From our newsletter Outside the Lines

Finch inspiration

Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was inspired in part by a bird he saw on the Galapagos Islands. Darwin’s Finches have evolved from a single ancestral species into fourteen different species, each adapted to different and specific environments and foods.

Quirks and Quarks, a fascinating radio program on these finches has me musing once again on the process of change. I realise that much of the work I do could be called “accelerated evolution”, helping people and teams move towards where they were heading in a faster, more ambitious and more courageous way.

Change now comes standard with life, and we’ve all experienced times when it’s worked and times when we’ve resisted it. There are many theories of how to best spark change and how to manage it, all of which work much better on paper than they do in practice.

One process I find inspiring and useful is that of “positive deviance.” It connects how an individual’s Great Work can

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