Q: Outlook contacts hanging

I've got a 6 mo. old MBA running (OSX 10.6.7) and Outlook for Mac 2011.  All was working swimmingly for the past 5.5 months, but I installed an Outlook s/w update a couple of weeks ago and started seeing strange behavior within Outlook.  I've managed to get everything running as it was before with the exception of contacts within Outlook.  When I switch to contacts view from any other view (email, calendar, notes, etc.), the view opens, but then hangs for 15-20 seconds before I can open or search for a contact.  This process used to be instantaneous before the update and a colleague of mine is experiencing the same issue after he updated Outlook. 

Has anyone experienced this or have any suggestions on how to fix? 

Thanks,

Drake