One of the most important stories a leader can tell is one that provides insight on how to tackle problems in new ways. I call them intervention stories and some of the very best ones are from outside the business world. In fact, if you look back on the stories we’ve already shared on this podcast you will see most are set outside the world of work yet make a good business point.

A good intervention story gives you a process for doing something differently. You can have all the goals you like, but unless you have a process to achieve those goals you’ve got nothing. In addition to the process a good intervention story inspires action.

I first read this story in Chip and Dan Heath’s book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. It’s set in Vietnam in the 1990s and the protagonist sets out to tackle a systemic and tragic problem of country-wide childhood malnourishment. It doesn’t get more difficult that this.

The approach is called Positive Deviance or Bright Spots. You can find more about this approach on wikipedia or from the book Jerry Sternin co-authored.

Pascale, Sternin, & Sternin. (2010) The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems. Harvard Business Press.