OSR Alumni Association presents
Third annual conference
How is change changing? Explore new patterns of practice.
The end of leadership and consultancy as we know it
Positive deviance • improvisation • complexity
with Joelle Lyons Everett and Keith McCandless
Conventional wisdom and logic are upended.
In every community there are certain individuals (the positive deviants) whose special practices and behaviors enable them to find better solutions to prevalent community problems than their neighbors who have access to the same resources. Think: the family that is able to live healthy lives, even thrive, amidst squalor.
"Positive deviance (PD) is a development approach based on the premise that solutions to community problems already exist within the community. The positive deviance process differs from traditional "needs based" or problem-solving approaches in that it does not focus primarily on identification of needs and the external inputs necessary to meet those needs or solve problems. Instead PD seeks to identify and optimize existing resources and solutions within the community to solve community problems." — from Save the Children's PD Nutrition Field Guide
You can unleash more self organization in a system without conventional behaviors that attempt to control the outcome. In this workshop, you’ll practice a positive deviance process called "Discovery and Action Dialogue."
Joelle and Keith will share stories and hard results from a successful effort to eliminate MRSA infections in hospitals using positive deviance, improvisation and other complexity-science-inspired methods.
You’re out of your chairs in this workshop. Hold on to your hats!
Your workshop take-aways
- A simple process for quickly involving everyone in small-group and whole-group conversations
- Unleashing self-discovery and full participation with the positive deviance "discovery and action dialogue" process
- Discerning when simple, complicated or complex approaches match your challenges, using the agreement/uncertainty matrix
Related links
Conference workshops
- Morning workshops
- The way we travel will change the world
- The end of leadership and consultancy as we know it
- Achieve higher performance through communities of practice and social networks
- Leading change with head and heart
- Afternoon workshops
- Finding the magic: When groups achieve extraordinary results
- Radical change at the "speed of trust"
- Crucial conversations with a cross-cultural twist
- Changing boundaries: How can we support youth participation in change?
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