Crack a book on business and you'll soon stub your toes on change. It's happening more and faster. It's revolutionary and unprecedented. Gurus and bestsellers have arisen to help manage, lead, measure, direct, and inspire change.

Is all this foment real? Is it necessary? Or is it all a heap of stir and no biscuits? More important, how can any of us maintain perspective, serenity, and maybe even a sense of humor when everyone says the sky is falling?

Getting a grip on change

Change, even at its present pace, has happened before. Listen to the world that poet John Donne wrote about in 1610.

And new Philosophy calls all in doubt;
The Element of fire is quite put out;
The Sun is lost, and th'earth, and no mans wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.

Donne was standing on the brink of an explosion. In his century, the world became big and round. The sun moved to the center of the universe. The microscope opened up a miniature world. The telescope expanded the heavens. Rather than humors and vapors and mysterious elements, Donne's world was suddenly governed by measurable laws and mechanical forces. God was ousted from the heavens. Creation was no longer fixed and orderly. Man's place was no longer securely fixed at the pinnacle of the Great Chain of Being (just below the angels). Boundaries that had been sacred and immutable were blown apart.

Gee, and we just feel bewildered about the changes at the office.

The shifting cosmology of the workplace

While the stars are still firmly fixed in our night sky, the same cannot be said about the world of commerce. In that bustling intersection of technology and business, the pace of change has indeed been rapid and unsettling, often necessary, and just as often misdirected.

The change that technology has brought to the workplace in the past two decades is in communication and information, and both in volumes greater than we can comfortably deal with. "The knowledge made available by computer allows us to know that which used to be unknowable," write Jerry Yoram Wind and Jeremy Main in "Driving Change."

Technology has compressed time. Products are developed and manufactured faster (faster cycle times; faster lead times). Technology has also compressed space. Contrary to John Donne's experience, the world has grown much smaller. Very small fry can stake a claim in the global pond with all the panache of the big fish. A hiccup in Malaysia rattles windows in New York.

People work more at home and at other places. They are supposed to be responsible for their own careers. They are supposed to have more autonomy and decision-making ability. They also have more work.

As the role of the footsoldier has changed, so has that of the general. "If people are behaving more like cats than sheep, they aren't going to be led around by a shepherd," write Wind and Main. The old autocratic style went out those big windows along with the 2,000-square-foot entitlement offices (they did, didn't they?). Leaders lead more by vision and example than by memos and orders. The new style is called MBWA--management by walking around. The most successful leaders articulate purpose and compel the cat-like sheep to follow.

Risk is inherent; mistakes happen; security is no longer part of the bargain. Some people thrive in this environment; many are anxious; a few are paralyzed. In any case, two fundamental human needs--to belong and to make sense of things--are compromised.

The more things change...

Rapid change induces panic, and panic doesn't lead to good decisions. Christine Maggio, principal of New Jersey-based Abacus Technology is a specialist in online communications. "I see the fear and intimidation that strikes people when they're confronted by technology. There's a lot of Wizard of Oz going on, you know--'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.' I see people staking their careers on smoke and mirrors." People don't understand the technology or its implications.

Like the corporation that decided to eliminate all the paper mail that flowed within its offices. Electronic mail would reduce expenses and improve communication. Good idea. So one day the mailroom closed and everyone went electronic. "But they didn't implement training, and they didn't have technical support," says Maggio. "If the goal was to reduce postage costs, they did that; but if it was to improve communications, they just killed themselves."

Take a peek behind the curtain, and the most successful companies and individuals practice the same precepts that they learned from their grandparents: be true to your values; take care of your customer; be good to your people; clean up after yourself.

The companies that have weathered these revolutionary times most successfully have often been those who side-stepped the revolution altogether. They are organizations like Hewlett Packard (and Herman Miller) that have a well-articulated history and set of values, that know their customers well, and that have have implemented the kind of ongoing, evolutionary change that made sense for their company and culture. These organizations have ended up at the head of the class with a lot less pain.

For good or ill, however, change remains the leitmotif of the decade. It will continue. The challenge for most of us is how to keep our heads when all about us are rushing to their tryst with the Queen of Hearts.

How to keep your head

In 1933, as bread lines formed on the streets outside, the Chicago International Exposition trumpeted the glories of the century's scientific achievements. It must have been like visiting Disneyland in Calcutta.

The theme for the exposition, which was reiterated in the art and icons throughout the exposition, was "Science finds. Industry applies. Man conforms."

As the lights dim on the same century, "man" is more cynical about the glorious effects of science. We know that it could just as easily do us in. But are we less dwarfed by its raw power and breathless momentum?

"We are, I am suggesting, culturally schooled to see ourselves as passive drifters on the tides of technological change rather than as active citizens whose debates and decisions influence the patterns of technological investment, research, marketing and use," said John Staudenmaier, a Jesuit priest at the University of Detroit-Mercy in a 1995 speech.

Is it possible to feel like an active citizen when our computers crash, Y2K looms, and yet another change program is announced from above? Is it possible to feel that our small voice could be heard in these deafening times? Or that we could influence decisions made at the Pentagon or in the boardroom at Union Carbide? And if our small voice doesn't matter, what really does, anyway?

Technology, even though we have indeed conformed to it, doesn't bestow meaning. It remains a human creation with which we can agree or disagree, says Fr. Staudenmaier. ("Computers are tools," says Maggio, "like overpriced pens.") And in exercising that critical function, he believes, we step away from being "passive wimps" and begin to demand accountability from those who make decisions about technology. We may not change the decisions made at the Pentagon (and then again, we may), but we can change the powerlessness with which we approach the technologies that have changed the face of the earth.

If "man" refuses to be cowed by the technologies that the brainiest and most diligent among us have created, then "man" might recall that technology, like the golden calf, is only a creature. Then we might take back the misplaced reverence we have freely given to science and industry for this century, at least. Then, says Staudenmaier, we may create a space for that which is worthy of humility and awe, for something that adds real meaning and significance to our lives rather than diminishment. And that probably won't be the miracle of light bulb or the power of the computer.

KATE CONVISSOR subscribes to the theory of voluntary dislocation. That means she believes in seeking out situations that push one's comfort zones and lead to new experiences and personal growth. She only subscribes to the theory. In real life, she writes from a secluded second-floor office and is as afraid of change as the next guy.