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Create Micro-moves for Organizational Change

Karen Golden-Biddle

Recall an organizational change you have personally experienced and considered important to implement. How did you come to see this change as desired and viable? How did people undertake meaningful and collaborative effort? How was energy generated to keep going? Questions such as these direct our attention toward the “how” of change: actions and interactions comprising change processes that, while small and often barely visible, are essential to the successful creation of generative change. We call them “micro-moves.”¹

Usually, we pay attention to the “what” of organizational change (e.g., structural reorganization, incentive schemes, leadership turnover) and leave implicit the micro-moves comprising the “how” of change. The press showcases dramatic examples of “what” changes. At the time of this writing, the change to Microsoft’s organization structure is front page news—a change made to encourage collaboration and “move from multiple Microsofts to one Microsoft,” in the words of CEO Steve Ballmer.² Yet beyond the announcement and commentary on the merits or potential difficulties of this particular structural shift, we learn little about how this large-scale, top-down directed change will be implemented to accomplish the vision of one Microsoft with greater collaboration. Structural change itself does not ensure generative change of the type envisioned in their goal of “collaboration.”

Research suggests that our process of changing organizations is equally important to what is changed, and that how we change organizations significantly shapes the pathway for desired change and the extent to which collective energy, direction, and enthusiasm can be cultivated to create and to sustain such change.³ The present chapter builds on this research to make the case for why organizations and individuals, especially leaders of change at all levels, should care about micro-moves. Then, focusing on the earliest origins of change—when hunches and feelings suggest the need to change, but no real sense exists regarding what might inform the shape of change—the chapter closely examines a specific set of micro-moves of discovery that help seed generative change by engaging people in collective imagining of the desired possible.

Why Do Micro-moves Matter in Change?

Micro-moves, though small, are consequential for generating or derailing change efforts. We have all experienced micro-moves and their effects: those interactions that foster disengagement, inciting disbelief that desired change will ever really happen, and by contrast, those interactions that facilitate engagement, inciting a collective sense of hope that one’s effort will make a difference in achieving change⁴ and initiating a “cascading vitality” for change⁵ through employee empowerment. Micro-moves of the latter kind matter to leadership practice because they engage people meaningfully and respectfully in the change process. In turn, a higher level of psychological engagement with the change is fostered along with enhanced capability to stretch beyond one’s comfort zone in realizing the desired change.

Micro-moves also matter because they help embolden individuals to see new ways to connect with others in creating change. We see this in the impact of being what some researchers call tempered radicals,⁶ insiders who identify with and are committed to their organization while also committed to an issue that can be at odds with their organization. For example, rather than push their agendas and issues, these insiders enact more tempered micro-moves such as subtle self-expression of issues or strategic alliances with like-minded others. Similarly, we see the impact of being issue sellers,⁷ individuals committed to an issue who try to convince others to pay attention to or resource the issues. One study of issue sellers shows how these individuals seek to engage others through generative rather than antagonistic dialogue, drawing attention to productive differences that widen and enrich rather than shut down conversation, keeping alive the possibility of change.⁸

Micro-moves of Discovery

The earliest origins of generative organizational change call upon people to imagine what could be—what might be possible. Micro-moves of discovery nourish this collective imagining by engaging us to notice and to reconsider our taken-for-granted assumptions and expectations of how things are currently done and of what currently seems viable and comfortable.⁹ They not only produce a wider range of ideas and possibilities, they also foster momentum for launching change and enhance human capability for dealing with uncertainty. In this section, I offer three micro-moves of discovery for use in change efforts to enable the collective imagining of desired possibilities. All three operate by asking people to connect or to experience what they find familiar in light of something unfamiliar, thus creating an atypical or even surprising relation that can illuminate prevailing expectations.

Micro-move 1: Turn Toward the Unfamiliar

Although this particular micro-move of discovery may be implemented in a variety of ways, its distinguishing feature is the request of people to turn toward and explore rather than dismiss what is unfamiliar in order to see and to reconsider expectations about current ways of operating.

