Microexperiences

Microexperiences are a unique way to strengthen leaders and organizational culture that I created during a 17-year period of extensive research and experimentation. According to program effectiveness data, they are:

Microexperiences have been used to develop over 50,000 leaders including executives as senior as Fortune 50 CEOs.


Client Results

  • A $10B manufacturer scaled up to develop 100% of its people leaders from 12% with no increase in L&D budget
  • A 145K-person government agency experienced a "huge culture transformation"--meetings were made 63% more productive, work items were completed 55% faster, and decisions were made 78% faster
  • A 4000-person software firm got 91% of its leaders applying classroom learning to their jobs as measured by their bosses (industry standard is <10%)
  • An iconic nationwide brand increased employee engagement scores 12% by accelerating the rate of new skill acquisition among leaders

No Classrooms

Microexperience programs do not take place in classrooms. They leverage the normal workplace environment and real work in bite-sized chunks that combine learning and working (examples below). Most other development programs require leaders to stop working in order to learn, a tactic that consistently fails to improve on-the-job performance.


"I like the format; how it’s chunked into bite size pieces – easy to process and digest. It’s like having a personal trainer, I don’t want it to stop!"

Terri G., Vice President


Examples of Microexperiences

Here's an example of a single, "bite-sized" microexperience. This one is designed to strengthen emotional intelligence and active listening. Imagine your company's leaders completing this activity this week:

Identify the next meeting on your calendar that has at least five people in it. During that meeting, try to imagine what each person is thinking and feeling but not actually saying. Take notes for each person.

Dozens of microexperiences can be designed for nearly any skill or job, from entry level to executives. Here's an example for more senior leaders, particularly for an organization that wants to be more disruptive in their industry and needs its executives to be more innovative and entrepreneurial:

Step inside the mind of your organization's Gen Z customers and identify what you believe their top 3 value drivers are–what they want most from organizations like yours and would pay top dollar for. Then quickly assess how well you’re meeting their expectations in comparison to any other competitor of your choosing.

When a set of well-designed microexperiences is delivered at scale to hundreds or thousands of employees, they have the power to transform culture and accelerate organizational transformation initiatives.


10X More Effective

Microexperiences have a 90% success rate in strengthening targeted leadership behaviors on the job according to "level 3" (behavior change) effectiveness data from actual microexperience programs. This means that 9 out of 10 bosses observed stronger on-the-job leadership among participants in the specific competencies targeted by the microexperience programs.

By contrast, success rates are typically below 9% in most leader development programs according to research from Harvard, MIT, Forbes, and others.


1/10th The Cost

Microexperience programs are much less expensive to build than conventional programs because they do not require traditional content like slides, videos, or e-learning. They use carefully designed on-the-job actions and quick reflections to drive development. These programs are also less expensive to run because they do not require instructors, classrooms, or travel. Average program costs are typically 1/10th of what most organizations pay to develop their leaders.

👉 See the numbers - Use this template to compare the costs of your company's development programs to a microexperience-based program.


Ultra Scalable

The low cost of microexperience programs makes them highly scalable. High-impact development doesn't have to be limited to a privileged few, such as executives or high potentials. Microexperiences truly democratize development, enabling organizations to offer high impact development to all leaders at all levels affordably.

When microexperiences are designed to advance organizational strategy and delivered to hundreds or thousands of employees, they have the cumulative power to transform culture and accelerate large-scale organizational transformations. They've been used in enterprise initiatives to enhance cross-functional collaboration, inclusiveness, innovation, organizational agility, and more.


"Looking for the customer viewpoint has made me change my strategy. I routinely challenge my team now to view things from the customer's perspective and I've changed our key metrics to make them more closely aligned with the larger business."

Jennifer H., IT Director 


How it Works: A Process, Not an Event

Instead of the "fire hose effect" where participants must absorb a lot of content in a short time, microexperience programs use the "drip method"--small, spaced, high-repetition learning using the Weekly Execution Cycle shown here.




Each week, participants receive a new microexperience and complete this simple cycle with it:
  • ADAPT - Ensure the microexperience fits your unique job, developmental goals, and leadership style (1-2 min).
  • APPLY - Activate experiential development by completing the microexperience on the job (<45 min).
  • REFLECT - Answer questions to generate deeper insights and integrate them into everyday leadership (5-10 min). 
  • COLLABORATE - Accelerate development with 5-6 peers by exchanging insights in a small-group conversation led by a slightly more senior leader (55 min).

Since these actions are micro-sized and integrated into the real work leaders are already doing, they aren't a huge burden to participants' busy schedules.



"The weekly cadence works well; keeps it fresh."

Stephanie V., Senior Vice President



"I was worried about the amount of incremental work; it has turned out to be a non-issue. This is valuable."

Eric F., Director




Why it Works: The 5 Drivers of Transformational Growth

The Weekly Execution Cycle integrates leading science from many disciplines including adult developmental psychology, transformational learning, behavior change, and habit formation. 

It generates both horizontal development and vertical development in leaders by leveraging all 5 drivers of transformational growth shown in the table below.
  • Horizontal development generates competence with new knowledge and skills. It gets people to the middle of the performance bell curve, i.e., competent in their role. This is perfect for those in a new role to get them up to speed quickly. But horizontal development on its own rarely gets people to the right half of the bell curve, i.e., high performance and high potential.

  • Vertical development transforms competent leaders into high performing and high potential leaders by expanding cognitive complexity, learning agility, personal identity, and overall awareness. Research strongly correlates vertical development with leadership effectiveness, but vertical development methods are not broadly understood or used by program designers, especially within the workplace environment.



Many Metrics

A microexperience (MX) program generates many levels of effectiveness data
  • Participant ratings - Measures impact, used to make MXs stronger over time (quantitative, level 1)
  • Mini knowledge checks - Measures knowledge acquisition & retention (quantitative, level 2)
  • MX completion info - Measures engagement, used to direct support (quantitative, level 3) 
  • Input from participants’ managers - Measures behavior change on the job (quantitative, level 3)
  • End-of-program reflections - Measures business impact (qualitative & quantitative, level 4)
  • Success & failure cases - Measures enablers & inhibitors (qualitative via Brinkerhoff Method)
  • Post-program metrics - Measures long-term stickiness of program impacts (quantitative, longitudinal)



"I have come to more fully realize the impact I have on my team in living our company's values and carrying on the culture."

Brad D., leader of a 300-person department






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