Dick Axelrod

Dick Axelrod is a founder of, and principal in, The Axelrod Group, Inc. - a consulting firm that pioneered the use of employee-involvement to effect large-scale organizational change.

Raised in Chicago, he received his bachelor's degree in industrial management from Purdue University, and his master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago.

Before forming The Axelrod Group, Dick was an organization development manager for General Foods, which was the first company in America to use self-directed work teams (a strategy whose philosophy made a great impact on the young manager). He now brings thirty years years of consulting and teaching experience to his work, with clients including Boeing, Coca-Cola, Corning, First Union, Ford, Harley-Davidson, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Kraft, and 3M.

Dick has also served as adjunct faculty for Loyola University and Benedictine University in Chicago, and teamed up with Peter Block, and the Association for Quality and Participation, to develop the School for Managing -- an innovative approach to management education.

Dick is past president of the Chicago Organization Development Network, former co-chair of the Illinois Quality of Work Life Association, and has served on the peer review committee of Certified Consultants International. Dick is currently a faculty member of Columbia University's Professional Program in Organization Development, and the University of Chicago's Leadership Arts Program.

He is the author of Terms of Engagement: Changing the Way We Change Organizations (Berrett-Koehler) and the bestselling You Don't Have To Do It Alone: How To Involve Others To Get Things Done (Berrett-Koehler October 2004),  which the New York Times calls, "the best of the current crop of books on this subject." He is also a contributing author to Discovering Common Ground, The Change Handbook, and The Flawless Consulting Field Book. Dick's latest e-book is How to Get People to Care About What You Find Important.