Anxiety of a different sort plagues those staffs in enterprises undergoing explosive internal growth, says Kathy Claypatch, director of online IT operations at University of Phoenix Online. Claypatch spearheaded the creation and delivery of an online education infrastructure in just 30 days.

"We've recognized that our business is growing so fast that we have to be flexible in areas such as scheduling. We have to be empathetic to the fact that we are often disrupting the family lives of our employees, so we need to be ready to do something for those employees in return," she says. That could mean, for example, offering additional days off for staff members with sick children, says Claypatch.

To soften the blow, IT leaders should explain upfront exactly what major corporate changes will mean on an individual level. "It is so much easier if you have senior executives telling the stakeholders exactly what is going to happen," says Oles.

Along with frankness, organization is critical. When FedEx executed its $2.4 billion acquisition of Kinko's Inc., m anagers held weekly "dashboard" meetings on major IT projects, says Laurie Zeitlin, senior vice president and CIO at FedEx Kinko's in Dallas. "We stayed focused and incorporated project management," she says. "You don't want to assign a PMO to everything, but you have to have a balance."

When all is said and done, balance, timing and acceptance tend to define the resilient corporation. "The bar gets raised every year," says Zeitlin. "If you just develop that as your mind-set, you simply move forward."