We implement this micro-move in everyday conversation when we ask questions in the subjunctive, rather than indicative, mood. Whereas the indicative draws attention to what we do know (e.g. “what is …”), the subjunctive illuminates contingency and possibility based in what we do not yet know (e.g., “what if …” or “what might be …”). For example, instead of asking, “What is a phone used for?,” Apple designers of the iPhone might well have asked, “What if we could do more than talk on a phone?” We also have the opportunity to implement this micro-move when we seek customer, student, or client input on our services and products. We capitalize on this opportunity when we explore input that we find odd or surprising and use our exploration to discover what we do not know and to shed light on how this new insight might be used to change our services or products.

Organizations such as Google in the software industry implemented this micro-move by relating the then-familiar notion of “software as product” with the unfamiliar image of “software as service.” Instead of seeing software as a product in a box purchased by consumers to install on their computers, imagining software as a service opened up the possibility of an alternative delivery model of hosting software on a cloud space that is available on demand to customers. In creating this atypical connection, they were able to reimagine the meaning of software and generate new uses and applications. Although today it sounds commonplace to think of software as a service, at the time some organizations dismissed the idea.

Micro-move 2: Experience Together What Is Not Known

The second micro-move of discovery is grounded in the recognition that discovery can require more than the cognitive work of questioning and gathering input central in the first micro-move. Often, we may not notice or may have only an unspecified sense or niggling feeling about what needs to change. Thus, this second micro-move asks people to collectively experience what they do not know.

A medium-sized health-care system used this micro-move early in creating a novel inpatient care system known as “Collaborative Care” that has subsequently received national attention.¹⁰ Its use helped specify what staff knew only in a general sense: although how patients were admitted into hospital units was understood, the path leading to patient discharge was anything but clear. The hospital CEO gathered managers and administrative clinicians and posed the seemingly straightforward question: How do our patients leave our system? This group might have taken any number of steps to address the question, including conducting a literature search on best practices in inpatient care or charting current patient flow based on their collective knowledge. However, because this group had little contact with frontline care delivery, it is unlikely that these abstract actions would have helped them discover what they did not know about their own system.

Wanting to see close up the actual care path for their patients, the group decided instead to walk this path, first as if they were patients and then as observers alongside real patients. In taking this step, they began to experience together what they did not know. With the assistance of an organizational development consultant, the group adopted the stance of curious learner rather than expert to get the best possible access to the patient experience of care delivery. For example, clinicians ditched their medical frocks and managers took off their suit jackets. They also generated open-ended questions that focused on better understanding the care path from the patient’s perspective. During their observations, a particularly revealing situation was disclosed that no one had noticed before: their patients were required to walk too long of a distance to undergo prescribed tests. With deep chagrin and embarrassment, they now could see that the walk was far too arduous for elderly people and very ill patients. In experiencing together the undue burdens placed on patients by their system, they came to collectively know what they all wanted to change and engaged in designing the new “Collaborative Care” model focused centrally on the patient’s rather than the provider’s experience.

Micro-move 3: Convene around New Possibilities

The third micro-move involves convening people for the purpose of exploring possibilities for change that have been discovered and are beginning to form as new ideas, early product designs, and as new ways of working. In convening, people listen for ways to give these emergent possibilities further shape.

Creating curriculum change in a university setting can be one of the most challenging and politically fraught changes leaders can attempt. A management school drew on this micro-move to help infuse ethics into its newly designed Master of Business Administration (MBA) curriculum. After launching a successful pilot course on ethics, the next step was to bring ethics into required courses. Yet, faculty teaching these courses (Finance, Marketing, etc.) expressed concern about being able to infuse ethics while also covering course material. A dean responsible for curriculum innovation convened a meeting of faculty teaching ethics as well as those teaching the required courses around the possibility of ethics infusion. During the ensuing conversation, many ideas emerged about how faculty might infuse ethics. One particular idea got traction because it recognized the concern that most faculty members are not ethics experts and at the same time crystallized faculty skill in holding class discussions. Faculty taking part in this conversation became energized as they began to conceive of facilitating discussion as a viable vehicle for ethics infusion in required courses and to generate specific questions for use in their classes.

