Positive Deviance (PD)
Positive Deviance (PD) is a social and behavioral change process based on the premise that in most organizations and communities there people or groups of people who solve problems better than colleagues who have exactly the same resources. PD, pioneered by Jerry and Monique Sternin of the Positive Deviance Initiative, has been used world-wide to combat such intractable problems as childhood malnutrition, girl trafficking, poor infant health and is now being used in North America to tackle the serious problem of healthcare acquired infections, specifically MRSA. In this section of the website, learning resources on the PD and stories of its used can be found.
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More We Than Me: How the Fight Against MRSA Led to a New Way of Collaborating at Albert Einstein Medical Center
Hundreds of people at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia have joined SMASH, the organization-wide effort to fight Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). Using Positive Deviance, an innovative social change process, a broad cross section of employees have worked together to forge new solutions, new relationships and some very encouraging results in declining infection rates.
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Reinventing the Sacred-A New View of Science, Reason and Religion
The legendary complexity scholar Stuart Kauffman proposes a new scientific world view that incorporates reductionism and the spectacular achievements of physics with a vision of a self-constructing and continuously creative universe. He argues passionately for an emergence-based world view that honors spirituality and the sacred as well as the the discovery and application of scientific fact. He argues that the "ceaseless creativity" of the universe is, in his view, God, and that humans can define and revere what is sacred.
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Trust is the Lubricant of Organizational Life
Read about how Henri Lipmanowicz thinks about leadership and complexity science. His approach to leadership and his understanding of life in organizations are illuminated through stories from his successful career at Merck and his work with Plexus Institute, where he serves as Chair of the Board. The author of this story is the distinguished communications scholar Arvind Singhal, PhD, Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Professor, Department of Communications, University of Texas El Paso.
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Plexus DC Fractal: Leadership in Complex Adaptive Systems-New Empirical Research
Event
May 13 2008
Leadership in complex adaptive systems differs from leadership in traditional hierarchical, Newtonian, command-and-control systems. Nanette Blandin, President of The Nexus Institute, an organization dedicated to preparing leaders and organizations for the future, has done some interestign research and will share her results.
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On the Edge: Healthcare in the Age of Complexity
Event
Aug 3 2008 to Aug 5 2008
Plexus Institute and the Plexus Complexity and Nursing Network are joining forces to sponsor a workshop devoted to complexity, healthcare and nursing. The event will celebrate and feature the publication of the book - On the Edge: Nursing in the Age of Complexity. This book is a “product” of the Nursing Network and the Plexus scientific community.
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Plexus Institute 2008 Summit
Event
Oct 3 2008 to Oct 5 2008
The Summit will offer new insights into the concepts of how patterns of coordination form, and a multidisciplinary examination of the complexity principles that underlie the behavior of complex systems across all scales, from cells to humans to communities. It will also offer a chance for members of the Plexus community to come together, identify and investigate topics of mutual interest, and experience interaction and connection with people who share similar and different professional and personal backgrounds.
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Annemarie Colbin
My major field of interest is food and healing. Not nutrition, but food. Nutrition is reductionistic; food is complex. Not health or disease, but healing – the dynamics of it. I believe we still don’t have a good idea of health or healing because we don’t have a good idea of what a human being is. The mechanistic approach sees the human as a machine, which is only partially true. Fortunately some segments of the health and healing community are beginning to apply systems and complexity theories to understanding humans and their health, and that is the way of the future.
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