Established institutions don't usually encourage experimentation with new ideas or new ways of working. But institutions that fail to evolve will either be eliminated dramatically, or perhaps simply die a slow death. A Futures Task Force Report to the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy in November 1987, included a statement from the U.S. Government Accounting Office that suggested that the Cooperative Extension System should change to be more socially oriented. The report concluded that; "...if its mission is to be limited to more traditional focuses, then the scope of its programming may have to be reduced." That sounds like GAO bureaucratic language meaning "change or your budget will be cut."

BEGINNING TO CHANGE

To build an institutional commitment to change - a love of change - we've got to create an environment in which individuals feel secure enough to pursue opportunities. Security allows risk taking. Insecurity builds resistance to change. To build an environment of security, everyone must first recognize the uniqueness of the individual and relate to others in the system as persons rather than someone with a title and a rank. People have different roles in the organization which require different skills, education and experience. Recognition of roles within the organization is necessary. Attention to ranks however, can be destructive.

Organizations are made of individuals, each with different skills and abilities, backgrounds, hopes, and fears. Each must feel valuable and important as a human being as well as a professional. Each must feel secure in their relationship to the whole. Fear is an inappropriate motivator encouraging the risk taking which will be necessary to allow experimentation and transformation.

We must nurture an environment in which each person believes that what they think and do makes a difference. Each one of us can contribute to the success or failure of the whole. We must encourage open discussion about concerns and fears. Once identified they can be more easily managed. We must replace fear with hope. We can start today by sharing our concerns with colleagues. We can talk about values. We can talk about mission. By sharing our concerns and beliefs, and then taking action consistent with our common values, we can give our professional lives personal meaning. We can rediscover a common vision for the organization that supports the individual. Or - not.

CHANGE AND "THE VISION THING"

Creating a new vision for the organization is the beginning of the change process. We can learn to let go of the past, by focusing on the future. An institutional vision that is widely shared will give the system a clear sense of purpose. It will allow individuals to find their own place in the organization, thus providing a sense of personal security. This will result in an environment in which constant change in response to a changing world becomes possible.

We can change the world, by changing our own vision of our world. We must not blame others or the "system," for our inability or unwillingness to take action to change things that are not right. We must start with ourselves. Richard Bach wrote in his book, Illusions: "remember where you came from, where you're going, and why you created the mess you got yourself into in the first place;" and he continued "...you're always free to change your mind and choose a different future." You can choose your future - and change your world.

                A single drop becomes the rain.

                A single step becomes the journey.

                Start the journey...

LIST OF REFERENCES or "Where I've stolen these ideas "

Bellah, R. et al. 1991. The Good Society. A.A. Knopf, Inc.

Drucker, P.F. 1985. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles. Harper and Row.

Eisler, R. 1988. The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our     Future. Harper and Row.

Freire, P. 1973. Education for Critical Consciousness. Continuum Publishing Company.

Osborne, D. and T. Gaebler. 1992. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector form Schoolhouse to Statehouse, City Hall to the Pentagon. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

Peck, M.S. 1987. The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. Simon & Schuster Co.

Peters, T.J. 1987. Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution. Harper and Row.

Reich, R.B. 1991. The Work of Nations. A. A. Knopf, Inc.

Schell, D.F. 1988. Explorers of transitions - organizations. IN: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Biopolitics: The Bio-Environment. ed. Agni Vlavianos-Arvanitis. Athens, Greece, May 6-10, 1987.

Schumacher, E.F. 1979. Good Work. Harper and Row.

Senge, P.M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline; The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. Doubleday Publishing.

Waterman, R.H. 1987. The Renewal Factor: How the Best Get and Keep the Competitive Edge. Bantam Books.