{"id":1391,"date":"2012-04-07T16:27:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-07T16:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=1391"},"modified":"2012-04-07T16:27:52","modified_gmt":"2012-04-07T16:27:52","slug":"the-power-of-the-positive-deviant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=1391","title":{"rendered":"The Power of the Positive Deviants"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It is neither reasonable nor sensible to expect anyone\u00a0to be a font of all\u00a0knowledge.<\/p>\n

And gurus with their group-think are\u00a0useful but potentially dangerous when they suppress competitive paradigms.<\/p>\n

So where does an Improvement Scientist seek reliable and trustworthy inspiration?<\/p>\n

Guessing is a poor guide;\u00a0gut-instinct\u00a0can seriously mislead; and mind-altering substances are illegal, unreliable\u00a0or both!<\/p>\n

So who are\u00a0the sources\u00a0of tested ideas and where do we find them?<\/p>\n

They are called Positive Deviants<\/strong> and they are everywhere.<\/p>\n

\n

But, the phrase positive deviant<\/em> does not feel quite right does it? The word \u201cdeviant<\/em>\u201d has a strong negative emotional association.\u00a0We are socially programmed from birth to treat deviations\u00a0from the norm with distrust and for good reason. Social animals view conformity and similarity as security – it is our herd instinct. Anyone who looks or behaves too far from the norm is perceived\u00a0as odd and therefore a potential threat and discounted\u00a0or\u00a0shunned.<\/p>\n

So why consider deviants <\/em>at all? Well, because\u00a0anyone who behaves significantly differently from the majority is a\u00a0potential source of new insight – so long as we know how to separate the positive deviants from the negative ones.<\/p>\n

Negative deviants\u00a0display\u00a0behaviours that we could all benefit from by actively discouraging<\/strong>!\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0NoNo or thou-shalt-not behaviours that are usually embodied in Law.\u00a0\u00a0Killing, stealing, lying, speeding, dropping litter – that sort of thing. The anti-social trust-eroding conflict-generating behaviour that poisons the pond that we all swim in.<\/p>\n

Positive deviants\u00a0display behaviours that we could all benefit from actively encouraging! The NiceIf behaviours. But\u00a0we are\u00a0habitually focussed\u00a0more on self-protection\u00a0than\u00a0self-development and we generalise from specifics. So we treat all deviants the same\u00a0– we are wary of them.\u00a0And by so doing we miss many valuable opportunities to learn and to improve.<\/p>\n

\n

How then do we identify the Positive Deviants?<\/p>\n

The first step is to decide the dimension\u00a0we want to improve and choose a suitable metric to measure it.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0second step is to measure the metric for everyone and do it\u00a0over time<\/em> – not just at a point in time. Single point-in-time measurements (snapshots) are almost useless – we can be tricked by the noise in the system into poor decisions.<\/p>\n

The third step is to plot\u00a0our\u00a0measure-for-improvement\u00a0as a time-series chart and look at it.\u00a0 Are there points at the positive end of\u00a0the scale\u00a0that deviate significantly from the average?\u00a0If so – where and who\u00a0do they come from? Is there a pattern? Is there anything we might use as a predictor of positive deviance?<\/p>\n

Now we separate\u00a0the data into groups guided by our proposed predictors<\/em>\u00a0and compare\u00a0the groups. Do the Positive Deviants now stick out like a sore thumb? Did our predictors separate the wheat from the chaff?<\/p>\n

If so we next\u00a0go and investigate.\u00a0\u00a0We need to compare and contrast the Positive Deviants with the Norms. We need to compare and contrast both their context and their content. We need to know what is similar and what is different.\u00a0There is something that is causing<\/strong> the sustained deviation\u00a0and we need to search until we find it – and then\u00a0we need know how and why it is happening.<\/p>\n

We need to separate associations from causations …\u00a0we need to\u00a0understand the chains of events that lead to the better outcomes.<\/p>\n

Only then will\u00a0a new Door\u00a0to Opportunity magically appear in our Black\u00a0Wall of Ignorance – a door that\u00a0leads to a proven path of improvement. A path that has been trodden before by a Positive Deviant – or by a whole tribe of them.<\/p>\n

And only we ourselves can choose to open the door and explore the path – we cannot be pushed through by someone else.<\/p>\n

When our system is designed to\u00a0identify and celebrate the Positive Deviants then the negative deviants will\u00a0be identified\u00a0too! And that helps too because they will\u00a0light the path to more NoNos that we can all learn to avoid.<\/p>\n

For more about positive deviance from Wikipedia click\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n

For a case study on positive deviance click\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n

NB: The terms NiceIfs<\/strong>\u00a0 and NoNos<\/strong> are two of the N’s on The 4N Chart\u00ae –<\/em> the other two are Nuggets<\/strong> and Niggles<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is neither reasonable nor sensible to expect anyone\u00a0to be a font of all\u00a0knowledge. And gurus with their group-think are\u00a0useful but potentially dangerous when they suppress competitive paradigms. So where does an Improvement Scientist seek reliable and trustworthy inspiration? Guessing is a poor guide;\u00a0gut-instinct\u00a0can seriously mislead; and mind-altering substances are illegal, unreliable\u00a0or both! So who … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Power of the Positive Deviants”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,34,35,41,42,43,45,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4n-chart","category-questions","category-reflections","category-stories","category-how","category-why","category-what","category-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}