Many people say that the digital revolution and social media created space for hidden voices. However, It seems that even with more people telling, fewer people are listening.
In this context, I note some voices that are not so loud but show greater potential to generate effective change. These voices are focused on small audiences and promote small movements that start on the ground. In an analogy, they look like a small stone that needs to be thrown just once in the water to create waves larger than its own size.
Processes of change that happen on the ground and slowly usually do not attract much of our attention, they are not so visible like dramatic and deliberately processes of change that happens top down.
“Note that effective change is not just driven from the “top” down – deliberate, decisive, dramatic – but also from the bottom up and the middle out – experimental, incremental, emergent.”* Henry Mintzberg
In this post, I would like to invite you to reflect on the processes of change that happen from the bottom up and as described by Professor Mintzberg are experimental, incremental and emergent.
For many people, experimental experiences evoke a feeling of freedom, maybe because the word experimental brings an implicit authorization to test possibilities without the commitment to hit the target. The value in the experimental experiences do not depend on the final result, what really counts is the learning that we acquire over the process.
It sounds interesting to me that outcomes from the experimental process are always positive, even if the result of the experience looks like a failure, we can visualize paths to avoid.
When we engage in experimental experiences, we keep our minds open to a broad range of possibilities and therefore, we increase our chances to identify the best path that will lead us to effective change.
Incremental sounds to me like an improvement to current routines and an improvement can be a result of an experimental experience or an insight from our reflections.
A small breakthrough is incremental and its benefits can be exponential if we keep our expectations in the long-term.
Experimental experiences generate learning and open space for the discovery of a new path that emerges from the experience looking feasible, contextualized and effective.
Small movements of change usually are silent, but when passion and purpose are the motivators behind them, they look like real and engaging.
Dear reader, please share your thoughts, your comments and personal experiences of change will be inspiring.
* Extracted from : Mintzberg, Henry, 2009, Simply Managing: what managers do and can do better. ISBN978-1-60994-923-5, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc
Illustration Photo Credit: Armitage77 on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND