Positive deviants model the ethical attitudes and best practices that others should achieve. They are the primary creators and preservers of an organization’s ethics. These individuals are motivated by a commitment to create a “social good” for their customers and for their organization: they are the ideal candidates to set the bar within your company’s culture.
Use your organization’s positive deviants to establish a clear, specific standard of ethical values, attitudes and behaviors. This is one of the most effective ways you can create change in your organization.
In this video I explain how to set the bar to create a useful picture of the results you want:
Over the past few weeks I’ve been working with positive deviants to develop change leadership best practices within their 3 very different organizations.
Each came up with similar answers to hypothetical and real problems, calling on conventional wisdom of vision, resources, and support.
I asked them if they and their colleagues knew these (since they’re conventional wisdom) and they all did.
I followed up with, “Why is there is such a small amount of good leadership if everyone knows the conventional wisdom?”
The consensus was that the conventional wisdom really does work in good times. It’s easy to create a vision and execute it if there is plenty of cash.
The real test of great leadership takes place during bad times, when pressures are severe.
This reminded me of the great Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter’s remarks on the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment’s freedom of speech protection. He wrote that freedom of speech only really matters when the speech to be protected is completely offensive to you.
Speech that doesn’t offend doesn’t need protection; the same is true for leadership. Leadership matters most during the times when it is most difficult to be a leader, when unpopular decisions (whether to risk, for example, current survival for the possibility of a much better future) must be made. This courageous leadership — which can be tough to sustain in hard times — is what we work to nurture and protect.
I recently worked with a management team that was in extreme pain. They wanted immediate relief. I got them to admit that it had taken several years to create this painful situation.
It’s human nature to hope that a workshop and a simple prescription — a piece of new software or a brief training — will heal everything. Sometimes I’m asked for a redesign of an entire business process.
But I often find that what is actually wanted is some analysis and some conclusions that justify moving the problem from the suffering team to either another one, or … anywhere else!
When revenue targets are fixed, headcount and other costs are declining, and the core of the business process is dependent on unreliable software, the math won’t work, and neither will the logic.
There is an out though. It is to step back and do a deep redesign based on these parameters. That’s what we proposed. It’s not lightning-fast, though, and the team wanted something quicker-acting.
They decided that, rather than really repairing some deep damage, that they’d do some shuffling of the pain and hope it solves the problem. My prediction is that they will be back talking to us again in 2 months. The pain will be worse, and now they will have lost 3 months.
We at Cerebyte are excited to be partnering with CHOICE Regional Health Network to help this dynamic organization identify the best practices of hospital and social service case managers in Washington. Oregon, and Ohio - while also protecting the interests of hospitals, care providers, social service agencies, and communities.
CHOICE’s vision is “better health for everyone at less cost,” and it describes itself as “a non-profit coalition of rural and urban hospitals, practitioners, public health clinics, community health centers, behavioral health providers, and other partners dedicated to improving the health of our community.”
We’ll be focusing on coordinated care and using our patented TRANSFORM process for wisdom discovery and, then, training of CHOICE’s case managers. I hope to report here on the steps we’ll be taking as we work with CHOICE.
We’re working on several leadership programs right now, leading an organization through a transformation.
We have built decent best practices that are different from the usual. We’ve been emphasizing “authenticity.”
When we talk about deploying the best practices, though, we get stuck.
After a lot of conversation and thought, we realized that the leaders who most need enhanced leadership capabilities are executives most convinced they are already great leaders. This mindset is a good part of why they are powerfully resistant to considering their own need to grow and change.
Ironically, the best leaders are those who seek out — and are open to – growth opportunities. They’re easy to work with but don’t need the development.
How do you you engage “leaders” who are so resistant to learning from others?
Ever wish your company had come with an instruction manual? Michael McCauley and I have written a book, Advantage Media has published it, and we’re excited. You can buy “Strategy to Action in 10 Days: Creating High Performance Organizations” directly from us, in bookstores, or on Amazon. There’s a Kindle edition, too.
Join our Facebook page and come with us as we travel to promote our book.
Ron Nakamoto, CEO of Strategic Financial, has praise: ”I recommend Strategy to Action in 10 Days to any person interested in creating a high performance organization. It clearly illustrates how to break from the status quo and create a truly sustainable change. It is as much a practical guide as it is a game changer.”
We’re as excited about our book as we are about the many people who are using it to create real, lasting, and positive change in their organizations.
ISPI is a good forum for people interested in learning how organizations can improve themselves, and its conferences bring in a wide ranging group of organizational development, training, and other professionals, both from inside organizations and as outside consultants.
The topics we’ll be discussing:
Persuasive Technology: A New Paradigm for Maximizing Organizational Performance — on the incorporation of the neuroscience of learning into technology and how this can lead to faster and more far-reaching organizational change on a larger scale than previously thought possible. Mike McCauley and I will present this paper.
The Importance of Courage in Leading Change: Creating Courageous Organizations — on the times and ways that leaders need to be courageous when leading a change effort, and how you can test for courageous leadership before you begin a change. Rick Grbavac and I will present this paper.
We hope many of you will be able to come to our sessions at the ISPI Conference in April.
Washington, DC: I’ll present A Scientific Approach to Corporate Cultural Change (That Works-and How!) to the ISPI Potomac Chapter in Washington, DC, Nov 10, 2009 at 6:00 pm EST. Sign up here, and I’ll see you there!
“Positive Deviance is based on the observation that in every community there are certain individuals or groups whose uncommon behaviors and strategies enable them to find better solutions to problems than their peers, while having access to the same resources and facing similar or worse challenges.” — The Positive Deviance Initiative
It’s such a pleasure to work with positive deviants: they have energy and great ideas, and are consistently positive about themselves, their clients, and their company. It’s an energetic optimism stemming not from a Pollyanna view, but from intelligence, creativity, and clear thinking.
Someone then asked me how positive deviants effect change in an organization:
* Their positive energy excites others
* Their customer-focus makes others more client-centric
* Their efficiency at managing their work sets a great example
* Their experiences in becoming so great are a path for others
Positive deviants really are the best resource for companies who want to improve. Are you listening to yours?
