Don’t Think Big

Want to transform your organization? Think small. Really small.

It’s hard to admit, but somewhere along the line it started going wrong. Sales are down; customers are posting bad reviews. Perhaps it’s time to make a high-stakes play: implement extensive changes or hire a team of consultants to do it for you.

In some cases, the better gamble could be to bet small. Very, very small.

Writing in Harvard Business Review, Questrom Professor in Management Karen Golden-Biddle contradicts the wisdom of “bringing in consultants, undertaking large-scale and highly visible action, and jolting the organization into change.” Instead, Golden-Biddle recommends “micro-moves” for transforming a business.

After studying complex health care organizations, Golden-Biddle found that “small and often barely visible actions and interactions . . . generate real and consequential change, rather than derailing [change] as sweeping organizational makeovers often do.” Golden-Biddle recommends leaders consider “inviting collaboration in the change process from people across the organization” to “tap collective energy and build enthusiasm.” She gives the example of a group of health care administrators who accompanied patients throughout the journey from admission to discharge, allowing them to “notice their taken-for-granted assumptions regarding how things are done, reconsider them, and create alternatives.”

Taking such tiny steps might, she admits, lack the flair of an overhaul by whiz-bang consultants, but it might get the job done with a lot less fuss.