Before you start reading these articles, it might be useful to think about an attempt to create change at an organization you've been part of.  What change did the organization attempt?  What specific things did they do to try and bring about this change? What was successful?  What wasn't?

For Conger:

1. What do you think of the premise Conger starts with: that persuasion is necessary and other ways of gaining compliance just won’t work?

2. What do you think of his four essential steps?  Are some more essential than others?

3. In the example from an organization you've been part of, did management attempt any of these four steps?  Successfully?

4. Look at the sidebar article entitled “Four Ways Not to Persuade.”  Do you agree that each of these four ways is problematic?

For Kotter:

1. Which of his eight errors strike you as the most significant barrier to change?  Why?

2. Now, look specifically at what he terms Error #4.   Do you agree that each of the three patterns he mentions at the beginning are problematic?  Have you seen these in organizations you've been part of?  Do you think someone like the "60 year old plant manager" he mentions here can change in the manner he suggests?  What would it take to bring about such a change?

3. Now look at his Error #8.  Does this discussion of culture reflect a prescriptive/functionalist approach or a descriptive/interpretive approach?  How do you know?  Do you think this approach is appropriate here?  Why?

For Fogg:

1. What's your gut level response to the Chancellor's plan?  To the treatment of the School of Biological Sciences?

2 . What do you think of the way the "cabinet" was formed (page 2)?  Why might that be problematic?

3. How would Conger evaluate the change attempts at UMKC?  How would Kotter?

For Nadesan:

1. Read the first three paragraphs.  What similarities do you see between the approach she sets forth here and strategic ambiguity?

2. What evidence does she use to back up the claim that Fortune magazine "implicitly holds that a mystical combination of technology and free market economics will equally benefit rich and poor, less-developed and developed" (p. 500)?  Does she persuasively back up the claim?  Why or why not?

3. What arguments does she make about globalization and the rich-poor gap on pp. 502-504?  Do you agree?

For Longworth:

1. In what ways does the Boone, Iowa that he describes on page 2 remind you of towns in Northeast Indiana?  In what ways doesn't it?

2. And what's the comparison and contrast between the Dayton he describes on page 3 and Fort Wayne?  Between Dayton and other Indiana cities like, say, Anderson, Muncie, or Kokomo?

3. Do the argument he attributes to Austin in the third paragraph of page 4 and the poll that he cites in the following paragraph ring true to your experience?  Why or why not?

4. Do you see similarities between the Beardstown, Illinois that he describes on pages 6 and 7 and towns that you're familiar with?  Which seems fairer, this depiction or the one provided by Mark Klein in the letter to the editor on page 8?

5. What do you think of the solution he proposes on page 7?  Will people buy into it?  Will it solve the problem?

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