The Plexus Story

We live in two worlds, one created by nature, the other built by humans. In the first, nature displays its infinite ability to create organization at all levels, from crystals to plants to living organisms, and its amazing capacity to innovate and adapt, demonstrated through the 3.5 billion years of its history. In the human world, many organizations and systems we have created - such as in healthcare, education, business and government - feel rigid, inefficient, and incapable of delivering what we want. Inside those organizations, whether private or public, many people at all levels remain dissatisfied with their working environment, and contribute well below their potential. The standard solutions treat only the symptoms of the problem: change the boss, spend more money, introduce a new program, reorganize.

Rise of the Clockwork Organization

Our model for organizations emanated from the industrial era, in which human organizations were viewed as if they were machines. Undoubtedly, machines brought wondrous advances to humanity. The power of engines, the precision of clocks, and the very laws of mechanics created staggering efficiencies in the inanimate world, greatly benefiting the cause of man.

The principles of the machine operated so brilliantly, however, that people mistakenly began applying them to the living world as well. Institutions, from churches to armies to businesses, were structured as clockworks, built on rigid hierarchies and interchangeable parts.

Utilized as interchangeable parts, humans quit working with their hearts and minds. Governed by power structures and measured primarily by material metrics, personal relationships became more brittle, ranking family and community among the casualties of the modern age. Obsessed with measurement (especially of money), the unmeasurable, such as human spirit, shrank from our attention and we lost sight of how systems, especially living systems, operate as a connected whole.

While the march of modernity benefited humankind in many areas - cleaner water, safer housing, widely available education - it has also reduced our well-being and performance in dramatic ways. For instance,

• At the individual level, lifestyle and environmental factors - not genetic predisposition - account for the majority of diseases in the modern era, according to an account in The New England Journal of Medicine. Despite advances in medicine, diseases of civilization grow more common as modern lifestyles cleave mankind from the natural patterns in which the human species evolved. Diseases such as heart disease, strokes, hypertension, diabetes, asthma, cancer and obesity are a consequence of this discordance and currently cause 75% of deaths in the western world.
• At the family level, power structures, gender roles, and disharmony take an unacceptable toll, as reflected in high and in many cases increasing rates of divorce, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and child abuse (see The Social Health of the Nation by Marc L. Miringoff, et al).
• At the organizational level, people and the systems they create routinely operate below their full potential (see The Human Equation by Jeffrey Pfeffer). Creativity of the individual is often stifled by bureaucratic constraints. Collaboration is blocked by competition. Too many schools, businesses, nonprofit groups, and government agencies remain rigid and inflexible, even as they are surrounded by rapid change. Many of those who find material fulfillment in their work lives nonetheless remain personally unfulfilled.

The Importance of Relationships

We invite you to spend a moment reflecting on your own life, family, and work. At a deep level, we all sense the inadequacy, indeed the harm, caused by a model of human interaction that relies mainly on power and control. Think of a teenager you know in trouble and you realize that controlling behavior is a poor substitute for values and dialogue. Think about the great teams to which you have been privileged to belong and remember the trusting bonds that emerged among the participants. Or recall how a community pulled together after a natural disaster, all without central leadership or control.

These experiences teach us that what happens between people and between systems - in other words, relationships - play a huge role, often the principal role. This observation stands in marked contrast to the mechanical mental model, which emphasizes the role not of relationships but of individuals, as if they were objects.

A New Way of Thinking And Acting

Whatever their value in the past, mechanistic principles alone are inadequate for the complexity and change we face today. Clearly, we need a new way of looking at work and organizations of all types.

Such a world-view has in fact emerged; it is known as complexity science. At its core, this intellectual revolution is transforming our understanding of life, its structures, dynamics and its care, while providing new principles for making sense of what is most fundamental in our lives: our relationships with other people and our environment.

Clearly, we need a new way of looking at work and organizations of all types. Such a world-view has in fact emerged; it is known as complexity science.

Such understandings give us powerful new ways of thinking about and acting on issues which span human concern, from such seemingly disparate domains as ecological preservation, childhood education and executive leadership. As such, it is relevant to everyone. Already, some business, community and government leaders are embracing the ideas emerging from complexity science, but they remain a minority.

To build on this opportunity Plexus Institute was founded with this mission:

Fostering the health of individuals, families, communities and organizations and our natural environment by helping people use concepts emerging from the new science of complexity.

