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Richard H. Axelrod, Terms of Engagement,
Changing the Way We Change Organizations.
This book is about engaging people to create real organizational change. Axelrod begins with two cautions: telling someone to do something no longer works (if, in fact, it ever did); and leaders can't accomplish big tasks by themselves. These seem like truisms, but they are frequently ignored and overlooked. From these fundamental and basic truths of how organizations and people get things done, Axelrod presents four principles that address the limitations of the Lone Ranger who wants to do everything by him or herself and likes to order people around. This review will briefly explain Axelrod's four principles. The "how to's" will have to be obtained by reading the book! The first principle is called Widening the Circle of Involvement. Axelrod argues that you have to get people involved from the beginning, or you are selling them on the process of change. And they probably have all kinds of reasons not to buy your arguments. Without creating the process of change, people rarely have the commitment to something that has been imposed on them. Axelrod calls his second principle, Connecting People to Each Other. Again, there is no surprising revelation here. Axelrod pounds home, however, the simple point that people work better in groups when they feel connected to them. When people feel connected, they begin to find common purpose—especially if they have a problem to solve. The third principle is Creating Communities for Action. In this step, people move beyond being individuals connected together, but collaborative communities of people who are willing to act more or less as a team. Axelrod defines a community as a group of people who are willing to invest time and energy working together. The final principle is called, Embracing Democratic Principles. Axelrod believes this is the toughest part of getting groups of people working for change. Democracies are messy connections of communities; they don't always cooperate, they frequently disagree. But they are committed to give everyone a chance to speak their minds. Autocratic systems look at the American democracy and are frequently in awe that any country would choose to operate within such a messy system. But once inside the system, Americans understand that it is vibrant, filled with energy, and enables change to happen quickly when the citizenry are involved, connected, and linked in communities. Definitely, this is a book to be savored! Janelle Barlow, President
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