Positive Deviance

I had the opportunity to meet with Keith McCandless this week. Keith is a master facilitator and practices a wide variety of approaches and methodologies, most of which he would call "liberating structures". One such structure is positive deviance.


Positive deviance is when a person or group of people learns from another person or group of people in the same conditions how to measurably improve their results towards a given challenge. There are some great examples of positive deviance leading to huge improvements in healthcare safety initiatives with lives lost as a measure, or improved nourishment within test villages in malnourished nations with child weight as a measure.

I had to ask Keith what the difference between positive deviance and best practices is. The difference, as I gather, is that best practices don't work. Best practices are commonly shared across organizations, across roles, and across other differences. Ignoring these differences is ignoring reality. Positive deviance focuses on people, communities or organizations with the same circumstances, and the exceptional model does not have resources or circumstances unavailable to the other parties.

I hope to elaborate as we continue to work with Keith in the coming months. In the meantime, are there any great positive deviance stories out there?