Fuel for the Field

Holiday greetings!

A resolution for 2010: Make positive change.
And the corollary: Focus on the positive.

Searching for ‘how to’ …some great guides below:

Dan Pallotta’s always interesting blog suggests a new name for the “nonprofit” sector — just about anything is better than a word that starts with “non”.

A hot new book coming out in February called “Switch” written by the Heath brothers (whose “Made to Stick” was a communications classic) lays out some of the most useful tips I’ve read about how people and systems change. Watch for it!

Atul Gawande’s recent New Yorker piece (on the heels of “Better” – his book chock full of anecdotes about how to do everything ‘better’) argues that the dozens of pilot projects in the health care bill may be just the ticket for reining in costs.

I haven’t read much else about health care reform that’s at all inspiring. He compares this incremental, testing method to an earlier era when the US successfully transformed agricultural production which – at the time – was driving food prices to unaffordable levels, and putting a damper on economic growth. Sound familiar?

Gawande and the Heaths tell us that big change happens not prescriptively, but a little bit at a time, as individuals (and organizations) are persuaded and supported to take a chance on new techniques that have positive results, impressing their neighbors and colleagues to copy what works. Government’s primary role: selective investments in information and communication, and eventually infrastructure to support replication.

Post a comment about your favorites on the theme: positive change, what works.