(In this mission statement "health" is meant to include physical as well as mental and spiritual dimensions. A "healthy" individual has a healthy body, healthy relationships, a healthy home and workplace. A healthy person is poised for learning, growth and adaptability. Similarly a "healthy" organization generates more than material success. It creates an environment in which relationships are rewarding and opportunities to learn, grow and contribute are available to all. It is poised to adapt. A "healthy" community is one in which all people are nurtured and valued, where information flows freely, where there is healthy interaction among all groups and where institutions support the growth and development of all.)

Plexus Institute is a community of diverse people united in their determination to create something better.

We at Plexus Institute are a community of diverse people - scientists, business executives, nurses, artists, teachers, journalists, researchers, physicians, college students, and community leaders - united in our determination to create something better. We are people who, by learning from each other, are making strides against some of the major problems afflicting society and human organizations

The following pages tell the story of Plexus Institute. It is told in these chapters:

Ideas that Matter: Introduction to Complexity

"Scientific knowledge, originally seen to make possible the prediction and manipulation of nature, appears now to be pointing us toward a new relationship with the natural world based on sensitive observation and participation, rather than control." Brian Goodwin

The roots of the Plexus Institute begin in the world of healthcare. Indeed the healthcare professionals involved in the creation of Plexus in the Fall of 2000 had first joined together years earlier with the aspiration of improving patient care.

The story begins in 1995. Curt Lindberg was then a regional officer with VHA Inc., an alliance of 2,200 nonprofit and community hospitals and physician practices. Seeking to make sense of the conflict and confusion afflicting health care - and ultimately, to improve the health of people - Lindberg and his colleagues began studying the emerging discipline of complexity science.

What is complexity science? Very simply, it is science's most recent attempt to explain how order and novelty emerge in the world.>

This scientific discipline was being developed by some of the world's leading researchers - such Nobel laureates, MacArthur "geniuses," Pulitzer prize winners, and renowned scientists as Murray Gell-Mann in physics, Linda Reichl in physics, Ilya Prigogine in chemistry, and the late Herbert Simon in psychology. Plexus science advisors who have pioneered in their fields include Edward O. Wilson in biology, Ary Goldberger in mathematics and medicine, Stuart Kauffman in molecular biology, John Holland in computer science, and Ralph D. Stacey in organizational dynamics, and Brenda Zimmerman in organizational dynamics.

A New Mental Model: Complex Systems that Live and Adapt

What is complexity science? Very simply, it is science's most recent attempt to explain how order and novelty emerge in the world. (As such it is the intellectual successor to systems theory and chaos theory.) The traditional view of the natural world was made up of machine-like entities that you could understand by taking them apart and examining the components.

Much has been learned about nature by this approach. But the vast majority of nature is not amenable to being understood in this way, because most of nature is made up of what complexity scientists call non-linear, complex adaptive systems. Such systems are created by a number of diverse and independent agents that are constantly changing and interacting with each other. In complex adaptive systems, a study of the parts surely produces an incomplete understanding of the whole. Examples of these systems include ant colonies, ecosystems, and human organizations.

It's worth making a distinction here between complex and complicated. An internal combustion engine is complicated, with many different components. But it is not complex because knowing what the parts are and how they function permits you to know what the system as a whole does.

The defining feature of complex adaptive systems is emergence: the order that emerges through the interactions of components in complex systems is "greater than - and different from - the sum of the parts," to use a familiar phrase. Complex systems therefore have a large degree of unpredictability. But more than that, the emergent collective order in turn influences the behavior, or interactions, of the parts. Feedback loops exist at every level. Such systems are constantly adapting and evolving.

Because there is little mathematics appropriate to non-linear systems, complexity scientists study such systems using computer simulations and models of various kinds, and observe patterns in nature. One of the earliest problems addressed by complexity science was the phenomenon of flocking birds. The precision and complexity of flocking invites the assumption that a central controlling mechanism exists.

The order of the system flows from distributed control - that is, from interactions among individuals - not from central control. This phenomenon is called self-organization"

But computer simulation, on a program called Boids, suggests that flocking arises from three simple rules guiding the behavior of the individual boids. In ant colonies, similarly, individuals follow a small repertoire of behaviors, and from these simple rules emerges an elaborate physical architecture and precise temperature regulation.

