Abundance Leaders

CHAPTER 6Microlevers: Small Tools for Big Change

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

—LAO TZE

Do small things with great love.

—MOTHER THERESA

The ultimate point of being an Abundance leader is to have a healthy organization that is productive, profitable, and has a positive impact on the world. Getting your organization to good health takes attention and effort. And, vice versa: healthy organizations are a beneficial result of Abundance Leadership. Getting your organization to better health does not have to be only about major change initiatives. Small acts can create big waves of positive culture.

In this chapter, I'll share seven of these microlevers that we use at OPG:

• The gong
• The annual donation—collective competition for the greater good
• Public agenda—speak up and be heard
• Community wall
• Snow globes and collective memory
• Facilitation rotation
• Dream list

Dynamic, healthy, and appropriate organizational cultures and climates lift morale, which in turn increases effectiveness, in turn creating an even healthier culture and climate. Difficult and dysfunctional cultures and climates work in the opposite direction, dragging down results and diminishing morale.

Leaders often think of culture change and improvement as a huge undertaking requiring significant organizational lift and involving extensive plans, hundreds of meetings, and big expenditures. Well, it does help to have a vision, a strategy, and a set of goals that define the desired culture, but ...