The Power of Positive Deviance

Hi everybody,

A book from Richard Pascale, Jerry and Monique Sternin, which explains the power of deviance when it used for good purposes, it explains how the last two authors, who used to be volunteers with “Save the Children”, program in Vietnam, managed to cope with their problems and solve most of the malnutrition (the program that they were working for) problem, even after their budget was reduced.

This is one of the solutions that authors managed to find through the positive deviance, so according to them the problem could not be solved from foreign experts, the solution was within the society, within the people, because not all the Vietnamese children were suffering from malnutrition.

Authors of this present a problem-solving approach that emphasizes three "Cs" — community, commitment and communication.

The key of the success that authors achieved in their different missions is that they focus on local outliers, the "positive deviants," who have already figured out the solution and identify the secrets of their success. As important, communities are then mobilized based on their norms and culture to adopt the same habits and behaviors and there is the point where three Cs come to the usage.

According to the authors the Power of Positive Deviance is devoted to how community must work to teach and change itself, which could be achieved through each individual of society coming with successful outcome.

Blerina