The Myth of Control

These examples illustrate two important properties of complex systems. First, that complexity arises from a deep simplicity. Second, that the order of the whole system flows from distributed control, that is from interactions among individuals, not from central control. In organizations, one way to think about this phenomenon, called self-organization, is to remember what happens in times of crisis. People take on tasks where they see the need, often breaking the normal rules of operation, often doing things they don't normally do. People achieve amazing feats, which they often rank among the most rewarding experiences of their work lives. Leaders often find it difficult to give up a measure of control, because it is part of their identity as leaders. But those who do find that their people tap into their latent talent, and do far more than they, or anyone, ever imagined. This is the power of a complexity perspective in organizations.

This perspective does not say that leaders simply have to sit back, give up control, and wait for unpredictable miracles. Instead, it argues that leaders must help create conditions that unleash the talent distributed among their people. It is a model of leader as cultivator rather than controller.

Complexity scientists have found that complex adaptive systems fluctuate between three states: stasis at one extreme; chaos at the other; and an in-between state called the edge of chaos. It's in this state that the system is most adaptable and creative, and in organizations it's from this edge that new ideas and unexpected directions of activity flow. Complexity scientists find that in systems poised at the edge of chaos, small changes can produce big effects. This is in contrast with Newtonian machines, where action and reaction are equal and opposite: small changes bring small effects; big changes bring big effects.

Small changes can generate big effects( in complex systems remember Rosa Parks?) because the web of connections and interactions among the parts causes changes to cascade and multiply throughout the system. Again, one way to apply this to organizations is to remember what sometimes happens when a team is grappling with a complex problem. Ideas are tossed about, some rejected, others thought to be valuable, but no real progress is being made. Then the next new idea triggers a flurry of connections, and a solution emerges quickly, a further property of complex adaptive systems.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, complexity science leads to a very human-centered practices in organizations

Relationship Matters

One final property of complex adaptive systems that is relevant to organizations is as follows: when the interactions among the agents are enhanced, the adaptability and creativity of the system is also enhanced.

In human organizations, this translates to agents being people, and interactions being relationships generated by conversations. Enhancing people's ability to interact and to develop enhances the adaptability of the organization. Complexity scientists have also observed that a diversity of agents in the system serves to enhance this adaptability and creativity even further. In organizations, this means inviting a diversity of experience and perspectives.

Leaders guided by a complexity perspective therefore place great value on developing and strengthening relationships with and among their colleagues. Perhaps counter-intuitively, complexity science leads to a very human-centered practices in organizations, validating such value-based leadership ideals as openness, diversity and integrity.

Consider, by contrast, the metaphor that has guided organization life since the time of Newton: the machine. A machine is a production system made of different parts connected with each other, and parts can perform only the function they were built for. A machine is powered from outside, its rigid structure determines a predictable output. It has no capacity to innovate, to adapt or to fix itself. Repairs are performed by outsiders, fixing or changing parts.

• Order flows from interactions, not from central control
• When interactions among agents are enhanced, adaptability and creativity are also enhanced
• Naturally adaptivea and creative
• Small changes may produce big effects
• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

A machine metaphor has clear limitations for explaining modern organizations. Complexity science gives us a new lens to look beyond structure and control for making sense of what is happening in the increasingly complex organizations of today. It provides a potentially unifying framework to help us understand some of our intuitions and experiences in organizations.

• The power to generate change resides not only at the top but is distributed among all members of an organization, and so is the power to prevent change.
• It is not the individual that is the most critical but the relationships among individuals.
• All people are agents affecting and being affected by each other; no one can stand outside the system and that includes leaders. Perceptive leaders realize their behavior is only one factor affecting the system.
• All people can only act locally, and that includes leaders.
• In complex systems, detailed planning from the top is best replaced by minimum specifications and appropriate autonomy for individuals to self-organize.
• What an organization can accomplish cannot be understood without first understanding its history.
• Among the factors that affect organizational creativity are information flow, diversity, connectivity, power differentials and anxiety. Most organizations have too little information flow and diversity and too much difference in power.

The Results of the Early Years

"The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them." Albert Einstein

As the study of complexity gained new popularity at major universities and research centers, Curt Lindberg's early scouting party began to see how it could inspire new ways of helping healthcare organizations become more responsive to the needs of people, families, communities and their own employees. They came to believe deeply in the assertion by writer Kevin Kelly that "Nature, the master manager of complexity, offers priceless guidance?"

