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Terms of Engagement: New Ways of Leading and Changing Organizations
 
 
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Terms of Engagement: New Ways of Leading and Changing Organizations [Paperback]

Richard Axelrod
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Terms of Engagement: New Ways of Leading and Changing Organizations + The Extra Mile: How to Engage Your People to Win + The CEO: Chief Engagement Officer: Turning Hierarchy Upside Down to Drive Performance
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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Berrett-Koehler; 2 edition (1 Oct 2010)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1605094471
  • ISBN-13: 978-1605094472
  • Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 16.1 x 1.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 246,634 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • See Complete Table of Contents

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Richard H. Axelrod
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Product Description

Review

“Over 70 percent of organization change efforts fail. Clearly, change management needs an overhaul. Just as clearly, Dick Axelrod has provided the tools for reformation. Engaging people may seem obvious, but how to do it is not. This highly useful book provides enlightenment for the not-so-obvious.”—Warner Burke, PhD, Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education and Chair, Department of Organization and Leadership, Teachers College, Columbia University  “Why is "Terms of Engagement" an enduring classic? Because its insights are rooted in a deep understanding of how people in organizations actually think and work. Timeless wisdom in a profoundly engaging form.”—Sally Helgerson, coauthor of "The Female Vision "and author of "The Female Advantage" and "The Web of Inclusion"  “A manual on closing the gap between how an organization’s people need to change and how they can and want to change.”—Art Kleiner

Product Description

Organizational change pioneer Richard Axelrod explained in the first edition of Terms of Engagement why the old mechanistic approaches to change no longer worked, and offered four essential new principles that lead to an engaged organization: I. Widen the circle of involvement; II. Connect people to each other and ideas; III. Create communities for action; and IV. Practice democratic principles.

Drawing on numerous examples from such companies as Hewlett-Packard, Mercy Healthcare, First Union Bank, and others, Dick explained how the four principles of the Engagement Paradigm enabled leaders to create energy and commitment instead of apathy and resistance. Recognizing the potential for misapplication, he also showed how engagement can disengage, and identifies potential pitfalls to avoid.

In this revised 2nd Edition, Dick again focuses on the four engagement principles but updates them to reflect current thinking and trends. It focuses on leadership and engagement, contains updated research findings on employee engagement and productivity, and includes more case studies and stories from a wider range of industries and organizations


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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By Donald Mitchell HALL OF FAME TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover
I first experienced this change model as a young management consultant in the late 1960s, and was overwhelmed by its effectiveness then. Over the years, I have made this approach a central tenet of how I work with client organizations and our own. Richard Axelrod's book is the best description I have seen to date of the key elements of this model and the reasons why they work. I heartily endorse that you become familiar with this book, which will undoubtedly be a standard reference for many years to come. I was particularly pleased to see how well he has combined the perspectives of many other business and nonbusiness thinkers in this area.

The key challenge to successful change is in communication. Everyone agrees on that from Axelrod to Bob Kaplan to John Kotter. The four-aspect model here is particularly well designed to overcome communication stalls and miscommunications. These aspects are widening the circle of involvement to get more ideas from more people (this is a corollary to the key observations of complexity science for self-organizing order at the boundaries of systems), connecting people to each other (in order to drop barriers to communication), creating communities for action (by establishing a mutual purpose and direction), and embracing our social concepts of democratic treatment of all (to overcome skepticism about the authenticity of engagement potential).

By way of analogy consider the writing of the original Constitution of the United States. How would this have worked out if George Washington had simply dictated what he wanted? As you can imagine, there is no way that George Washington could have come up with that document by himself. Well, that's the way most organizations try to make changes. The leader dreams up what she or he wants and tell or sells everyone else. Next, what if George had called in four of his buddies from Virginia and hired two consultants from New York? Would they have developed the Constitution we have? Probably not. It mostly would have reflected the perspectives of Virginia and New York. Even if they had, no one would have been very committed to it. The process the Constitutional Convention actually used is very similar to the one that Mr. Axelrod espouses.

The book's material is clear, the examples compelling, the warnings are timely, and the directions are appropriate.

What are the limitations then of this book? I see them in five areas: First, you have to experience this process to appreciate its power. So you can read this book all you want, and you may not "get it." My advice is to put yourself in a situation where you try out this model and find out how well it works. Second, there are a lot of other things that can go wrong that are not described here. Think about Russia. The country has gone a long way to create free markets but new enterprises are often floundering. Part of the reason is that people don't think and don't yet prefer to operate in entrepreneurial, participative terms. Many individuals and groups have that same problem. Third, the writing style of the book is too intellectual relative to its emotional intensity to engage many people in its message. Fourth, you may need a guide for the first few times you try this. Those with expertise are in relatively short supply. Fifth, if the people involved in the process do not develop their understanding of how to analyze systems-related issues and devise ideal solutions, you will still be missing a lot of potential for improvement.

You can think of this book as complementary to the ideas presented in the other superb new book on overcoming the communications stall, The Strategy-Focused Organization. I suggest that you read that book as well. The on-going measurements of the Balanced Scorecard process can be quite helpful in establishing all four aspects of the change model. If, independent of these perspectives, you also create a superior business model and strategy, you can be further aided by having irresistible forces consistently favoring your progress. Tie together those three perspectives, and you should be unbeatable.

After you have finished experiencing and applying this improved change model in your organization, I suggest that you consider how you can extend it into other organizations you care about, like the schools in your community, the charity you sit on the board of or volunteer for, and the local hospital.

May you always work openly and successfully with all stakeholders to build better solutions and implement them rapidly!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Change management is a field with many books and theories. There is a growing frustration with the planning and managing of change by all concerned - those who want to make it happen and those who are planned and managed. This books outlines some of the difficulties inherent in change , provides clear insights into strategies that fail and offers a viable alternative that has to be worth serious consideration. The notion of 'engagement' and this set of useful theories, principles and practices for how it can happen will be an toolkit for change agents, leaders and people everywhere for a long time to come.

When I first came across the Conference Model in 1996 I was struck by the simple pathways which Dick, and his wife Emily, had developed to integrate complex aspects of a change journey into an enjoyable, participative and very fruitful experience. The work they have done over the past two years to pull out of that process some clear and simple principles is wonderful.

In this book Dick has made these principles accessible and applicable - through examples, stories and many useful tips he shows how they can be applied to many situations to successfully engage people and work with the resistance to generate energy and accelerated progress.

I am looking forward to the next book already.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
"Over the years, I've learned a great deal from Dick Axelrod about how to truly engage people in creating real organizational change. The learnings in this book are essential for us to understand in these times of relentless change." -Margaret J. Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science and coauthor of A Simpler Way
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