As natural as change is, there’s no getting around the fact that it can be painful.  Especially when it happens to you and is not authored or initiated by you.  ‘Disruption’ is a word that some managers toss around in a pretty cavalier way as a desirable state  or productive path for businesses and their employees.  Disruption (from the Latin ‘dirumpere,’ meaning to break or burst asunder) is not, however, always such a pleasant thing.  The past can collide with the future in an agonizing present.  Disrupting an unproductive pattern of behavior is not the same as disrupting a hardworking family’s way of life, and we are seeing entirely too much of that these days.Try telling residents of a small Midwestern town that just lost its largest employer in the auto industry downturn that disruption is cool, and nobody’s going to be buying you a beer anytime soon.  In this kind of economy, we often greet disruption with the same enthusiasm we welcome a rusty nail disrupting the bottom of our foot. (more…)