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| Marquee Projects Portfolio  The following marquee projects are full of challenge, surprise, and learning... for clients, faculty, and consultants alike. Our focus on complexity, emergence, and social invention has attracted massively entangled challenges. Worthy, bold pursuits for dedicating our time and talent! It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare;
it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. Seneca  Eliminating the Spread of Superbugs with Positive Deviance
MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) is a common bacterium that has quickly adapted to resist nearly all antibiotics. MRSA is a growing global crisis that causes unnecessary suffering, death and staggering expense. It has spread across many barriers in part because of the "iceberg effect" – millions of people are colonized with only a small fraction showing visible symptoms. Most importantly, evidence is being generated which suggests that when everyone gets involved the spread of MRSA can be stopped. Read a new article in Performance or listen to a brief podcast or a 50 minute video presentation about the work by Keith McCandless at CIMIT in Boston. Precautions are relatively simple but involve changing everyday “autopilot” behaviors for providers, patients, and families. A fitting, creative challenge for the Positive Deviance approach to change. Collaborating in an international prevention intitative, The Plexus Institute and the Positive Deviance Initiative are coordinating. See a visual history. Keith is consultant to the Billings Clinic in Montana and now St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula Montana and Kelowna General Hospital in Canada (web site for the Canadian PD Superbug Project). Liberating Structures: Transformation-In-Progress 
In March of 2004, the Living Dialogue was launched. Leaders within the Latin America division of a multinational corporation, came together to spur more innovation and customer focus. The Plexus Institute was invited to help the group explore how changing relationships and complexity science could evoke lasting change. The purpose of Living Dialogue is to stimulate innovation at all levels of the organization and help people achieve their purpose by learning, developing and inventing new ways of working together. Detailed FAQs Over the last four years, the Living Dialogue and an adaptable set of Liberating Structures have unleashed  a stunning transformation in Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica. Peru, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. The work has also moved into Europe. "We have liftoff" in Spain, Belgium, France and Italy. The new methods and patterns have spread rapidly to research and manufacturing divisions with little or no formal training. Also, customers want to know "how to" after experiencing the methods first-hand. Applications to strategy development, daily work, community-based initiatives, customers' communities-of-practice, and marketing have taken root. Keith and Henri Lipmanowicz are the lead consultants working with the Plexus Institute. Plexus Webinar (90 minutes) Reality is only a consensual hunch. Lily Tomlin
Innovation Learning Network: Designing and Spreading Innovations in Health The Innovation Learning Network (ILN), http://innovationlearningnetwork.org launched by Kaiser Permanente in 2006, is a learning consortium of healthcare organizations engaged in cutting-edge innovation work. They are advancing technology and workflow with an eye toward disseminating innovations internally and externally. See "Who Is the ILN" here. The ultimate goal is nothing less than the widespread transformation of health care. A learning network with regularly scheduled conference calls, a knowledge management wiki, and in-person meetings has been successfully launched. Project themes inc lude: personal electronic health records; virtual simulation technologies; medication reconciliation; social network analysis to help spread innovations; personal mastery in sponsoring, championing, and measuring innovation; CareAnyWhere; ethnographic research; and, an innovation “toolkit.” Keith served as consultant during the grant-funded start-up (generously funded by the VHA Health Foundation continues to help guide their approach to collaborative learning and "socially inventive" innovation practices. The CareAnyWhere intiative is truly a breath of fresh air. May 2009 Meeting Flyer A vivid imagination compels the whole body to obey. Aristotle Leaders Learning: Patient Safety, Inclusive Leadership, and Community Vitality
 Leadership is a murky journey through a thicket of challenges. Leaders are faced with a perfect tangle of simple, comlicated and complex tasks. Each type of challenge calls out for a different kind of facilitation and leadership. Just do it! Find a way to fix it by changing the process… for relatively simple tasks; Find more evidence! Build agreement! Stay the course! Let’s reorganize… for complicated problems; How many courses can we explore at once? Where is positive deviance at play? Stir the pot! How can we build on our success? Whoa, what a nice surprise!… for complex challenges. We are working with  Patient Safety and academic medical school leaders (through the American Hospital Assn, George Washgington University & now Drexel University ELAM program), and civic leaders (through the Foundation for Community Vitality in Montana), developing skills in matching simple, complicated or complex approaches to challenges at hand. A mismatch will often make things worse. In safety and cultural issues, we cannot afford or accept failures lightly. Keith, Brenda Zimmerman, Curt Lindberg, and others in the Plexus Institute community have served as faculty in this important work. Challenging new topics include: inclusive leadership in academic medical centers; integrating spirituality into medical training; and, innovating by including & unleashing everyone. Over the last 7 years, multiple actions and experiments with leaders are advancing theory and practice.To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated. James P. Carse
Don't play what's there, play what's not there. Miles Davis
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