The Power of Positive Deviants – great article in the Boston Globe

Jerry and Monique Sternin, Positive Deviance pioneers

Following on from our recent posting about the Positive Deviancy approach, we were pleased to see another good article on this method, this time by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow in the Boston Globe. The article gives some great examples of how Positive Deviancy is being used to reduce MRSA in American hospitals, and improving academic performance in schools.

One of the wonderful things about this approach is how it recognises ordinary people as the experts at what they do:

At Albert Einstein, for example, a patient transporter named Jasper Palmer had a technique for removing his gown, balling it up into a small package, and stuffing it inside his inverted gloves for disposal. A highly effective way of thwarting germs, it has since been deemed the Palmer method and widely adopted.”

There’s also a wonderful quote from Positive Deviance pioneer Monique Sternin:

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.”

Who do you know who is a good example of Positive Deviance? For example, I’m privileged to know Andy Jackson, chief executive of the Manchester-based charity Dreamcatchers, who consistently gets great results in the youth work field by doing what works. He is definitely worth talking to if you want to improve outcomes in youth work, secondary education, or engaging young people.

Introduction to Positive Deviance

Positive Deviance in action: Maternal and newborn care project in Vietnam

A recent article in the Guardian by Jane Dudman gives a good introduction to the Positive Deviance model, a method of solving ‘intractable’ social and organisational problems through the principle that:

…in every community or organisation, there are some people who do better than others, even though everyone has the same resources. By finding how what works well, the whole community or organisation can implement improved practices.

A second article homes in on one example of how the Positive Deviance approach is being used to reduce antisocial behaviour in Gosport, Hampshire, by finding families where children behave well, discovering what they are doing differently, and how this can be copied by local parents.

The approach has some obvious similarities with Appreciative Inquiry – the focus on what is working rather than problems, looking for examples of positive exceptions, and the need to involve everyone so that they own the solutions.

The Positive Deviance Initiative has produced some accessible guides and tools downloadable from their web site, which are well worth a look for Appreciative Inquiry practitioners (NB if you found that the link to this site in the first Guardian article doesn’t work,  you can use the one above). It also has case studies from many Positive Deviance projects around the world, such as the Maternal and Newborn Care project in Vietnam.

I particularly liked this quote from the Basic Guide to the Positive Deviance (PD) Approach:

“Act your way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking your way into a new way of acting”