Innovation U N L E A S H E D

with Positive Deviance

Keith McCandless, Social Invention Group

January 2007

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Key Themes

• Drawing out innovations that has gone unnoticed in your organization or community;

• Improvising with the materials and imagination at hand - bricolage (not trying for perfection);

• Supporting communities-of-practice that sustain innovation; and,

• Recognizing that innovation is a social process that spreads peer-to-peer

What Is Innovation?

• Innovation is the act that endows

resources with a new capacity to create

value (Drucker)

• Getting a valuable new idea or

technology or advance-in-practice

adopted (Rogers)

• Innovations are non-linear shifts that

change the rules and transform

common practices (McCandless)

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Innovation, Not Improvement

Changing the Rules in the High Jump

Improvement

Innovation…

Met

ers…

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Continuum of Theories

Let It Happen <<< Help It Happen >>> Make It Happen

INNOVATION IS: Unpredictable,

emergent, socially constructed adaptation

INNOVATION IS: Socially-enabled progress through

“lightly held” plans

INNOVATION IS: Managerial, planned

process of design and dissemination

MEASUREMENT Support sense-making & direction shaping as

goals emerge & evolve

MEASUREMENTCapture movement

toward goals as “vetting” work unfolds

MEASUREMENTPredict and control

movement toward a pre-determined aim

Facilitate learning & alertness that informs

ongoing innovationWHAT IS POSSIBLE

NOW?

Provide ongoing feedback regarding

strengths & weaknesses

IS IT PROGRESSING?

Render evidence and definitive judgments of success or failure

DOES IT WORK?

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Premise of Positive Deviance

In every community there are certain individuals whose uncommon practices/ behaviors enable them to find better solutions to problems than their neighbors who have access to the same resources.

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The Vietnam StoryThe future is already here…

but it is not at all well distributed.

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Positive Deviance Process

• Define– the problem and what desired outcome would look like

• Discover– if there are individuals/units who already exhibit the desired

behavior/outcome

• Determine– the uncommon, but demonstrably successful

behaviors/strategies enabling the “positive deviants” to find an innovative solution to the problem

• Design– an intervention/program enabling others in the “community” to

practice the new behaviors/strategies. (Note: focus on practice rather than knowledge!) Adapted from Jerry Sternin

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First Steps -- DEFINE

• Define the problem and desired outcome or innovation

• Determine data required to identify Positive Deviants (those already exhibiting desired status/behavior) if they exist

• Identify those to be involved in the inquiry… beyond the usual suspects

• Frame the inquiry in a way that the benefit is clear to those involved

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CONTRASTING APPROACHES I

TRADITIONAL

• Externally Fueled (by “experts” or internal authority)

• Top-down, Outside-in

• Deficit Based “What’s wrong here?”

• Begins with analysis of underlying causes of PROBLEM

• Solution Space limited by perceived problem parameters

• Triggers Immune System “defense response”

POSITIVE DEVIANCE

• Internally Fueled (by “people like us”, same culture and resources)

• Down-up, Inside-out

• Asset Based “What’s right here?”

• Begins with analysis of demonstrably successful SOLUTIONS

• Solution Space enlarged through discovery of actual parameters

• Bypasses Immune System (solution shares same “DNA” as host)

Adapted from Jerry Sternin

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Acting Your Way Into New Thinking

… not thinking or designing your way into new acting

Perceived Advantage

Opportunity for practice

Social ProofKNOWLEDGE

BEHAVIOR

CHANGE

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S P R E A D OF INNOVATIONS

The tyranny of averages always conceals sparkling exceptions to the rule. JS

Diffusion Attributes

• Relative advantage

• Compatibility

• Complexity

• Trial-ability

• Observability

PD Behaviors• identified as “advantageous”

by peers

• created within cultural

context

• requires no special resources

• opportunity to practice

• through PD participants and

personal experience

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Awareness-to-Integration Development EffortsFocusing on Adoption & Integration in Communities

DELIVERY APPROACH

OB

JEC

TIV

E O

R A

IM

Transformative thinking & innovating

Skill & competency

building

Information transfer

Expert Centered

Individual orPatient Centered

Community & Group Relationship Centered

AwarenessClinician hears

about innovation for the first time

AgreementClinician evaluates

relative value of the innovation

AdoptionClinician tries out the innovation

IntegrationInnovation is a routine part of

behavior

2. However, adoption occurs in communities-

of-practice with interpersonal “peer”

influence at play

1. Traditional change efforts focus on

generating awareness & agreement with evidence or data

© 2004, Keith McCandless

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Non-Linear, Bottom-up Fringe-In Learning Process Focusing on Self-Discovery and Social Proof Within the Community

DELIVERY APPROACH

OB

JEC

TIV

E O

R A

IM

Transformative thinking & innovating

Skill & competency

building

Information transfer

Expert Centered

Individual orPatient Centered

Community & Group Relationship Centered

AwarenessPeople whose behavior

needs to change discover PDs Agreement

People see peers solving the problem

with the same resources

AdoptionPeople practice &

co-evolve behavior in their local context

IntegrationInnovation is a

routine-but-unseen part of behavior

2. However, adoption occurs in communities-of-practice with interpersonal

“peer” influence at play

1. Traditional change efforts focus on generating

awareness & agreement with evidence or data

© 2004, Keith McCandless

3. Further, PD unleashes creativity adaptability and collective

mindfulness among working groups, moving from explicit- to implicit- to

tacit- know-how spontaneously

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Sources of Knowledge, Learning & Talent

Explicit Tacit LatentASK

What your students or patients tell you

they need when you ask (e.g., focus

groups)

OBSERVEWhat behaviors you

see in their local context (e.g.,

ethnographic studies)

CREATE & EXPERIENCE

What you jointly develop with your students/patients

(e.g., rapid prototyping efforts)

++

+++++

Telling

Adapted from Alan Duncan, MD (Mayo Clinic)