Nature organizes itself through networks - broad, diverse, and multi-scaled

Nature organizes itself through networks - broad, diverse, and multi-scaled. Emulating this principle, Lindberg and his collaborators within VHA began reaching beyond their immediate community, inviting researchers, thinkers, and leaders from many professional communities into their midst. They were joined by a renowned Harvard physiologist, an influential Canadian sociologist, a retired pharmaceutical executive, a Fortune 100 CEO, the founder of the business-ethics field of study, the founding chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee Sports Medicine Council, and a telecommunications executive from Santiago, Chile - to mention only a few.

A persistent effort took hold to come together and remain together. Members of the group, now numbering three dozen, regularly assembled from across North America and Europe, taking time from their demanding research, publishing, leadership, or clinical schedules to share the latest knowledge about complex systems. Stories from the personal and professional lives of the participants inspired the group to carry on, while developing a bond of shared commitment.

Though loosely confederated, the group operated according to the very principles that had brought them together. In order to create robustness the group self-organized into continually changing small teams to share experiences and insights. In time, the group's learning began to spread to other networks of which its members were a part. As a consequence, many people and organizations began applying new ideas inspired from complex systems.

In order to share these developments, in 1998 Brenda Zimmerman, Paul Plsek and Curt Lindberg collaborated on a resource book called Edgeware: Insights From Complexity Science for Health Care Leaders. It includes a primer on complexity, action-oriented rules of thumb, stories and reflections from practical experiences, and aides for introducing complexity thinking in organizations.

Then, in 1999, Tom Petzinger, a Wall Street Journal editor and writer for 22 years, was inspired by his regular attendance at the group's meetings and authored the best-selling book The New Pioneers. The book is a collection of stories about how a new generation of entrepreneurs is abandoning command-and-control models and creating instead adaptive organizations.

In 2000, another regular participant, Roger Lewin, whose book Complexity has been judged one of the most important science books of the last century, joined with collaborator Birute Regine, an educational psychologist, to pen The Soul at Work, an account of how complexity principles work in businesses of all kinds - including the enterprises of a number of fellow Plexus Institute founders.

Among the many success stories one remains a favorite because of how simply it demonstrates the value of self-organization. It is a story from Linda Rusch, vice president of patient care at Hunterdon Medical Center in New Jersey.

"A complexity approach has earned Hunterdon Medical Center some of the highest patient satisfaction ratings in the country."

Linda became frustrated trying to plan new community health outreach programs. She had done what managers typically do: form a committee, plan strategies, research facts and figures, engage consultants. After months of meetings and valiant attempts to figure out the best initiatives to launch, all she had was a pile of meeting minutes and frustrated committee members.

Then she decided to change tactics and experiment with complexity theory. Linda hosted a series of meetings with all the nursing staff in which she outlined a good enough vision about why community outreach initiatives were needed. She then gave all the nurses in the hospital three simple rules to guide them: 1. Nurses could take up to one-half day per week each to undertake a community health initiative they cared deeply about; 2. They could not do anything illegal; 3. They could take funds from the limited outreach budget on their own, and expenditures would be publicly posted.

The result? Within a few weeks 27 projects were initiated, some more successful than others. But all generated more responsive and productive connections between the hospital, nurses, and Hunterdon County residents and agencies. Such attention to relationships and health has earned the Medical Center some of the highest patient satisfaction ratings in the country, ranking Hunterdon tops among New Jersey hospitals and within the top 1% in the United States.

Complexity science is also being recognized at the national level in the United States. In its groundbreaking report of March 2001, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, the Institute of Medicine - an organization founded by the National Academies of Science and chartered by Congress to advise the federal government on policy matters pertaining to the health of the public - used as a framework "recent work in understanding complex adaptive systems". Accordingly, the authors of the report consciously chose not to create a detailed national "blueprint" but rather stated their belief that: "a new health system should be based on systems that can organize themselves to achieve a shared purpose by adhering to a few well-thought-out general rules, adapting to local circumstances, and then examining their own performance. In reshaping health care, local adaptation, innovation, and initiative will be essential ingredients for success."

The Opportunity

"Complexity is where we are going in the 21st century. It is the future of science." Edward O. Wilson

By 2000, the unofficial learning network had grown to include more than 150 active, regular participants, plus more than 500 members on a listserv.

