Change leadership: the virtues of deviance

Abstract

As the limiting factor in many change efforts is having enough talent to replicate and sustain changes once they have been successfully piloted, there is a need for developing the internal talent to lead change. The change leadership concept assumes that successful ideas already exist in the organisation, but that replicating these ideas alone will not be sufficient. Instead of forcing the organisation to accept one given solution, the program identifies ideas which can be replicated within each particular organisational unit, utilising the principles of positive deviance for managing change. Unlike benchmarking, positive deviance does not focus on solutions but on identifying underlying successful behaviours inside the organisation. This approach helps to develop leadership talent, accelerate organisational learning, encourage results‐oriented change that can be sustained, provide a vehicle for results replication, encourage cross‐cultural/cross‐business/cross‐functional learning and enable leaders to initiate change in a variety of business situations.