Putting It All Together

Creating micro-moves in change matters because doing so focuses leadership attention on how, not just what, change is implemented and illuminates the significance of micro-moves that facilitate respectful and meaningful engagement of each other in the change process. Focusing on the early beginnings of generative change, we profiled the particular micro-moves of discovery that nourish collective imagining of new possibilities by helping us to become aware of and reconsider our implicit expectations about how things are currently done. We invite you to try some of these micro-moves for discovery to seed generative change in your personal lives and at work.

CREATING SUSTAINABLE MICRO-MOVES OF DISCOVERY: W. L. GORE AND ASSOCIATES, A COMPANY WHERE COLLECTIVE IMAGINING FLOURISHES

Founded in 1958 by Bill and Vieve Gore with the goal of “creating a company that would be a multiplier of human imagination,”¹¹ W. L. Gore and Associates (hereafter, “Gore”) today is one of the two hundred largest privately held companies in the United States, achieving more than $3 billion in sales during the last fiscal year. It is best known for its innovative products using fluoropolymers (e.g., Gore-Tex) and for its organizational culture that couples teamwork and nonhierarchical structure with personal initiative. As Jack Cramer, Gore’s Global Technology leader described, “Gore’s business model is not a low-cost one. We look for the toughest problems to solve in an environment designed to drive creative, independent thinking in an atmosphere that fosters teamwork.”¹²

A number of articles written about Gore portray the creation of generative change that contributes to the company’s success. For example, the company continues to innovate in product lines and industries served (e.g., Gore-Tex garments, medical implants, coated guitar strings) and to support development of capabilities for cross-functional teamwork and imagination. The following examples from Gore illustrate how using the micro-moves of discovery profiled in this chapter help to seed generative change by engaging people in collective imagining of possibilities. Significantly, the examples demonstrate that micro-moves of discovery can be sustained by institutionalizing them in novel roles and everyday practices such as recruitment.

Micro-move 1 prompts people to turn toward and explore rather than dismiss the unfamiliar and what is not known. Expressed first in its founding principle of creating a company that “would be a multiplier of human imagination,” Micro-move 1 is now alive in its hiring practices; Gore is quite up front about the fact that they want to hire people who are willing to explore the unfamiliar. This objective is signaled in company leader interviews such as the one with HR leader Donna Frey, who shared that the people Gore recruit “have got to be able to embrace uncertainty.”¹³ A visit to the company’s website section on careers also signals the importance of being comfortable with considering and exploring the unfamiliar.¹⁴ Asking potential applicants to consider if Gore is a good fit for them, the website identified questions that “outline [their] expectations of Gore Associates.” For example, “Do you …

1. experiment with different approaches or solutions to improve the way things are done?”

2. challenge traditional thinking and identify creative approaches or solutions?”

3. maintain a high standard of performance in uncertain or unstructured situations?”

4. voice differences of opinion openly and directly?”

Micro-move 2 recognizes that we may only have an unspecified sense of what needs to change. As a result, experiencing together what is not known can help bring clarity to what is currently done and open the way to generating possibilities for change. A well-known way Gore implements this micro-move is through the practice of “dabbling,” which not only allocates up to 10 percent of associates’ time to developing new ideas but provides a sponsor who gives guidance and a cross-functional oversight group to check in periodically on the dabblings. Together, they experience the development of dabbling, being committed to protecting the origins, and assessing along the way the worthiness of each dabbling for further development and investment. This practice has led to many of Gore’s breakthrough products and the company’s entry into “new, untested markets [in which they have] seized the lead.”¹⁵

Micro-move 3 involves convening people around new possibilities now represented by forms such as ideas, early product designs, and practices in order to contribute to their further development. One way Gore enacts this micro-move is by recognizing a type of leader whose responsibility it is to organize teams around new possibilities such as new businesses, products, and processes. Known as “Intrapreneuring Associates,”¹⁶ they invite and convene associates to further consider these new possibilities. A second way this micro-move is implemented is through the monthly technical meeting,¹⁷ which began in the early 1990s. Hundreds of associates come together from across teams and divisions to address those attending and also to learn from others about the latest ideas surfacing in their work.

TWEETS

Micro-moves of organizational change help leaders engage people meaningfully and respectfully in the change process.

Discovery micro-moves use collective experience to prompt questions about “what is” and to foster imagining of what might be possible.

By inviting people from across the organization to collaborate in discovery, micro-moves build collective energy and enthusiasm for change.