POSITIVE DEVIANCE,(Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin)

Positive Deviance concept is based on the observation that in every community there are individuals or groups, whose, even though being in the same conditions as their peers, have intentional different behaviors or strategies that make them find better solutions than their peers. These individuals or groups, with this successful behavior are the positive deviants, who living and working in the same constraints as everyone else, find their own way to succeed.

In this book, Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin note and outline the positive deviance (PD) as a strength-based approach which is applied to complex problems which require behavior and social change, and as an approach that is successfully implemented in over forty countries. The PD approach differs from traditional ideas of authority and power and gives to the people the opportunity to discover solutions by themselves.

The concept first appeared in childhood malnutrition research, made from Jerry Sternin (who, for a short period of time was the director of the Save the Children program in Vietnam) and his wife, Monique. The traditional methods were to analyze the situation from the outside experts and then to bring food and aids from elsewhere. The aid program required costs which couldn’t be provided and couldn’t afford the usual approach. This made the Sternins find new solutions.

They went to the villages in trouble and got the local people to help them find and identify the families that had the best-nourished children. It was really revolutionary, because despite the poverty, the bad conditions of living and the low level of wisdom, there were well-nourished children among them. Exactly these mothers, who had the best-nourished children, feeding them even when they were sick, adding sweet-potato greens, shrimp, crabs to their children’s rice despite the fact that they were considered as low-class food, washing their children’s hand before meals and feeding them three or four times a day, were the positive deviants, as Jerry Sternin termed them. These ideas and methods of nourishing, different from the others, spread and took hold all over the village and after measuring the results posted them in the other villages. In two years, malnutrition fell by 85%. The solution came from the locals, from the community members and was more successful and more effective than those of outside experts.

There are many stories and examples of positive deviance that share the common essential idea of observable exceptions. This is the point that makes the positive deviance a successful process: focus on the successful deviations, not following the failing norms.

The concept of this awkward term is simple: check the outlier who succeeds against all difficulties and against all odds.

Often we hear: “We have tried everything and nothing works”. But, there is at least one person in the community that has already solved the problem, in a different way, has tried different successful methods, deviating from the norms. In most of cases the positive deviator doesn’t even know he or she is doing something different or unusual. Once the unique solution is discovered and assimilated, it can be spread and adopted by the wider community.

The PD approach is spread all over the world. Here are some of positive deviance stories:

• Reduction of malnutrition in twenty-two Vietnamese provinces and in communities in forty-one other countries.
• Reduction in transmission of MRSA (antibiotic resistant bacteria) in three hospitals in U.S.
• Reduction in neonatal mortality in Pakistan.
• Reduction in girl trafficking in East Java.
• Creation of dozen of FGM (female genital mutilation)- free communities and a headship of women’s advocates, which provided a four percent drop in FMG prevalence nationwide from 1997 to 2000.

The positive deviance can be used when:

• The problem requires behavior and social change.
• Other solutions haven’t work.
• Positive deviants are noted.
• There are enough incomes and leadership to address the issue.

The principles of PD approach are:

· The best experts to solve their problems are the communities.

· Self-organization.

· Collective intelligence. Intelligence and the greatest ideas are not concentrated only in the leaders or experts, but they are distributed throughout the members of the community. The PD process reveals the collective intelligence and uses it to the problems that require behavior or social change.

· Sustainability. The PD approach’s aim is to find sustainable solutions among all the uncommon behaviors.

· Practicing. Once the new sustainable solution is founded and understood must be practiced, making it easer to change the behavior.

The success of PD approach is based in four simple steps, which are so called the four D’s: define, determine, discover and design. These steps are the map of the process.

Step 1: Define which the problem is.

Step 2: Determine common practices used before to solve these kinds of problems.

Step 3: Discover different and uncommon but successful behaviors.

Step 4: Design an action based on the conclusions.

Positive deviance is the key of solving many complex problems, which can not be solved with the traditional methods, and to make this approach succeed must be remembered that the true experts are among the community, are part of it. There are many positive deviants among us and, in order to bring them to light, the work of everybody must be evaluated in the same way, because he or she, that nobody can imagine, can be the positive deviator.