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 Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial No Derivative Works 3.0 UnitedStates The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Floor Cleveland Ohio 44103 USA1Interview and transcription May 19, 2009
Curt Lindberg, President, Chief Learning and Science Officer, Plexus InstituteComplexity Science: The Science of the 21
st
CenturyINTRODUCTIONWhat are you passionate about now?
I’m Curt Lindberg, I’m the Chief Learning and Science Officer of Plexus Institute, its anorganization devoted to helping people understand complexity science and to use insightsfrom that science to improve the health of people, organizations, communities and our natural environment. I’ve had an interest for many years in how change happens insystems of all types and with my background in healthcare I’m especially interested inhow healthcare organizations change and don’t, and how they improve and how theywork. Some of the activities I’m involved in now I’m most excited about involveworking with a growing network of hospitals in this country, and with several other countries who are interested in addressing the prevention of some of these ‘super bugs’that are killing patients and leaving a great deal of suffering around the world. So, we areusing some complexity informed processes like positive deviance to help hospitals reducespecifically, MRSA infections.
What would you like people to know, think, feel and do?
[01:33] One of my real hopes is that more and more people can come to understand whatthe scientists are discovering about how complex systems change and work, as well assome of the kind of common principles that seem to under gird the performance anddynamics in complex systems of all types. Our view is that with that understanding people can make different choices and hopefully better choices, which can then lead toimproved performance in systems of all types. The science is growing very rapidly andwe kind of see it all around us with the attention to networks, you see terms like‘emergence’ more and more showing up, ‘collective intelligence’ – many of these arenew examples of new insights that are emerging from the scientific community, whichmore and more people are picking up and using in very practical ways in their organizations and communities. So, my real hope for the future is that this kind of keepsgrowing and there are more and more connections made between the scientificcommunity and people in society looking for better ways to work.
What do you see for the future?
[03:07] One of my hopes, is that people will take the time to learn about complexityscience and use it to rethink some of the assumptions they bring to their understanding of how the world works and how organizations work and then try to apply those insights inwhat they do and also to probably reflect on their experiences in organizations and
 
 Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial No Derivative Works 3.0 UnitedStates The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Floor Cleveland Ohio 44103 USA2communities using complexity science insights and probably come to some differentconclusions than are traditional.[03:56] I guess as you think about the future, my experience with complexity suggeststhat to generate, potentially, better futures, with no guarantee, but better futures, what youneed to do is focus on the present, and by that I mean, the kind of everyday interactionsthat we have with other people and every organizations, and see those routine interactionsas the kind of source of improvement, because, as the scientists tell us, it’s really theinteractions in complex systems that are most prominent and most significant in producing outcomes, what they call, the process is called ‘self-organization’ and theoutcome of self-organization is ‘emergent’. But, it is the interactions that produce those,and it’s the day-to-day interactions that produce what we have now. If we’re interested in producing a different present I guess we need to interact differently, we need to connectwith new people, and perhaps use some different processes in how we interact.
CATEGORYWhat category of the Innovation Framework do you primarily invest your time andattention? Brainpower? Networks? Quality, Connected Place? Dialogue andInclusion? or Branding Stories?
[05:30] Well, from your Innovation Framework, I would say the work of Plexus iscentrally devoted to building connections among people who wouldn’t ordinarily beconnected. So, it is all about building networks and healthy relationships within thosenetworks. The second area of focus is to help people within those networks use different processes to help foster healthier and more creative conversations. In Plexus we use theterm, ‘liberating structures’ which include a wide variety of interactive processes thatengage people in creative conversations which many times lead to very innovativesolutions.
What secondary categories are you interested in?
[06:32] We’re always interested in connecting with both scientists doing original, pioneering work in the field of complexity science and also people who are early adopter type who like to experiment and use new ideas in their everyday work. So, I guess that’sthe Brainpower category.[07:05] A wonderful example of the work we’ve done in MRSA prevention comes fromBogotá, Columbia. I was there last week and met with many of the staff from a publichospital called Hospital El Tunal, and they have been working over the last couple of years to reduce MRSA infections through a process called Positive Deviance, whichfundamentally is based on the belief that in most organizations and communities there areindividuals or groups who are already achieving better outcomes than the norm or their  peers. So the process seeks to have folks in the organization whose behavior can benefit
 
 Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial No Derivative Works 3.0 UnitedStates The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Floor Cleveland Ohio 44103 USA3from a change in practice to discover some colleagues in their mists doing somethingdifferent and getting better outcomes. In that process which brings all sorts of peopletogether who ordinarily would not be interacting – brain surgeons and housekeepers, for example – they come to appreciate that they all bring new knowledge and different perspective to the very complex problem of preventing infections and together they canget better results. They told me over at the hospital that over the last year there have beenfive months in which they have had not MRSA infections, which is a dramaticimprovement. To give you a sense I think for the scope of the kind of culture change thathas happened at Hospital El Tunal, a couple stories come to mind. One was from a Dr.Solomon who was the brand new Director of the Emergency Department at the Hospital.He came on board and he said within minutes the staff in the emergency department said,“Dr., this is how we do infection prevention around here and we’re not quite sure your  practices are up to our standards so you need to get with it!” Another was a Chief of  Neurosurgery, his name was Dr. Augustus, and he told this little story about how proudhe was of a nurse who came up to him the week before and said, “Dr., you’re forgettingto wash you hands, put gowns and gloves on” which he of course then did. Those twostories speak to me of the magnitude of the change that this hospital has achieved throughthis process when people in very, very powerful positions are recognizing that those inless powerful, but different positions have the courage to suggest that they change someof their practices.[10:21] A second set of stories comes from Billings Clinic, which is a large integratedhealthcare system in Montana. That hospital is also using positive deviance to addressMRSA and they did some social network mapping and they asked staff in the hospital,“With whom are you working on MRSA prevention?” before the positive deviance project started and then with a year’s experience with positive deviance. When they sawthe maps that were generated they were quite astounded, it showed that over time andthrough the process many, many more people were connected, departments and nursingunits became more connected, there was probably double or triple the number of peopleinvolved. They also realized that when they did the mapping there were some expertsthey had not known about: a housekeeper in the Intensive Care Unit, a very young nurseon their medical surgical unit, what the staff saw as real experts. So, as the network expanded and more connections were made, as more diverse people were brought in theyalso saw real changes in behavior. Hand washing went way up, the use of preventioninfection supplies like gowns and hand gel went up dramatically and what went downwere they’re MRSA infections. This hospital recorded in 2008 about an 80% decline intheir MRSA infections, which is very dramatic because in most places in the countrythese infections are rising very rapidly.
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