The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781422110669)

Think of the toughest problems in your organization or community. What if they'd already been solved and you didn't even know it?

In The Power of Positive Deviance, the authors present a counterintuitive new approach to problem-solving. Their advice? Leverage positive deviants--the few individuals in a group who find unique ways to look at, and overcome, seemingly insoluble difficulties. By seeing solutions where others don't, positive deviants spread and sustain needed change.

With vivid, firsthand stories of how positive deviance has alleviated some of the world's toughest problems (malnutrition in Vietnam, staph infections in hospitals), the authors illuminate its core practices, including:

- Mobilizing communities to discover invisible solutions in their midst

- Using innovative designs to act your way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking your way into a new way of acting

- Confounding the organizational immune response seeking to sustain the status quo

Inspiring and insightful, The Power of Positive Deviance unveils a potent new way to tackle the thorniest challenges in your own company and community.


Author: Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin
ISBN-10: 1422110664
ISBN-13: 9781422110669
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Language: English
Published: 06/16/2010
Pages: 256
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.10w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2010 pg. 147