Positive Deviance

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Positive Deviance (PD) is an approach to personal, organizational and cultural change based on the idea that every community or group of people performing a similar function has certain individuals (the "Positive Deviants") whose special attitudes, practices/ strategies/ behaviors enable them to function more effectively than others with the exact same resources and conditions.[1] Because Positive Deviants derive their extraordinary capabilities from the identical environmental conditions as those around them, but are not constrained by conventional wisdoms, Positive Deviants standards for attitudes, thinking and behavior are readily accepted as the foundation for profound organizational and cultural change.

For example, even though poverty is often the root-cause of ill health, in any community there will usually be some families, the Positive Deviants, that manage to stay healthy, or raise healthy kids, despite their poverty. Their practices, such as washing their hands more often, cooking the food differently, consuming crops that were considered taboo by the rest of the village etc. became the foundation for large scale community change.

Similarly, in any other population, even in such seemingly mundane groups as service personnel in a fast food environment, the Positive Deviants have attitudes, cognitive processes and behavioral patterns that lead to significantly improved performance in key metrics such as speed-of-service and profitability. Widespread adoption of the Positive Deviant approaches consistently leads to significant performance improvement.

The method was introduced by Jerry Sternin during his work with child nutrition in Vietnam, who has continued to promote the concept together with his wife Monique. His work was based on that of Marian Zeitlin, Professor of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. This work was significantly extended, primarily to the private sector, by William Seidman and Michael McCauley. Their extensions include methodologies and technologies for:

  • Quickly identifying the Positive Deviants[2]
  • Efficiently gathering and organizing the Positive Deviant knowledge
  • Motivating a willingness in others to adopt the Positive Deviant approaches[3]
  • Sustaining the change by others by integrating it into their pre-existing emotional and cognitive functions[4]
  • Scaling the positive deviant knowledge to large numbers of people simultaneously[5]

Positive deviance was further extended to groups or organizations by Gary Hamel.[6] Hamel looks to Positive Deviant companies to set the example for “management innovation.”

[edit] References

  1. ^ Harvesting the Experts'"Secret Sauce" To Close the Performance Gap.,Seidman, William & McCauley, Michael. Performance Improvement Journal,Jan 2003 v42 n1 p32-39.
  2. ^ Harvesting the Experts'"Secret Sauce" To Close the Performance Gap.,Seidman, William & McCauley, Michael. Performance Improvement Journal,Jan 2003 v42 n1 p32-39.
  3. ^ 8 Minutes to Performance Improvement. Seidman, William & McCauley, Michael. Performance Improvement. July 2003, v42, n6, pp.23-29.
  4. ^ The Performance Improvement Multiplier, Seidman, William & McCauley, Michael. Performance Improvement. October 2003, v42, n9, pp.33-37.
  5. ^ Performance Improvement in a Far-flung Enterprise. Seidman, William & McCauley, Michael, 2002.
  6. ^ The Future of Management, Hamel, Gary. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 2007.

[edit] External links