Business Agility : Look for the Bright Spots

Sometimes big change requires thinking small. Dan and Chip Heath tell a story in their book “Switch” about how the power of small thinking can lead to massive change. 

 Jerry Sternin traveled to Vietnam with the organization Save the Children on a mission to address childhood malnutrition in rural areas. Jerry was given 6 months to develop a solution. He understood that childhood malnutrition was impacted by village poverty, limited access to clean water, poor sanitation, and a lack of education on nutrition. Jerry labeled these facts as “TBU” - true but useless.

 If he was going to find a solution - he would need a different approach. Instead of trying to fix all the underlying problems, Jerry looked for examples of healthy children who were thriving in the villages. What were their mothers doing differently? Chip and Dan Heath call these mothers “bright spot” mothers. They were successfully raising well-nourished children - in spite of many challenges. Was it possible to copy the success of these mothers? 

With an understanding of how most rural Vietnamese children were being fed, Jerry looked to understand what these bright spot mothers were doing differently. Two things emerged:  

1. The bright spot mothers were feeding their children shrimp and crab from the rice paddies and were including sweet potato greens in the children's meals.
2. Neither was commonly fed to children, but it was clear that the additional protein and nutrients made a big difference for these children.

So then what? In business, It would be easy to imagine a mandate that shrimp, crab, and greens be fed to all the children. A shrimp and greens committee would define OKRs, roll out a mandatory culinary program, and link bonuses to qualifying families. This would be the answer with the next logical question being, how fast can we roll it out? 

But that's not what Jerry did.

Jerry worked with the bright spot mothers to create cooking circles where other interested mothers could practice and discuss the new ideas about improving how their children were fed. Six months after the start of Jerry's work, 65% of the village children were better nourished. From these small actions, the program expanded to reach 2.2 million Vietnamese people in 265 villages, and is recognized as a national model for reducing malnutrition in Vietnam. 

 So what do shrimp and greens have to do with business agility? Jerry's story offers an alternative way of looking at the scale of change we often face in a business transformation. A huge challenge with no simple solution. Instead of approaching such change as a monolithic endeavor requiring massive analysis and action upfront - look for the small bright spots. Can you find small instances of positive outcomes that could be shared? Finding those small bright lights can lead to big change that lasts. How do you get started?

 Ask yourself a few questions:

• What's working and how can we do more of it?
• When & where does the problem not happen?
• If you could wake up and have the problem solved - what's the first sign that things have changed?

From there you may start to see the glimmer of a few bright spots.

 Chip and Dan talk about cultivating bright spots in this way:

• Understand the problem. Gather data and understand what the “norm” is.In the case of Jerry Sternin, he understood the standard diet of rural 
• Vietnamese children and its deficiencies.
• Provide the needed support and autonomy for bright spots to emerge.What are they doing differently?
• Can it spread / scale through the organization?
• Recognize the bright spots and collaborate to expand the learning and approaches with others who might benefit from the same approach.

At BAI, we talk about the need to create massive change in how we work and lead. It's important not to get stuck just thinking about the scale of needed change. It's also important to look for the smallest - biggest - changes that will accelerate progress. Help those bright spots to grow and a few bright spots can multiply to rival the sun.  

Resources:

• Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip & Dan Heath. Feb 2010.
• Switch Your Organization - a Workbook. Available as pdf from HeathBrothers.com

Written by: 

Laura Powers, CEO of the Business Agility Institute, who's somewhat relieved that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't always an oncoming train.