🚀 go-pugleaf

While this is not a formal CHANGE response, as the current Communications
Officer I feel obligated to address a couple of understandable misconceptions
generated by the preceding discussion.

First, CHANGE did NOT "resist change" or ask not to be reorganized according
to the new structure.  Our proposal was to form a "cross-cluster SIG" where
we could retain our networks with other professionals who (contrary to George
Wilson's assumption) are primarily facilitators of organizational/systemic
change in our professional lives, regardless of which of the new Division's
contexts we happen to be consulting in at a particular point of time.  I
personally spent a great deal of time in Houston generating and filling
signup sheets with names of CHANGE members interested in leading and
belonging to SIGS within each of the new Divisions, so that we could best
CONTRIBUTE TO--not resist--the evolution the AECT Board has begun.

Second, I think it is understandable that CHANGE is being discussed a lot
here--both by the Board and by the membership in this forum--because what
AECT is attempting IS serious, radical change.  It SHOULD BE--needs to
be--systemic in nature if AECT is to survive (that is, it needs to consider
the interrelationships between the constituencies AECT serves, their needs
and objectives, and their respective strengths--then weave them together into
a functioning, "living" SYSTEM capable of adapting to meet the changing
demands of our profession).  HOWEVER, I think most of us--inside and outside
CHANGE--would agree that this has, in many cases, NOT been an accurate
description of what has happened.  Therefore, it makes some sense for those
of us whose careers involve facilitating such processes--and who have
established records of success helping organizations through them--be
involved in some way in helping our own Association move into the future (or
at least the present!)

We are all on the same team here.  Nobody is trying to play by different
rules.  We will all contribute in our own ways--we don't need a whole string
of shortstops--but we must all pull together here!  Let's help Kyle and the
Board make it happen.

--Jim Ellsworth
Communications Officer,
CHANGE