Positive Deviance and Learning

Learning is hard work. Most of the time it involves struggle. Too often it leads to failure.

Back in 2000, when I was a young principal opening a brand new high school, I came across an article titled “Positive Deviant.” Fast Company printed it inside their monthly magazine (there wasn’t such a thing as online journalism at that time) and it focused on the lessons Jerry Sternin learned about change and the most effective way to make it. The article changed me as a leader and I think it still has lessons that are appropriate for 2026. Here are excerpts from that article:

“Jerry Sternin’s job was to help save starving children in Vietnam. Faced with an impossible time frame, he adopted a radical approach to making change. His idea: Real change begins from the inside.”

“If there is one profession that owes its existence to the new economy, it is the change artist. Change artists can assume various forms. They are the men and women from world-class consulting firms who drop in to companies with their patented change programs. They are the business-school professors who pen prescriptive books about the latest change offering.”

“’Maybe, says Jerry Sternin, ‘the problem isn’t with the outside experts or with the company. The traditional model for social and organizational change doesn’t work,’ says Sternin, [then] 62. ‘It never has. You can’t bring permanent solutions in from outside.’ Maybe the problem is with the whole model for how change can actually happen. Maybe the problem is that you can’t import change from the outside in. Instead, you have to find small, successful but ‘deviant’ practices that are already working in the organization and amplify them. Maybe, just maybe, the answer is already alive in the organization – and change comes when you find it.”

“Sternin’s approach traces back to work done by Marian Zeitlin at Tufts University in the late 1980’s. At the time, Zeitlin was doing research in hospitals in developing communities to find out why a small handful of malnourished children – ‘the deviants’ – were doing much better than the majority. What enabled some children to rehabilitate more quickly than others?”

“From this research came the idea of ‘amplifying positive deviance’ – a theory that Sternin and his wife, Monique, put to the test in the 1990s in a dramatically different setting: Vietnam. As staff members of Save the Children, the Sternin’s helped create a Vietnamese branch of the organization in response to a request by the Vietnamese government to help fight the problem of malnutrition in the country’s villages.”

The Vietnamese government gave the Sternin’s six months to find a solution.

“Faced with a difficult task and an impossible time frame, Sternin reached for an unconventional solution: amplifying positive deviance.”

The Sternin’s called conventional wisdom about malnutrition “true but useless,” or “TBU.” Poor sanitation, ignorance, food-distribution patterns, poverty, and a lack of access to good water were all “true but useless” reasons for the malnutrition – “true but useless” to the Sternin’s given the time constraints to the project and the multitude of roadblocks standing in the way of solving any of the “TBUs”.

Instead, the Sternin’s identified a group of “positive deviants,” a group of mothers who had taught themselves different practices in order to feed their children and therefore save them from death. These mothers made sure their children, and the food they were lucky to eat, stayed away from human and animal waste. The mothers made sure to find land near their villages that was rich enough to grow vegetables and fruits for their children. The mothers identified good water sources and defended those sources – sometimes risking their lives.

Once the Sternin’s identified their group of “positive deviants,” then the next step was to put these mothers, the ones who knew how to prevent malnutrition in their babies, with the mothers who needed to learn the “positive” practices, so that they could save their babies.

From his Vietnam experience, Sternin shared the following steps to create real change:

Don’t presume that you have the answer – Too many change agents think they can cause change from the outside in. The truth is that most change occurs from the inside out.

Don’t think of it [change that is] as a dinner party – This isn’t something that happens overnight. Instead, real change depends on deep-rooted relationships between those who desire change and those who are there to support it.

Let them do it themselves – This is the hardest step for most change artists. They see change as something that is “done” to others. But the truth of the matter is that change is something you “do” to yourself.

Identify conventional wisdom – Before you can create change, you must understand what you want to change from. In Sternin’s case, the change required was from bad sanitation, bad water, bad politics. If you don’t identify the reasons that conditions need to change, then most humans won’t be dissatisfied enough to motivate themselves to adopt different behaviors.

Identify and analyze the deviants – If you really want real change, then you must be ready to embrace the ideas and behaviors of those who are exhibiting practices and reaping the benefits of being different than the rest.

Let the deviants adopt deviations on their own – According to Sternin, change doesn’t occur when the deviant teaches the consultant their best practices, and then the consultant teaches others. Real change occurs when the deviant encounters those who want to learn the behaviors of the deviant. In other words, the learned teaches those who want to learn how to learn.

Track results and publicize them – Learning how to change your practices and ideas matter, so make sure you share your celebrations and your struggles.

Repeat steps (over and over) – Once you experience success with “positive deviance” (or some call it “appreciative inquiry), then the way you lead change – any change – will be different than before. It will change your life.

Jerry Sternin passed away in 2008, but his influence on change theory lives on still today.

Too many traditional educators focus on problem-solving by identifying the problem and then working toward the solution. What Jerry Sternin, and others like him, taught us is that if you want to change behavior – including how young learners become smarter and stronger – you first much identify the “positive deviant” practices and move toward them – and plan accordingly.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. Til then. SVB