boston conference

Tue Apr 12 05:40:14 PDT 2005

Thank you, Masud, for the references to the work of Mohammad Younus and
Akhtar Hameed Khan.  Are there some articles or other sources that would
give more information about their work?

Too often I think we have the idea that we need to send ideas from the west
(north) to help others and we forget that we could learn from ideas coming
FROM developing countries.

 * lisa

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of Masud
Sheikh
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 7:48 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] boston conference

Dear Lisa,
This is wonderful. I was particularly struck by the comment:
"It use was pioneered in developing countries and has led to sustainable
improvements in seemingly intractable organizational and social issues."

Two examples immediately came to mind: Mohammad Younus in Bangladesh on
micro-credit. A great man (Akhtar Hameed Khan) now deceased, who pioneered
some wonderful examples of self-help & community building in Pakistan, and
earlier in then "East Pakistan" (now Bangladesh).

While I will be unable to come to this conference, I shall probably come to
the OS on OS in Halifax, on the east coast of my new homeland - Canada. I
have no idea how OS on OS runs, and have hardly any real experience of OS.
But to know more about OS, I can think of nothing better than meeting with
people who seem to live and breathe OS.

Are you planning to come to Halifax?

Take care, all of you
Masud

In times of change, the learners will inherit the earth while the learned
will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no
longer exists - Eric Hoffer

 >-----Original Message-----
 >From: Lisa Kimball [mailto:lisa at groupjazz.com]
 >Sent: April 11, 2005 11:15 AM
 >Subject: boston conference
 >
 >Hi!  I thought you might be interested in a very intriguing conference
 >coming up in Boston in June . This 'positive deviance' approach shares a
 >lot of theoretical roots with appreciative inquiry and complexity
frameworks and I think is very aligned with some of our thinking in open
space too!
 >
 >From the Inside Out: Uncovering Solutions to Intractable Problems through
 >Positive Deviance
 >Tufts University, Boston, MA
 >June 28-29, 2005
 >http://www.plexusinstitute.org
 >
 >Positive Deviance, an approach developed over the past fourteen years,
 >demonstrates that isolated examples of success can be tapped to benefit an
 >entire community or organization. Accomplishing this requires a radical
 >departure from "benchmarking" and "best practice" strategies of change.
 >
 >Plexus Institute and The Positive Deviance Initiative at Tufts University
 >invite you to explore Positive Deviance with Jerry and Monique Sternin,
 >leading Positive Deviance (PD) authorities and pioneers, and Arvind
 >Singhal, a scholar-practitioner on social change, and join with others who
are searching for solutions to some of the critical social and
organizational challenges facing us today.
 >
 >The PD approach builds on successful but "deviant" (different) practices
 >that are identified from within a community or organization. It is based
 >on the observation that in every group there are certain individuals whose
 >uncommon, but demonstrably successful practices or behaviors enable them
 >to find better solutions than their neighbors or colleagues who have
access to exactly the same resources. It use was pioneered in developing
countries and has led to sustainable improvements in seemingly intractable
 >organizational and social issues.
 >
 >The Harvard Business Review features PD in its May 1, 2005 edition. The
 >approach has also begun to penetrate the corporate consciousness. It was
 >employed at Goldman Sachs and was instrumental in transforming the
 >behavior and practice of its nationwide force of investment advisors. It
has been used to tackle gnarly technical challenges at Hewlett Packard, and
 >hospitals have begun to use PD to address quality improvement challenges.
And a PD workshop was just held at the January 2005 World Economic Forum in
Davos. PD is unlike traditional expert-driven models for social and
organizational change. Like the human immune system, individuals and
institutions reject what is perceived as "foreign matter". When "experts"
provide "best practice" strategies for organizational changes, which are
externally identified, and "not invented from within", they face rejection.
The Positive Deviance approach provides an antidote to the immune system
defense mechanism; the solution and the host share the same "DNA" and the
change comes from within. Those in a community or organization are helped to
discover the positive deviants in their midst, understand the strategies
they employ and then create among themselves a process for enrolling the
larger community in the desired change. Change is from inside out. This
workshop will provide an overview of how and where PD has been successfully
used to address problems requiring social or behavioral change. All
participants will learn the 4 steps of the PD process design to nurture a
PD-based change initiative on an issue of importance to them.
 >
 >I'd be happy to share more info if you're interested!
 >
 >* lisa

 >Lisa kimball
 >Group Jazz, Suite 440
 >5335 Wisconsin Ave NW
 >Washington, DC 20015 USA
 >P: +1 202.686.4848
 >F: +1 202.966.3772
 >E: lisa at groupjazz.com
 >www.groupjazz.com
 >
 >*
 >*
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