Jerry sternin biography

Jerry Sternin (1938-2008) is regarded as the founder of the Positive Deviance approach.
Jerry Sternin, the director of the Positive Deviance Initiative, has extensive experience working with PD around the world.
Biography.

•

Jerry Sternin (1938-2008) is regarded as the founder of the Positive Deviance approach. An international development practitioner, Jerry served the Peace Corps for eight years in the Philippines, Nepal, Mauritania and Rwanda, and 16 years as a Save the Children Director in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Egypt, Philippines, and Myanmar.

Beside a stint at the Harvard Business school as assistant dean and a culinary experiment in Asian fusion cuisine in his restaurant called “Chautara” in the seventies and as Chef to the Harvard president household in the early eighties, Jerry excelled in different fields such as music and languages. But Jerry Sternin’s most endearing gift was his deep listening and being able to relate to all kinds of people from the leaders of this world to the most dispossessed. He also was the mentor to many young people and had a great sense of humor… His Jewish tribe would call him a “Mensch.”

Along with his wife, Monique, Jerry worked with communities and organizations around the world to apply the Positive Deviance (PD) approach to address problems as diverse a

•

Your Company’s Secret Change Agents

by Richard Tanner Pascale and Jerry Sternin, Harvard Business Review, May 2005

Somewhere in your organization, groups of people are already doing things differently and better. To create lasting change, find these areas of positive deviance and fan their flames.

Some business problems never seem to get fixed, no matter how hard people try. But if you look closely, you’ll find that the tyranny of averages always conceals sparkling exceptions to the rule. Somehow, a few isolated groups and individuals, operating with the same constraints and resources as everyone else, prevail against the odds.

Bridging the gap between what is happening and what is possible is what change management is all about. The traditional process for creating organizational change involves digging deep to uncover the root causes of problems, hiring experts or importing best-of-breed practices, and assigning a strong role to leaders as champions of change. We believe there is a better method, one that looks for indigenous sources of change. There are people in your com

•

Background

Developing the PD Approach: 1997-2001

Based on these early successes, the approach was scaled-up both locally and internationally with the development of a community-based nutrition rehabilitation model called PD/Hearth promoted by USAID and PD/NERP promoted by international organizations such as UNICEF & WFP. The PD approach to eliminate childhood malnutrition in a sustainable way has been used in hundreds of communities in more than 45 countries.

In 1997, the Sternins moved to Egypt where the PD approach was first applied to another seemingly intractable problem: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). During the next two years, the PD approach methodology was developed to address the failure to advocate against this near universal practice. With the active participation of Egyptians NGOs dedicated to eradicate this practice, “Positive Deviant” individuals such as mothers or grandmothers who refused to circumcise their daughters & granddaughters, priests and sheiks who advocated against the practice and many others who said “NO” to excision were identified and i