As the benefits of their learning spread and individuals from a number of countries joined in, members of the group decided to create a formal organization, capable of expanding their activities beyond the reach of the informal network. They resolved to recruit new members, to partner with new institutions, to seek outside funding - all while continuing to embody the values of openness, diversity, and connection that had first brought them together. As in nature, when a diverse group of organisms comes together to form an ecology, it was time for the learning network to adopt a more rigorous level of organization.

"As in nature, when a diverse group of organisms comes together to form an ecology, it was time for the learning network to adopt a more rigorous level of organization."

In the fall of 2000, nine of them assembled in Pittsburgh, Pa., to act as the founding trustees of a new organization, for which they chose the name Plexus Institute.1

At this meeting, Robert Shapiro, then the chairman of Pharmacia Corporation, advanced three propositions to help guide the work of the group.

1. At all levels, crises afflict the world around us. Many of these crises are closely connected to our controlling and mechanistic language and concepts, which are reaching the limits of their effectiveness.

2. People sense the truth of this limitation. Yet paradoxically, many of the people discomforted by the mechanistic thinking so prevalent in our organizations are people who occupy positions of power and control.

3. A new set of ideas and tools are becoming available to help ameliorate this tension, namely, the principles of complexity and a new understanding of the laws of nature.

Henri Lipmanowicz, former Division President of Merck, expressed his thoughts this way.

"It's sad to see so many people in both the private and public sector, at all levels in organizations, so unhappy with their working environment. They're often frustrated by distrustful, unrewarding relationships with bosses, colleagues or subordinates. Traditional controlling and competitive concepts have created a major conflict between success/performance and 'happiness.' This conflict is absolutely not necessary."

Here lies the compelling, challenging opportunity facing Plexus Institute: to advance and diffuse a set of ideas to help show people, families, organizations, and communities alternatives, created by nature, to the controlling, mechanistic principles that govern much of modern life.

Why is the need for alternative thinking so urgent? Because of the power of mental models. Mental models hold awesome power over the structure of our institutions, the nature of our relationships, and the language we use to describe the world around us and communicate with each other. As the historian Thomas Kuhn once observed, "You can't see something until you have the right metaphor to let you perceive it." And for the last two centuries, that model has been based on the machine.

"You can't see something until you have the right metaphor to let you perceive it."

In major universities around the world, in government laboratories, and in interdisciplinary think-tanks such as the Santa Fe Institute, scientists have made stunning progress in characterizing the properties of complex, dynamical systems. What's missing is the practical application of these findings to advance the health and performance of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. A major gap persists between the science of complex systems and the use of that science, which explains, in a nutshell, the mission chosen by Plexus Institute.

The recent work of members of the Plexus community provides evidence and hope that meaningful progress towards this mission is achievable.

The Activities of the Institute

"The view of evolution as chronic bloody competition among individuals and species, a popular distortion of Darwin's notion of 'survival of the fittest,' dissolves before a new view of continual cooperation, strong interaction, and mutual dependence among life forms. Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking." Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan

The founding members of Plexus Institute are, in the pursuit of their mission, emphasizing action over planning as well as a welcoming, inclusive spirit. They are eager to include new participants, confident that the experiences and knowledge they bring will enrich the diversity of perspective within the organization and, thus, help stimulate the development of the young science and lead to further explorations of its applicability in human organizations. The network of active members now approaches 1,500 individuals from more than 36 countries.

The Institute is moving to cultivate and build upon the years of work its members have already undertaken. The current set of activities emerged from a self-generative process, the result of interactions between members and individual initiatives. This volunteer-driven process has served members well and is in keeping with complexity concepts. However, it cannot accommodate the demands of the growing membership. The purpose of creating Plexus Institute is to build the resources required for expanding this model and make the benefits available on a much wider scale.

Connecting people, learning and acting constitute the organizing framework for all Plexus activities. This framework reflects the belief that learning and action are social processes fostered by people connecting with people. Sharing knowledge, joining conversations, and developing relationships hold great promise for helping people work successfully with new theories and practices, and they generate innovative ways to tackle complex challenges. Hence, Plexus will strive to embody the connecting, learning, acting framework in all Plexus Learning Network, Plexus Fractal, and Plexus Conference activities. The intent is to provide participants with experiences they can tap to make meaningful contributions in their own organizations and communities. Support for this work back home will also be provided through Plexus consulting offerings using this same framework.

