Consulting Services

Plexus Consulting Services, ranging from simple presentations to on-site assistance, are provided by a faculty drawn from Plexus staff, trustees, science advisors and affiliated consultants to help leaders become acquainted with complexity concepts and put them into practice. The goal of consulting assistance is not to bring answers but to provide processes which enable people in an organization to deal creatively with complex challenges and learn new approaches to management which can be used every day.

Those associated with Plexus Institute have created a diverse set of offerings to help leaders in organizations of all types - community groups, schools, governmental agencies, corporations, healthcare institutions. These offerings are designed to appeal to a variety of learning styles and relate to important, practical issues faced by many organizations.

Here are some examples of consulting projects undertaken by Plexus. Merck Latin America Human Health has retained Plexus to more fully engage the creativity of Merck staff and develop more meaningful partnerships with healthcare providers in Latin America. The Foundation for Community Vitality has sought support from Plexus to introduce new ways of leading and developing healthy communities in the northwestern US. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has retained members of the Plexus consulting team to help spread the use of electronic medical records in healthcare.

If you'd like to learn more about these offerings, give Curt Lindberg, Plexus Institute President, a call at 609-208-2930 or email him at curt@plexusinstitute.org. Below are examples of some of the current offerings:

Positive Deviance: A Strategy for Lasting Behavioral Change

Positive deviance (PD) is a successful way to mobilizing organizations and communities for behavioral change. It is based on the observation that in most communities there are certain people whose special practices or strategies enable them to solve seemingly intractable problems better than peers who have the same resources. Rather than trying to impose solutions devised by outside experts, PD focuses on helping people discover and amplify successes that already exist. Communities can more readily accept and adopt successful practices that have emerged from their own members.

PD has documented its efficacy in solving health related problems in 41 countries around the world. Its first uses in the US in healthcare have dealt with the preventing transmission of infections in hospitals and the proper use of prescription medications by patients following inpatient hospital care. Corporate America, including Goldman Sachs, Merck, Hewlett-Packard, and Genetech. has also used PD. Application to in public school settings are currently being explored.

Consultation options range from introductory sessions to help organizations determine if PD is an appropriate change strategy to employ on particular issues to full support for a PD change initiative.

Complexity In Action.

Is your organization stumped on some tough issues? Have you tried lots of traditional management approaches to no avail? Are you looking for fresh approaches? Participants will learn and apply complexity principles and other innovative practices in a learn-as-you-go workshop format, generating new insights, strategies and approaches for previously intractable problems. Among the issues which may be addressed are: planning when the future is unknowable; creating a more adaptable and resilient organizational culture; building creative teams; recruiting and retaining key employees; and building a better place to work. Methods, practices and leadership principles appropriate to the selected issue will be tapped. A "good enough" workshop plan will be created jointly by the faculty and sponsoring executives. This plan will serve as a template and be adjusted by participants as the workshop proceeds. A typical workshop will last one and one-half days.

Some or all of the following methods and conceptual approaches may be used during the session. Participants will learn-review-and-apply-methods "in the same breath":

• Appreciative inquiry
• Improvisational dialogue
• Complexity aides and principles like simple rules, good-enough vision, multiple actions at the fringes
• Generative relationships
• Open space technology
• Positive deviance
• Eco-cycle planning

During every workshop, a special effort will be made to engage an appropriately diverse set of stakeholders and to create a "safe" environment so all workshop attendees feel comfortable participating fully and speaking honestly. Diversity, difference and their open articulation are all vital when creativity is needed. While the primary intent is to focus squarely on current issues, a second important objective is for all participants to gain a deeper understanding of complexity management concepts and their practical relevance. The general workshop design - introduction of new concepts, followed by immediate application, and then reflection by the full group - is intended to engage a variety of learning styles and interests. Each of the sessions will conclude with specific action plans, promoting the link between theory and action.

Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity: Healthcare Leaders Take a New Look at Leadership.

In this one-half to full-day offering, tailored to your organization, participants will build their understanding and confidence in using complex system principles and approaches. Those attending will be introduced to the scientific origins of complexity science, as well as the profound implications this science holds for management, leadership, and health. Stories will be used to illustrate the power of complexity-inspired approaches. The session will be built around each organization's leadership development needs and the key issues the organization faces. Before the session is over every attendee and/or team will be challenged, and helped, to develop complexity-based strategies to key issues. These issues may include valuing diversity of perspectives and resources, accepting the coexistence of shades of grey, planning when the future is unknowable, building a more creative and resilient team, nuturing better working relationships among all employees, helping a newly merged organization become a genuine system, and designing better approaches to quality improvement.

How Complexity Science Will Change Medical and Nursing Practice: A Primer for Clinicians.

During this half-day educational offering clinicians will come to understand how the once esoteric concepts of complexity science and chaos theory are beginning to trigger advances in health care. Participants will learn about a new definition of health based on variability rather than homeostasis, about how aging and chronic disease often involve the breakdown of nonlinear complexity and how this might be monitored and measured, about the pervasiveness of fractal structures and processes in human physiology, and about pioneering new approaches for increasing and restoring fractal complexity - or better health.