27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How outliers "succeed against all odds" to solve intractable problems, June 12, 2010
This review is from: The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems (Hardcover)
For those who are unfamiliar with the terms "outliers" and "positive deviance," the former refers to "an observation or phenomenon that is numerically distant from the rest of the data," an "extreme deviation from the mean." Malcolm Gladwell has written a book, Outliers: The Story of Success, in which he examines a number of individuals such as Bill Gates who become peak performers. As for "positive deviance," Richard Pasquale, Jerry Sternin, and Monique Sternin explain it as an awkward, oxymoronic term. "The concept is simple: look for outliers who succeed against all odds...The basic premise is this: (1) Solutions to seemingly intractable problems already exist, (2) they have been discovered by members of the community itself, and (3) these innovators (individual positive deviants) have succeeded even though they share the same constraints and barriers as others."
The co-authors acknowledge that the positive deviance process is not suitable for everything and suggest that "the process excels over most alternatives when addressing problems that "(1) are enmeshed in a complex social system, (2) require social and behavioral change, and (3) entail solutions that are rife with unforeseeable or unintended consequences." Also, this process should be at least considered when the given problems are viewed as "intractable" after prior solutions failed. Moreover, the process redirects attention from "what's wrong" to "what's right" - observable exceptions that succeed "against all odds."
I can personally attest that, on the basis of my extensive experience with corporate teams involved in process improvement initiatives (e.g. to reduce cycle time, improve first pass yield), the PD approach is almost always the best to take. Presumably the co-authors will not object if I suggest that "what doesn't work" and "what does work" could - and probably should - be used instead of "what's right" and "what's wrong." If I understand the authors (and I may not), they assert that the PD approach improves the chances of answering questions and solving problems that might not otherwise be accessible. Just as this PD approach is not suitable for every task or objective, it is also not suitable for everyone who could become involved.
So, when and how to decide which approach to use? The co-authors acknowledge that the standard model is probably the best course of action for roughly 70-80% of change problems encountered. "But when empirical experience leads us to conclude, 'we've tried everything and nothing works,' harnessing local understanding may be the only way to break the impasse." I agree while noting that (a) most change initiatives fail or at least fall far short of expectations and (b) most of those failures are the result of insufficient engagement but those "in the trenches" during the implementation process.
The bulk of the material in this book focuses on how the PD approach has helped to alleviate some of the world's toughest problems associated with childhood malnutrition in Vietnam, female circumcision in Egypt, hospital infections, "early wins, squandered gains" at Merck, and "girl soldiers" in Uganda. In these and other situations, the co-authors explain a natural progression of change within evolutionary systems that can be incorporated into the PD approach: change can disrupt prolonged equilibrium, "a precursor to death or stagnation"; an invitation to become involved in change requires those who accept to vacate a comfort zone (what James O'Toole characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom") and share ownership of challenges to orthodoxies that create turbulence; change agents become self-organized as new forms and new solutions emerge from the inevitable tumult; and of course, there are unintended consequences because living systems "do not follow a linear path. One can disturb them in a manner that approximates a desired outcome - but never fully direct them."
I congratulate Richard Pasquale, Jerry Sternin, and Monique Sternin on a brilliant achievement. The information and insights they provide in abundance substantially increase their reader's (this reader's) understanding of "nature's way" (i.e. modularization, selective variation, preservation of cultural and biological DNA, and the natural progression of change) and, especially, the implications for those in positions of authority. They call for "nothing less than a role reversal in which experts become learners, teachers become students, and authority figures become catalysts for bottom-up change." In my opinion, this book is an operations manual for change initiatives that could perhaps save the human race. I invite those who challenge that assertion to read...and then re-read...this book.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most significant book I've read in a few years, June 21, 2010
This review is from: The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems (Hardcover)
I recommend this book without hesitation or limitation. The breadth of opportunity presented by positive deviance, as an idea, a mindset, and a methodology, is a bit staggering. Every profession or field can be affected - health care, economic development, organizational development, social activism, leadership development, politics, and so on.
It has already become a lens with which I think about and pursue my work. And it is an easy read, full of real world stories and examples.
Well done!
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Learning from What Works, August 9, 2010
This review is from: The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems (Hardcover)
When charting a course, many of us are fond of saying "we don't know what we don't know." In this delightful book we are reminded that all too often in reality, "we don't know what we do know." Or, as Yogi said, "you can see a lot by looking." This is a book about just that: examining complex social systems, looking for unique positive behavior, coming to some level of understanding, and then propagating the better practice.
The book combs a lifetime of the most difficult kind of fieldwork by Jerry and Monique Sternin with a lifetime of teaching and writing by Richard Pascale to create a genuinely good book - one that is good on several levels. Leaders dealing with organizational change of the most difficult kind will find The Power of Positive Deviance to open up a world of tools that go often ignored in over structured change programs. But on an altogether different level it is a story book about remarkable case studies - childhood nutrition, female circumcision, deadly MRSA infections, and others - stories that are all about engagement, leadership, commitment and hope.
But it is not just a book about incredibly difficult problems; it is a book about how leaders can re-think their own organization by "re-looking." Easy to say and hard to do. The irony is that organizations spend enormous resources attacking negative deviance (as in "let's do a root cause analysis and fix the problem") but little or no effort looking for things that are "out of spec" in a positive direction. This is a book about how to do that - how to see what is happening, now to nurture it, and how to build a culture that embraces that kind of stimulus and change. For me that may have been the most powerful take-away: look for what is working - even better than you thought - figure out why and embrace it.
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