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take risks on emerging solutions. One recent

innovation is the Acumen Fund’s partnership

with Coca-Cola to bring safe water to one

million children in developing countries.

Control

In contrast to creating, the control enabler

focuses on positive deviance through

efficiency, stability, and quality. Achieving

positive deviance by enacting the control

enabler requires organizations to pay close

attention to managing systems and aligning

their processes to control costs and identify

productivity

improvements.

Nonprofit

organizations seeking excellence through

control may embrace the ethos of “refine,

reduce, and perfect,” and their work practices

may entail a disciplined and process-managed

approach to ensure that quality is incorporated

throughout the key processes that support its

mission. For example, KIPP’s (Knowledge

is Power Program) mission is to create a

respected, influential, and national network of

public schools that are successful in helping

students from educationally underserved

communities develop the knowledge, skills,

character, and habits needed to succeed in

college and the competitive world beyond.

KIPP’s theory to fulfill this mission is

to manage charter schools with a strong

focus on student achievement, with inputs

to ensure student achievement, including

specific learning pedagogies, consistency in

the educational process, scaling for efficiency,

and rigorous teacher training. Since student

achievement and preparation for college

are key metrics, KIPP schools have longer

days, include extensive test preparation as

an essential component of the curriculum,

and track milestones to ensure their students

are on track to attend college. As a result of

KIPP’s concentrated efforts on the control

enabler of positive deviance, students in

KIPP charter schools experience significantly

greater learning gains in math, reading,

science, and social studies than do their peers

in traditional public schools (Ash, 2013).

Collaborate

Complementing creating and controlling

is the ability of nonprofit organizations to

implement effective collaborative practices.

Succeeding through collaboration entails

getting the right people on the bus and in

the right seats as the organization pursues its

mission. This includes not only a nonprofit

organization’s employees, but also its trustees,

volunteers,clients/customers,and community

partners. By aligning everyone correctly, you

create a web of contributors who bring their

best selves to the organization and learn

to work together to pool their expertise,

experiences, and social capital to produce

results. Girl Scouts USA is an organization

that pays attention to creating organizational

excellence through enabling collaboration.

Girl Scouts emphasizes hiring practices

and a team culture designed to reinforce the

shared mission of Girl Scouts to “build girls

of courage, confidence, and character, who

make the world a better place.” Moreover,

their human resource practices are inclusive

of their network of executives, staff, and

volunteers, and focus on capacity building and

collaborative actions so that the organization

can respond to its environment and achieve

its strategic priorities.

Compete

Whereas the collaborate enabler is internally

focused, the compete enabler is a set of

practices building positive deviance by

leveraging markets (Crutchfield & Grant,

2008). The compete enabler involves

nonprofit organizations learning the laws

of economics, and adapting private-sector

models by building corporate partnerships

and developing earned-income ventures. The

nonprofit organization Kaboom exemplifies

the compete enabler. Kaboom’s mission is

to create safe and healthy playgrounds that

will encourage development and improve the

physical and social well-being of children.

Instead of relying upon grants and donations,

Kaboom’s business model is income driven.

It generates revenues by charging for project

management, supply, and licensing for

its playground systems to corporate and

community partners, who then provide

volunteers to build the playgrounds. Kaboom

also takes advantage of cause marketing

programs by partnering with companies such

as Stride Rite and Ben & Jerry’s.

Nonprofit organizations need energy to

support mission-driven activities. Managing

the four enablers of positive deviance, “create,

control, collaborate and compete,” empowers

a nonprofit organization to align its values

with its external environment to better serve

and partner with stakeholders. Additionally,

it provides framing for investments in

human capital, organizational learning,

and innovation to achieve social impact,

thus placing nonprofits on the pathway of

excellence by leading with the head, heart,

and hand to produce transformational results.

Lynn Perry Wooten is Associate Dean of Undergraduate

Programs and Clinical Associate Professor of Strategy

and Management & Organizations at the University

of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. As Associate

Dean of Undergraduate Programs, she is responsible

for developing and implementing transformational

educational experiences for Ross undergraduate

students inside and outside of the classroom through

curricular initiatives, academic advising, student life

activities, and leadership development.

Kelle Parsons is a research assistant at the Ross

School of Business at the University of Michigan,

focusing on organizational management and positive

organizational scholarship, particularly applied to

nonprofit organizations and higher education. Prior to

earning an MA and MPP in higher education and public

policy, she worked in organizational development and

change management.

References

Ash, K. 2013. KIPP Schools Boost Academic Performance, Study Finds. Education Week,

Cameron, K.S., J.E. Dutton, and R.E. Quinn. 2003. Positive Organizational Scholarship (eds.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Cameron, K. and M. Lavine. 2006. Making the Impossible Possible. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Cameron, K., R. Quinn, J. DeGraff, and A. Thakor. 2006. Competing Values Leadership: Creating Values in Organization. Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Crutchfield, L. and H. Grant. 2008. The Six Practices: High-Impact Nonprofits. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Quinn, R. 2012. The Deep Field Guide: A Personal Course to Discovering the Leader Within. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Spreitzer, G. and S. Sonenshein. 2003. Positive Deviance and Extraordinary Organizing in K.S. Cameron, J. Dutton, and R.E. Quinn (eds.), Positive Organizational

Scholarship, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, pp. 207-24.

Wooten, L. and K. Cameron. 2010. Enablers of a positive strategy: Positively deviant leadership in P.A. Linley, S. Harrington, & N. Garcea (eds.), Oxford Handbook of

Positive Psychology and Work. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 53-65.