Richard H. Axelrod, Terms of Engagement: Changing the Way We Change Organizations. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2000.
Richard Axelrod has seen too many change management initiatives fail – due to manipulative leadership, confused planning, and stakeholder resistance – to remain silent. He has a different approach to organizational change. It’s an approach worth serious consideration because it actually works. He argues that six factors account for the ineffectiveness of change management.
Most experts in the field of change management estimate that 70-75% of change initiatives fail to achieve what they were designed to do. Axelrod’s approach holds out the hope for greater success by addressing directly the ownership issue. Axelrod’s alternative approach is based on the following principles. The book describes four. An article on the Axelrod Group’s website here expands the list to eight:
When organizations are guided by these principles in making changes, they experience greater collaboration across boundaries, increased teamwork, closer partnerships with customers and supporters, and greater ongoing capacity to identify and deal with challenging opportunities in the future. Axelrod stresses the importance of framing change work in the right way. Allowing change to be driven by problem solving will keep the negative at the centre of attention and produce lethargy. Reframing the change to focus on what people want to create and achieve, which required the kind of early engagement of all stakeholders this book promotes, encourages people to become excited and energized about possibilities. Axelrod reminds us that open and covert resistance to change are natural and, in fact, play an important role in refining the change as it unfolds. When resistance is voiced, issues and concerns surface and can be addressed. When this occurs, not only does a new level of understanding emerge, but a new sense of safety and trust develops that lays the foundation for further dialogue and productive innovation. All of this happens as the organization brings more people into the conversations and encourages the conversations to go to the depth of fundamental values and how best to live those out. Connection, Axelrod insists, makes a difference. “When we connect, we build trust, and when we build trust, we are able to create synergy.” (p.77) Axelrod’s goal is to produce an engaged organization that exhibits the following qualities of collaboration:
And finally, Axelrod has some sage advice for leadership in organizations facing the challenge of change. First, listen, listen, then listen some more. Second, create a safe environment for dissent and creativity, because the two are intimately connected. And finally, learn to tolerate reasonable levels of fear and uncertainty as the new design for your organization’s vision and impact emerges from the process. The wise advice in this book is too rich to summarize in a short review like this, but I hope to have given you the key elements in this very effective approach to change management. Reading the book will pay great rewards.
About Brian Fraser
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