{"id":11045,"date":"2023-03-02T08:56:44","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T16:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qad.com\/blog\/?p=11045"},"modified":"2023-03-02T10:40:48","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T18:40:48","slug":"changing-organizations-with-bright-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qad.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/changing-organizations-with-bright-spots","title":{"rendered":"Changing Organizations with Bright Spots"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”11047″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]We will continue to explore helping organizations to change when <\/span>change is hard<\/span><\/a>. The next suggestion that Chip and Dan Heath make in their book, \u201c<\/span>Switch<\/span><\/a>\u201d is to \u201cFind the Bright Spots\u201d. <\/span>Bright spots<\/span><\/i> are best practices in the organization or community, related to the desired change. Bright spots should be highlighted in the organization to enhance adoption. This is a well-supported premise that further enhances the work of Everett M. Rogers in \u201c<\/span>Diffusion of Innovations<\/span><\/a>\u201d. Innovations spread <\/span>from innovators to early adopters<\/span><\/a> to early majority and beyond. Bright spots are the work of innovators that attract early adopters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Saving the Children in Vietnam<\/span><\/h2>\n

A Save the Children story illustrates how Bright Spots can make an impact. A new executive was assigned to the <\/span>Save the Children<\/span><\/a> office in Vietnam. His mission was malnutrition in children. He was an outsider and, although he was invited by the Vietnamese government, was not welcomed by the local people. We learned this same lesson in the Rogers book, when medical professionals were sent to teach a Peruvian village about clean water practices. Outsiders aren\u2019t familiar with the culture of the village, country or company. Their suggestions often ignore existing practices, making change difficult. The executive enlisted the help of some local village mothers to try to overcome his lack of local conversancy and went to work trying to understand the data about the village children.<\/span><\/p>\n

Initially, the Save the Children executive was burdened by infrastructure issues like clean water, ignorance and poverty. In situations where the actual problem lies atop massive underlying issues, the \u201criders” in us get bogged down in trying to solve everything and never get anything done. The \u201crider\u201d needs to be directed to a clear destination and Bright Spots help him to understand where to go. In his search for the destination, the executive asked the local mothers a simple question. When they were interviewing families, did they find <\/span>any <\/span><\/i>healthy children? The answer was yes. They decided to explore the existing practices that contributed to the few healthy children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gathering Data on Bright Spots<\/span><\/h2>\n

When gathering data on bright spots, it is important to understand details around anomalies. For instance, in the Vietnam example, healthy children that had relatives in the government were excluded from consideration as a bright spot. They had likely been given extra food or access to better resources, something that would be impossible to replicate for the rest of the village. A bright spot needs to be accomplished with local resources and talent so that replication is easy and natural. After accounting for anomalies, the local mothers reported the following:<\/span><\/p>\n