What does it take to transform an organization’s culture? Conventional wisdom tells us that success starts at the top, where leadership support is the most important factor. Learning and development (L&D) is then tasked with delivering programs that teach leaders how to drive and manage the change.

Still, culture changes often stall because they rely too heavily on executive sponsorship. According to a 2021 McKinsey study, visibly engaged executives are not enough; roughly 70% of top-down change initiatives still fail to achieve their strategic goals and maintain long-term momentum.

What if there’s another way? One that starts at the bottom and harnesses employees’ intrinsic motivation to improve workplace culture.

McKinsey’s findings point to frontline employee engagement as a key differentiator. These employees then provide senior leaders with feedback, lead transformation initiatives and serve as thought partners to managers.

This suggests that L&D can add significant value by building and supporting employees working toward “grassroots” culture change to accelerate the success of top-down initiatives — or even drive change from the bottom up.

Why Does Grassroots Culture Change Work?

Grassroots change taps into employee energy and its proximity to real work so the organization can respond faster and adapt to local realities. Employees are more likely to trust and engage with grassroots change efforts, which they often view as more credible. Bottom-up efforts can also be less resource-intensive, which has its own appeal in modern, resource-constrained organizations.

In a 2024 blog post, Harnessing Grassroots Visionary Leadership in Your Organization, organizational researcher and consultant, Jonathan Westover, advocates for this approach, noting that grassroots leadership is an often untapped organizational asset. To make his case, Westover provides examples of successful bottom-up changes that have propelled companies to industry leadership positions, such as the renowned grassroots innovation at 3M that resulted in Post-It Notes.

As examples like this demonstrate, organizations that build on grassroots efforts realize important benefits: increased agility, higher employee engagement and morale and better use of internal talent and networks. All of these have significant bottom-line impacts.

L&D fits into this equation by equipping employees with the interpersonal and political skills, language and confidence they need to act and drive change themselves.

This is where learning leaders get to flex their internal consulting skills and leverage their own business acumen. Grassroots efforts also lean more heavily on designing informal learning solutions than formal ones.

The benefits don’t just serve the broader organization — they serve employees in their own career development. They gain increased visibility, influence, cross-organizational acumen and stronger professional networks.

Where Do We Start?

The first steps are identifying and understanding opportunities that already exist within the organization — those individuals or small groups who want culture change, along with pockets where change is already occurring.

Find and Support “Tempered Radicals”

This term was coined by Debra Meyerson and Maureen Scully in their 1995 paper for Organizational Science, “Tempered Radicalism and the Politics of Ambivalence and Change.” Tempered radicals are the “outsiders within” organizations who bring different realities and personal perspectives to the worlds in which they operate. Meyerson and Scully provide examples of diverse voices that have nudged their organizations to be more inclusive.

What makes them “tempered?” They don’t present as rebels and are often successful in their jobs. They challenge the status quo in small, cautious ways and work incrementally, quietly and persistently to effect change. Over time their impact compounds with small wins.

Key characteristics are their credibility within their organizations, their willingness to question assumptions and their strategic patience and emotional intelligence. They understand the political environment and know when to speak up and advocate for themselves and others.

Meyerson and Scully observe, though, that it’s a lonely and frustrating role that can ultimately drive these changemakers to leave or disengage.

L&D can support these tempered radicals by connecting them with communities of supportive believers, skills and mentors to amplify their effectiveness and reduce burnout.

Analyze and Expand Existing Culture Bubbles

Even in organizations that are stuck culturally, there are often departments or subsets operating differently. In her book “The Fearless Organization,” Amy Edmondson refers to these as “cultural oases.” Whatever you call them, visionary leaders sit at the heart of them, often without leadership titles.

Understanding the unique characteristics of visionary leaders helps identify what makes them so effective and provides hints into training that can elevate their skills.

Key qualities often include:

• Belief in an innovative vision
• Experience building relationships
• Ability to influence without authority
• Willingness to challenge norms, despite initial resistance
• Deep understanding of customer and operational realities

Wearing its consulting “hat,” L&D can identify those who are effective and amplify their business successes. Analysis findings will also suggest skill-building opportunities for other potential leaders. In addition, by bringing them together with peers and mentors, L&D can end their isolation.

Create Informal Pathways

We create the conditions for culture change to flourish when we turn believers into builders. This requires creating informal pathways to develop skills. L&D can be the architect of these pathways.

L&D plays its most powerful role when it:

• Connects people across informal networks
• Legitimizes experimentation that’s already happening
• Scales what’s working instead of inventing what isn’t

Informal learning, which includes both social and on-the-job learning, is lower risk and low-resistance and encourages experimentation to find what works best in different subsets of the organization.

“Change begins where people gather,” as the saying goes. This community organizing truism is also true for companies. We can leverage “gatherings” to design informal learning specifically targeted to support grassroots culture change.

All of the following informal techniques can be facilitated in person or virtually.

Host forums, roundtables and listening sessions. Provide opportunities for visionary leaders and tempered radicals to hear and share what’s working and what’s not and to brainstorm approaches that might gain traction.

Leverage internal networks. Employee resource groups support “outsiders within” and are natural starting places to establish peer-mentoring, traditional mentoring and intentional skill-building support programs.

Build rotational programs. Experiencing different work groups or roles helps expand employees’ business acumen, expose them to different perspectives and increase their visibility and influence.

Nurture communities of practice. Providing venues and conversation starters helps employees share frustrations and successes, provides access to peer-mentoring and fosters belonging. Successful communities are driven by a clear, shared vision. L&D can facilitate creating this, along with community guidelines and engagement norms.

Celebrate informal wins. Momentum with culture change is a win, even when the finish line is still far in the distance. L&D can amplify interim wins and design celebrations. These could be as small as a pizza day or as visible as a congratulatory email from the CEO.

Customizing Core Skills for Grassroots Change Agents

Of course, potential change agents might need to develop or enhance key skills. Some core skill programs may already exist. Others might need tailoring to reconsider their context and make them relevant.

To maximize effectiveness, customize them with an array of practice, support and community reinforcement opportunities, such as:

Cohort-based learning. This creates a natural support community for learners to lean on.

Peer-facilitated labs. These provide structure and promote experiential learning. Peer-facilitation of a discussion or practice session creates a safe space for active engagement and in-session coaching.

Story-sharing and reflection. Successfully influencing others requires telling authentic, compelling stories of our own experiences. Embed story-sharing in learning sessions to provide regular practice, reflection and feedback opportunities.

Manager-as-coach reinforcement. L&D can make this easier by providing managers with guidance and question guides to encourage coaching employees on new skills.

Practical First Steps

To design a plan for incorporating bottom-up approaches into your culture change initiatives, start by identifying grassroots leaders already modeling change.

Rather than roll out an expansive program, pilot small learning experiences and measure momentum. Implementing periodic culture surveys can provide a leading indicator for later business results. Don’t stop there, though. Identify metrics that align with organizational goals and that will be influenced by culture change. Common ones include employee retention, customer satisfaction, revenue and profitability.

Create plans that protect spaces for experimentation and reflection. Change always meets resistance, and employees need time to reflect on what is working — or not.

Grassroots culture change is not a program, it’s a practice. By identifying opportunities and tools to meet the needs of tempered radicals and visionary leaders and turn believers into builders, L&D can create conditions that accelerate culture change.

No single action creates a revolution, but we can enable the accumulation of actions that lead to evolution and to meaningful results.