Terms of Engagement: Changing the Way We Change Organisations

In Terms of Engagement, organisational change pioneer Richard Axelrod challenges the widely accepted change management paradigm-which has been shown to increase bureaucracy and produce cynicism, resistance, and resentment.

He offers a powerful new alternative-the engagement paradigm-that provides leaders with a practical, principle-based strategy for creating successful change outcomes.

Employing the principles of the engagement paradigm can help produce an organisation in which:

• People grasp the big picture and are aligned around a common purpose
• Accountability is fully distributed as people come to understand the whole system
• Performance gaps and their solutions are quickly identified, improving productivity and customer satisfaction
• Creativity is sparked as people from all levels and functions-along with customers, suppliers, and other important stakeholders-contribute their best ideas
• Capacity for future changes increases as people develop the skills and processes to meet current and future challenges