Slow Ideas

On Monday The New Yorker published an article by Atul Gawande, who is a surgeon, writer, public health researcher, professor at Harvard Medical School, and author of The Checklist Manifesto. Fortunately (and ironically) his piece entitled "Slow Ideas: Some innovations spread fast. How do you speed the ones that don't?" didn't reach me until today. Timing could not have been better.

This morning I woke with no where to go and nothing that I had to do. The past 4 weeks have found me at work either teaching a class or participating in our inaugural Summer Institute. Recently completed home renovations have taken up the rest of my time since school ended in June. These experiences running in tandem could not have been a better precursor to reading Gawande's piece.

Although Gawande focuses on combating cholera deaths and improving infant mortality rates, his piece is not about medicine. Its about human nature and trying to develop good behaviors. If I didn't know better I would say that our Head of School, Christian Talbot, was giving me a teaser of this article yesterday when he also used a medical analogy (only 1 out of 9 people would change their behavior to avoid major health problems) to get to the same point as Gawande: its hard to create positive change even when we all know that it is for the best. Any logical person would follow this statement with the probing question Why?

In the information age we transmit ideas digitally and instantly. If cancer were cured the whole world would find out in minutes. Things that are really "important" have a habit of going viral. This can lead to the dangerous, and incorrect, assumption that if something does not go viral it must not be important. Case in point: my blog does not yet have millions of followers (I realize sarcasm does not come through text well, let me ensure you that it is there).

Every year 3-5 million people are affected by cholera, which can be very successfully treated with a salt, water, and sugar mixture in most cases. Yet, this solution (an incredibly important idea) did not "go viral" in part because it does not come with the type of instant gratification one receives when watching a video of screaming goats or silly dancing. The positive results of the treatment takes days to materialize. You would think millions of success stories would be enough to encourage the skeptical, but because is uncomfortable to administer at first, it is still not adopted universally. Try to imagine how difficult it must be to force feed a child who is near death and suffering from violent and near constant vomiting and diarrhea. In trying to figure out how to save millions of lives around the world Gawande has also discovered how to save slow ideas from stagnating: people.

Gawande found that no matter how good a solution is, it takes people to help it grow. More importantly, it takes people forming genuine personal connections. Through his research he has found that sending small teams of nurses door to door to live in villages for a week at a time makes a bigger impact than television and radio ads seen by millions. Gawande suggests following "The rule of seven touches" if you want a person to listen to you, hear your message, and take it to heart. Before seriously considering anything that you say you must have at least 7 genuine personal connections.

Our Summer Institute lasted 8 days. My colleagues and I had 8 opportunities to have personal connections that we don't get to have during the chaotic school year. I learned more about some of my colleagues in two weeks than I had in the previous 5 years. I think I can speak for our group when I say that this has been a transformational experience. Now our job is to emerge from the Summer Institute prepared to share what we have learned with our colleagues and students. I think Gawande's article was the icing on the cake.

• Make it personal - Connect personally with someone. Then you can talk about your ideas rather than trying to convince them to agree. If it is good, they will listen. If it needs work, they will help.
• Have patience - Gawande acknowledges "painstaking effort without immediate reward" is sometimes necessary. I would argue that this is true of almost anything worth pursuing.
• Understand existing norms - The first step to setting new norms is to understand the ones in place. If a behavioral change is the goal, you need to know what formed the original behaviors.
• Forget about incentives/penalties - Real ideas shape culture. Rules and rewards shouldn't be necessary if a real change takes place. If you find yourself talking about rules you've strayed.

This summer I have seen change (in my kitchen) and I have felt change (with my colleagues). The latter is more powerful, but also a lot harder to share. With school right around the corner I am gearing up to make hundreds of personal connections between colleagues and students, mentally prepared for the patience I will need, reflecting on the norms that are in place, and ready for a major paradigm shift in my class and my workplace.