Plexus conferences are a primary source of interaction among members. Plexus Institute will host periodic networking events and learning conferences to bring together scientists - in fields such as biology, organizational theory, and complexity - with leaders from organizations of all types - corporations, hospitals, government agencies, schools, universities and community-based organizations. This is the work that the Plexus founders have been conducting since 2001. In a recent 18-month period, the Institute sponsored ten conferences that drew more than 600 people from 235 organizations, including universities, healthcare organizations, government agencies, community and social service agencies, and major corporations.

Plexus Conferences are designed with a very flexible, complexity-inspired format that facilitates interactions and self-organization. Participants shape these events by offering issues for discussion and sharing stories of their individual experiences. The atmosphere is welcoming, inclusive and informal; lots of small group discussions emerge at the initiative of participants.

"Plexus Conferences are designed with a very flexible, complexity-inspired format that facilitates interactions and self-organization."

The benefits of Plexus Conferences are many. New ideas and insights picked up by participants become the basis of initiatives in their home organizations. These in turn become a new source of stories for future conferences and an attraction for new members. New relationships can lead to the formation of Plexus Learning Networks, a powerful support system for experiments and interactive learning.

Major topics of common interest emerge from Plexus Conferences that then become platforms for separate workshops. These in turn spin-off ideas, relationships, experiments and stories that become material for more exploration and interaction. Research proposals as well emerge from conferences and workshops.

Recent conferences have included:

• Improving the Health of the Chronically Ill: Insights from Complexity Science, in December, 2004, was hosted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, (a unit of the US Department of Health and Human Services) in Rockville, MD. Dr. Ruth Anderson, associate professor at the Duke University School of Nursing and a pioneering researcher on complexity based health care management; Dr. Ary Goldberger. A cardiologist and associate professor at Harvard Medical School and one of the world's learing physician researchers on complexity and human physiology, and Dr. Benjamin Crabtree, professor and research director at the Department of Family Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School-University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, who has researched complexity-based strategies for care of the chronically ill, were among the faculty. Dr. Pat Rush and Dr. Robert Lindberg, physicians who have used complexity concepts to in their own practices, described the patient-clinician relationship and human physiology from a complexity viewpoint. Nurses, doctors, medical and social researchers and policy makers together explored insights on the understanding, prevention and treatment of chronic illnesses.
• Complexity Science: Opportunities for Nursing Education, an Introductory Workshop for Nurse Educators, in August 2005, was sponsored with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and hosted by the University of Kansas School of Nursing, in Kansas City, Kansas. Designed for "early adopter" nurse educators seeking to introduce the latest scientific advancements into the profession of nursing, this conference brought together an inspired group of theoreticians, educators and practitioners. Faculty included Dr. Daniel Pesut, an internationally respected nursing educator who is current president of Sigma Theta Tau, Bruce West, a nuclear physicist who has furthered the complexity-based understanding of human physiology, and Dr. Michael Bleich, a complexity scholar who is also associate dean for clinical and community affairs at the University of Kansas School of Nursing.
• From the Inside Out: Uncovering Solutions to Intractable Problems through Positive Deviance in November 2005 was sponsored with Leading Edge Seminars and held at the Metro-Central YMCA in Toronto, Canada. Faculty included Jerry Sternin, founder and director of the Positive Deviance Initiative and Monique Sternin, the Initiative's technical director. The Initiative is located at Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy, Boston, MA. The Sternins have spent more than a decade pioneering the application of positive deviance to social challenges in diverse settings all over the world. Positive deviance is the recognition that in every group or organization there are some people whose uncommon actions allow them to solve problems more successfully than neighbors who have the same resources. Spreading such successes can help a whole community. The Sternins have skillfully used this approach to improve childhood malnutrition in Vietnam and other countries, improve child and maternal health in impoverished settings, and work toward eradication of female genital mutilation in Egypt. PD is also being used by US corporations and healthcare organizations.
• On the Verge: Changing Lives, Organizations and Minds-Complexity Science in a Changing World, the Annual Plexus Summit was sponsored with The Florida Atlantic University Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and the Florida Medical Association in September 2005 and held at the Delray Beach Marriott in Delray Beach Florida. The faculty included such luminaries as neuroscientist, researcher and author Dr. J.A. Scott Kelso, who holds the Glenwood and Martha Creech Chairin Science at FAU; Dr. Leon Glass, a McGill University professor and author who was one of the first scientists to explore the idea that many medical illness are caused by disruptions in normal rhythmic bodily processes; and Dr. Melanie Mitchell, professor of computer science at Portland State University and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute whose expertise includes cognitive modeling.