Small-Grand-Grandiose
Find your way forward in practice, one experiment at a time.
The direction is set, and the people around the table stand behind it. Often it's a choice about what your clients will need you for three years from now. Then the questions arrive that a plan can only partly answer. What does this ask of our people? How will clients respond? Where will it snag in day-to-day work? Some of those answers only show up once you start.
Small-Grand-Grandiose is how we help you find them. It's our own approach, and it's how we work: three movements that grow from a first experiment into the way your organization runs.
Three Movements of Discovery
Small
WEEKS TO MONTHSA small team takes on a real question from your daily work and tries something out. Within weeks you see what lands with clients, what surprises you, and what the choice asks of your organization.
Every experiment ends with three questions: What did we do? What did we learn? What will we do differently next time? The business case grows from what you've seen happen.
Grand
MONTHSWhat proved itself in practice now grows across the organization. Before systems, structures, or processes change, the people involved look at readiness together, and the decision to scale rests on a shared view of impact and investment.
People who took part in the experiments help make the case, so scaling moves at a pace your people can carry.
Grandiose
THE NEW NORMALThe new ways of working settle into how your organization runs and become part of its culture.
Along the way, you build something that outlasts this one change: the ability to meet the next open question with the same disciplined curiosity. Clients who work this way often tell us the second change feels lighter than the first.
How it works in practice
You can start with the first movement on its own and decide from there.
Where it starts
A starting session where we map the question, the choice behind it, and who needs to be at the table.
Who's involved
A small team of volunteers working on a real question, with a sponsor from your leadership team.
What we do
We design the experiments with you, coach sponsors and team leads, and make sure what one team learns reaches the others.
Rhythm and length
90 day learning cycles. The first movement takes weeks to months, all three together six to twelve months. Tailored to your organization.
Standing on the shoulders of giants
John Kotter's work shows how a movement for change builds and spreads through an organization, and William Bridges' work shows what change asks of each person along the way. Service Design brings safe-to-fail experiments that test an idea before it scales, and LEGO® Serious Play® gives a team a way to think with its hands and say what's hard to put into words. Small-Grand-Grandiose brings these four together into one journey, and that part is wholly ours.
We're a partner of Kotter Training, and the only one in the region authorized to certify people in its methods. We've worked alongside midsize service firms for twenty-five years.
How discovery unfolds
FINANCIAL SERVICES
A financial services team wanted to move from selling products to building partnerships with their clients. They started with client research and small co-creation experiments. What they learned reshaped their approach and the way they see themselves. Their partnerships today grew from that learning.
Read the story →INSURANCE
An insurer set out to redefine its entire service model, and chose to experiment its way forward. Small tests showed what resonated with clients, and those insights grew into new ways of working. The model took shape in practice, step by step.
Read the story →SERVICE ORGANIZATION
A service organization already scored an 8.5 with its clients and wanted to know what a 9 or higher would mean for them. They used upcoming system changes as learning labs. They found their own version of excellence by exploring what fit their context.
Read the story →Every journey looks different. The pattern holds: begin with an open question, learn by doing, scale what works, and make it part of who you are.
Where it fits in your journey
Once a choice is on the table, Small-Grand-Grandiose helps you put it to the test and then make it happen. The first movement shows whether the choice holds and what it asks of your organization. Sometimes an experiment sends a choice back to the table, and that's a win too. The second and third movements carry what works into the whole organization.
- STEP 1 Choices on the table Where your journey usually begins
- STEP 2 Choices put to the test Small
- STEP 3 Making choices happen Grand and Grandiose