Mica announces workshop: ‘Positive Deviance & Liberating Structures’

Ahmedabad, January 6: MICA today announced two-day workshop on Innovative Interventions for Change- ‘Positive Deviance and Liberating Structures' from January 15 to 16, 2015, at its campus in Ahmedabad led by Dr. Arvind Singhal, Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Professor & Director, Social Justice Initiative, Department of Communication, University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).

The workshop is targeted towards corporate executives in strategy, marketing, HR, communications and CSR teams of business organisations across sectors. Faculty and scholars in business, organisational behaviour, communication and media studies, health and nursing, social work and social change will also find the workshop relevant and useful.

Participants in the workshop will be enlightened on Positive Deviance (PD) as a novel approach to individual, organisational, and social change. The concept is based on the observation that- in every community there exist certain individuals or groups whose uncommon behaviours and strategies enable them to find better solutions to problems than their peers, while having access to the same resources and facing worse challenges.

The workshop will include understanding the foundations of positive deviance, a survey of positive deviance applications in multiple contexts and sectors, and the richer nuances of when to consider utilizing the PD approach, how to get started with it- by defining the problem, and how to engage in the whole PD Project cycle, including its scale-up and diffusion.

The other section of the workshop includes ‘Liberating Structures' which are newly-developed and codified methods, practices, and activities that quickly foster lively participation in groups of any size, helping unleash creativity in everyone. Unlike presentations or brainstorms which can be extremely controlled or loose and chaotic, Liberating Structures allow all participants to be engaged and involved at all times.

The practice of Liberating Structures dramatically boost a person's capacity to participate and collectively generate solutions those are empowering and sustainable. It can be effectively used in business and corporate settings, educational and healthcare institutions or in civil society organisations.

Elaborating on what the workshop offers, Dr. Arvind Singhal, Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Professor & Director, Social Justice Initiative, Department of Communication, University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) states, "The success of Positive Deviance and Liberating Structures are backed with strong research and study.

They represent ‘disruptive' interventional innovations with a proven track record in tackling complex social, organisational and individual-level behavioural challenges. I am confident that these concepts will be applied by the attendees that will significantly change the impact and quality of both interventions and interactions in a personal and professional capacity."

The programme fee for participants: INR Rs. 5000
The last day of nomination: January 12, 2014.

Nominations can be sent to:
Email: [email protected].

For more details, contact:
Mr. Narayanan K Nair
Senior Manager, MDP
Work: +91 2717 308320
Mobile: +91 9724447196

About MICA
Established in 1991, MICA is the first residential institute in the country and perhaps in the Asia-Pacific region, dedicated to creating Leadership in Strategic Marketing and Communication. For more information, visit www.mica.ac.in