The Innovative Power of Positive Deviance

In this chapter we begin to describe the specifics involved in creating an ecology of innovation in your organization or community. Thus far we have focused on the workings of complex systems, and we have shown how advances in complexity research over the last quarter century can inform one’s thinking about innovation and adaptation in organizations. In particular, we have pointed to the importance of a kind of leadership that enables change and adaptation in organizations, what we call generative leadership. Earlier chapters described how such conditions can and do encourage individuals throughout the organization to experiment with novel approaches, either in an effort to capitalize on opportunities or to solve problems. We also described how these simple ideas can, under the right conditions, extend and expand a wave of change that spreads across the entire organization. At the same time, we have insisted that these things don’t happen by themselves. Generative leadership is needed to create the conditions that enable success. In this chapter and in the next, we describe specific ways in which generative leadership enables in novation-led success even under difficult and challenging conditions.