Sometimes breaking the rules can be good thing. Gus Silber considers the power of Positive Deviance, or deviating from the norm in beneficial way.
“Abnormal”, reads the sign on the back on the pantechnicon, grinding its gears up Van Reenen’s Pass on a misty KZN morning.
Waiting for a gap in the traffic, I dwell on the weight of that word, with its precise and objective meaning of allowable excess tonnage in the realm of transport logistics. Apply the label to a human, on the other hand, and it instantly transforms into a criticism or a clinical diagnosis, a warning signal of an undesirable deviation from the norm.
Normality is the spirit level of the human condition, the benchmark by which we measure our progress, our wellbeing and our general state of mind. There’s just one problem, as we work our way uphill on the road to fulfilling our hopes, dreams and ambitions. What is normal, anyway?
Scientists and philosophers have long debated that conundrum, given the variances in our experience and the way we are shaped by culture, upbringing and the infinitely subtle nuances of personality.
Charles E. Scott, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, questions why we even value the normal above the abnormal, an instinctive judgement that can marginalise those of us who don’t fit within the strict constraints of the norm. Hence the rise, at least in academic and clinical circles, of a term that casts a positive glow on this loaded and outmoded way of thinking.
It’s called Positive Deviance, and when you first come across it in the literature, it carries the jolt of an oxymoron: how can there be anything positive about deviant behaviour, which we typically understand as anything that violates the agreed norms and codes of a healthy, well-functioning society? But that’s just the point.
Sometimes society isn’t healthy and well-functioning. And when the norm isn’t working, anything that deviates from it can inspire a new norm: a smarter, brighter way of thinking and acting that changes entire communities for the good.
The power of Positive Deviance
In the 1990s, a UK-based group called Save the Children embarked on a project to combat widespread childhood malnutrition in villages in Vietnam. The researchers, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin, found that some families had well-nourished children – the result of a diet high in protein, iron and calcium, including foods such as sweet potato greens, shrimp, and crabs. These children also had their hands washed before meals, and ate three to four small meals a day. Based on these findings, the Sternins designed a norm-deviating nutrition programme that encouraged the community to change the way they thought about food and cooking.
The result: malnutrition in the villages fell by 85% at the end of the pilot study, and the patterns of thought and behaviour proved to be sustainable. All it took was a few pioneering “Positive Deviants” to set the right example.
So successful was the Save the Children project that it has since become the model for a whole new approach to solving social problems in beleaguered communities. In Pakistan, Positive Deviance has helped to improve standards of neonatal care for mothers and their newborns; in Uganda, it has helped to reintegrate child soldiers into their communities; in New Jersey, it has helped to reverse dropout rates and keep students in school.
Identifying the Positive Deviants in any given situation – the fortunate few who have found a better way – allows new norms to be identified and encouraged within the greater group. Around the world, whatever the challenge, the essential principles remain the same. To begin with, according to The Power of Positive Deviance by Pascale, Sternin, & Sternin, there is an understanding that communities hold the key to solving their own problems; they are the experts, capable of self-organising and putting their collective know-how and intelligence to the test.
What comes from outside is the nudge of discovery, the light of epiphany that shines the way to lasting behaviourial change. But most importantly, Positive Deviance is a process of practise rather than theory. The guiding mantra: “It is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting”.
Doing things differently
What can the rest of us, in our everyday lives, learn from the power of Positive Deviance? Perhaps the answer lies in a complementary name for the approach, based on a primary healthcare initiative that was launched in rural New Hampshire.
It’s called Bright Spotting, and the idea is to find the Bright Spot: the anomaly in a given situation, that makes behavioural change not only possible, but inevitable. So, why not be your own Bright Spot? Set the shining example. Do things your way, in a way that makes others want to do things your way, too.
Surgeon and bestselling author Atul Gawande once gave to a talk to a group of medical students, in which he advised them on how to become Positive Deviants. Begin by asking questions, he said. “You don’t have to come up with a deeper, important question, just one that lets you make a human connection.”
He also advised the students not to complain about their situation, but rather to look for the opportunity to change, to be an early adopter: “Be willing to recognise the inadequacies in what you do and to seek out solutions.”
Above all, you can find your Bright Spot by taking your cue from that famous bumper-sticker that you’ve probably seen on a beat-up old jalopy in front of you at some point on your journey. “Why,” it asks, “be normal?” When you can be a Positive Deviant.
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