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In 1990, Save the Children faced an impossible challenge. Vietnam had emerged from decades of war, and childhood malnutrition was rampant. The conventional approach was clear: more money, more food aid, more nutritional education programs. But the problem was enormous, resources were limited, and the clock was ticking.
**Author:** Richard Tanner Pascale
**Estimated Reading Time:** 35 minutes
**What You'll Learn:**
- Why the most powerful solutions to intractable problems already exist within your community or organization - How to find and amplify the hidden practices of successful outliers - Why behavior change matters more than information transfer - How to scale local successes without destroying what makes them work - How to apply the Positive Deviance approach to healthcare, education, business, and social change
**Who This Book Is For:**
Leaders, change agents, healthcare professionals, educators, social workers, and anyone who has ever faced a problem that resisted every conventional solution. If you have ever felt that the answers must exist somewhere but no one seems to find them, this book will change how you look for solutions forever.
In 1990, Save the Children faced an impossible challenge. Vietnam had emerged from decades of war, and childhood malnutrition was rampant. The conventional approach was clear: more money, more food aid, more nutritional education programs. But the problem was enormous, resources were limited, and the clock was ticking. A young director named Jerry Sternin arrived in Hanoi with a mandate to create a solution. He had no budget for large-scale interventions. He had no team of nutrition experts. What he had was a question that would change everything: Are there any children in these impoverished villages who are already well-nourished? The answer was yes. Scattered among the malnourished children were a few who thrived. Their families were not wealthier. They had no access to special foods. They faced the same poverty, the same limited resources, and the same cultural constraints as everyone else. Yet somehow, their children were healthy. This observation became the foundation of Positive Deviance, an approach to problem-solving that turns conventional wisdom on its head. Instead of asking what is wrong and trying to fix it, Positive Deviance asks what is working and tries to amplify it. The term itself is awkward. Positive deviance sounds like an oxymoron. We are conditioned to think of deviance as something negative, something to be corrected. But the word simply means departure from the norm. And sometimes, departing from the norm in a positive direction holds the key to solving problems that have resisted every top-down intervention. This book tells the story of how this simple idea transformed communities around the world. It reduced childhood malnutrition in Vietnam from epidemic levels to a fraction of its former prevalence. It curtailed female genital mutilation in Egypt. It reduced hospital-acquired infections in American healthcare facilities. It improved school retention in Argentina. It saved infant lives in Pakistan. But this is not a book about international development. It is a book about how change…
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Get the complete summary in the appLook for positive deviants: people who succeed against the same odds that defeat everyone else.
Solutions to intractable problems often already exist within the community.
It is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.
The community must own the solution because the community must sustain the change.
The way we frame a problem determines the solutions we can see.
Scale the process, not the solution.
"The Power of Positive Deviance" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around business, leadership, management, especially themes like look for positive deviants: people who succeed against the same odds that defeat everyone else; solutions to intractable problems often already exist within the community. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Motivated to help readers with positive deviance? An awkward, Richard Tanner Pascale wrote “The Power of Positive Deviance” to package those ideas for a fast, focused read. Through “The Power of Positive Deviance”, Richard Tanner Pascale distills the core ideas on business into lessons readers can absorb in a single short sitting. Readers turn to this work when they want Richard Tanner Pascale's perspective on the subject without working through the entire original volume. The book is structured…
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