Small Sparks, Big Shifts: Celebrating the quiet power of meaningful human work alongside the carnivals of corporate life

Caroline Taylor and Chris Nichols

We have become cautious about the grand gestures and fanfares of corporate life. Organisations can at times seem compelled towards the grand gestures of “bold new plans” and large scale “everything must change” initiatives. Often such transformations are sanctioned by the arrival of a new leader or grasped as the remedy to shifts in the competitive, technological or geopolitical environment.

A recent Harvard Business Review article, “Get Off the Transformation Treadmill¹” highlighted how repeated large-scale transformation campaigns can drain morale, unsettle stakeholders, and divert leaders from real value creation and called for a more human process of constant noticing and learning.

We find ourselves welcoming the Rigby and First article, not because it is new but because it isn’t. In our view the authors reflect a fundamental aspect of all organisational change in our experience, and that is that it always rests on the underlying human work of paying attention, making small changes, working with the messy reality of organisational life, unlearning and learning as we go. The more we can nourish organisations as places of communication, attention, collaboration and co-creation, the more we have a chance of keeping organisations attuned to the emerging shifts and opportunities of the world, and the less the need for periodic radical upheavals

Not much new under the sun

Of course this isn’t new. There has always been a tendency to split between strategy and change as periodic discontinuities and deliberate re-alignments, and strategy and change as constant attention and adjustment. The writing of Brian Quinn in the 1980s talked about change as a series of incremental adjustments (Brian Quinn, Strategies for Change: Logical Incrementalism 1980). Henry Minztberg was writing about change as “cycles of change” and continual response to emerging patterns back in the 1990s (see, Cycles of organisational change, Strategic Management Society Journal, 1992), and Teece, Pissano and others were researching throughout the 1990s the “dynamic capabilities” that underpin organisational ability to respond in a shifting world.

Our work rests on these foundations and draws on the humanistic approach to organisations particularly action research, action inquiry and learning approaches to organisational life. Our practice has been about supporting the human fabric of change, through which organisational learning, collaboration and exploration can be nurtured in practice, and through which these “dynamic” cycles of constant attention and adjustment can become more possible, and the need for exhausting re-alignment mitigated or avoided.

Our focus on what works

Our work over the past three decades has focused on the practice of noticing what already works in organisational processes and practices, of amplifying strengths, and inviting people into possibility rather than fatigue. This is a collaborative inquiry practice with its roots in the action research movement (Reason, Bradbury and many others) and action inquiry (Bill Torbert). It also rests in complexity thinking (Stacey and others), social construction (Ken Gergin) and the whole appreciative inquiry movement (David Cooperrider and others)

What we have noticed over the years is that successful change processes are largely conversational and come about through shifts in the meaning being made and the stories being told at a micro-level. These can often be different to the over-arching corporate narratives of formal change programmes, and have much in common with the “strategy as weeds” cycles of Mintzberg’s work, and James Moncrieff’s non-linear learning model of the late 1990s which became a pivotal conceptualisation of change.

The power of small groups of people, often (but not always) working in the informal subterranean processes of the organisation are frequently crucial to the success or otherwise of change processes. Much attention gets paid to the grand launch events of change initiatives and to the formal projects and chart of change management, but it is in the informal conversations that change is made.

Trojan mice and the connected clusters of informal knowing

This is why we became attracted to the concept of trojan mice – the small and often informal clusters of exploration and experimentation that exist in every organisation, and that usually inhabit the informal world, never appearing in change plans or on organisational charts. Finding and supporting these proponents of informal clusters of exploration and learning offers a pathway to promote continuous, tactical adjustments that can compound over time. Investing in the nurturing, support and connectivity of such clusters offers the potential of creating a wider organisational capacity for attention and agility.

Sometimes we hear from CEOs and executive teams that they are struggling with organisational commitment to the strategy or change, that people “aren’t stepping up” or that there is “insuffient buy-in”. Nearly always, deeper in these same organisations there is brilliant and energetic work going on, that the formal organisation knows nothing about or, worse, regards as a problem.

Time and again we have seen excellent organisational work being done beyond the confines of formal processes, by groups of people who form communities of attention, communities of concern, communities of learning and experimentation. These are often informal, built on shared interests and enjoy sufficient levels of trust to allow frankness and vulnerability that may be harder to gain in more formal spaces.

There is a need to bring the formal and informal world of change closer together – not to impose control but to allow flourishing beyond the confines of a mono-culture, since this is both more human and generally more effective. It even opens the possibility that organisations may become more able to attend well to change and adapt in ways that reduce the need for larger deliberate re-alignments, by increasing the possibility of organisational learning and re-learning at scale. That may well offer the chance to avoid the “transformation treadmill” and seize some of the benefits of the dynamic capabilities and incremental adjustments sought by the writers of three decades ago!

What this looks like in practice can include

In our experience there are many ways organisations can support this work, and this is a particularly important role for HR and OD colleagues. This can include:

• The development of organisational awareness of an approach to change that goes beyond the mechanistic. Some knowledge of organic and system ways of perceiving organisations is a vital skill in an age of turbulence.
• Developing a sense of shared strategic intention and encouraging awareness of the strategic environment through investing in the skills of perspective and scanning, and making curiosity a desirable attribute in organisational life.
• Investing in the development of human attributes that support better collaboration and communication.
• Developing awareness among the more senior levels of leadership that this investment is not about control, it’s about potential – often good work of the informal system can be undermined by over zealous attempts to standardise and corral the emergent ideas of the wider organisation.
• Investing in awareness of power and group dynamics so that the organisation is more alert to sources and flows of power, as this can help nurture work in the informal system without it becoming seen as sources of “resistance” or insurrection.

There is a vital role for HR and OD colleagues in maintaining an organisational focus on the human and informal, particularly at times when organisational stress may exert a tendence towards control, or when investments in technology include machine learning and AI can feel like the human space is being threatened.

Next steps

We are not arguing that there should be an end to all large scale change processes – though we are suggesting that there should be at least equal investment in the nurturing of the informal and the human. So much gets invested in the large scale charismatic gestures of launches and change events, but these are not in general where the real work happens. Putting as much, or more effort into supporting the human work that makes the difference would be a radical step, and in our experience it would be likely to offer the better reward.

We are planning to offer a one-hour collaboration group to explore the ideas in this briefing note. If you would like to attend please email Caroline.Taylor@oxford-group.com

¹Rigby. D and First. Z , Get OFF the Transformation Treadmill, Harvard Business Review, January-February 2026

About The Authors

Caroline Taylor and Chris Nichols work at the intersection of leadership, organisational development, and systemic change. Together, they bring decades of experience supporting leaders, teams, and organisations to navigate complexity with clarity, curiosity, and a deeply human approach.

Caroline is Executive Director of The Oxford Group, an executive coach, leadership development practitioner, and co‑author of the bestselling The Neglected Acts of Leadership. Her background spans senior OD roles across global organisations including BP, BG Group, O2, Oracle, Disney, and the EBRD. Her work focuses on helping leaders pause, notice, and reconnect with the fundamentals that enable sustainable performance and meaningful connection.

Chris is a Senior Consultant with The Oxford Group, as well as a speaker, writer, podcast host, and Honorary Visiting Professor at Cardiff University. Formerly Professor of Practice in Systems at Ashridge Business School, he is also co‑founder of the award‑winning GameShift collaboration. His earlier career includes a decade as a Director in Price Waterhouse’s global energy practice, working in over 50 countries. He specialises in action inquiry and reflective practice to support teams engaged in complex systemic change across sectors including universities, health and food systems.