MidasNotes: Rob Slee's comments on the Nation Link to Rob Slee's comments on April 5, 2010

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MidasNation Founder Rob Slee is widely recognized as the country's foremost authority on the capitalization and financial management of privately owned companies. And that is just the beginning. Read Rob and other Midas Managers' views on marketing, operations, skill leverage and the legal and economic environments affecting private business.

Following is the 27th Note from MidasNation, written by Rob Slee: April 5, 2010:Positive Deviance for All The word deviant gets a bad rap.We tend to associate it with its adjective form:devious.And devious always has a negative connotation.But deviants come in positive forms as well.Strictly defined, deviants differ from a norm or from the accepted standards of a society.I say that Midas Managers are positive deviants.Let's examine this further. A while back I met a crazy man who reminds me of myself.His name is Marshall Thurber, and he founded The Positive Deviant Network.This Network has many of the same goals as MidasNation - in that it desires to leverage positive deviance.Marshall believes that positive deviants possess the following seven characteristics:

1. Passion
2. High Moral or Social Purpose
3. Seeing Holes vs. the Net
4. Moving Towards, Not Away
5. Rapid Cognition
6. Checking the Edges
7. Low Regard for Social Convention

It reminds me of Midas Managers. A few of these characteristics require further discussion. 

High Moral or Social Purpose Midas Managers are driven by more than just money.Don't get me wrong, we all are interested in making money - but we don't worship it or define ourselves by it.It's just a way to keep score.Rather, we want to leave a positive legacy for future generations.And MidasNation provides the platform to do just that.

Moving Towards, Not Away Midas Managers have a positive relationship with failure; it's just part of business life.What's important is what comes after failure.Positive deviants get back in the game and correct what failed.After over 9,000 failed attempts to create a light bulb, an associate asked Tomas Edison how he could keep going after all his failures. Edison looked at his associate in disbelief, "I'm not failing; I'm successfully finding what doesn't work."

Low Regard for Social Convention Most Midas Managers have felt ostracized from the norm their entire lives - especially in their families.I tell people that if you're doing extraordinary things, don't expect everybody to understand it.People judge other people by their own abilities.So when someone tells me (and it happens daily): "That can't be done!"I immediately recognize what they're really saying is: "I can't do that."Positive deviants have the internal strength of purpose to do their own thing.

In Watts Wacker's book, The Deviant's Advantage, he points out that there is a very predictable process with anything new. It always starts at the Fringe, then moves to the Edge, and then to the Realm of the Cool, then to The Next Big Thing and, finally to Social Convention. Not everything that starts on the Fringe makes it to Social Convention; however, everything that is at Social Convention was once on the Fringe.

MidasNation is somewhere between Edge and Cool - heading quickly toward becoming The Next Big Thing.

What's really Cool about the Nation is that we've learned to convert positive deviance into Value Architecture.So in other words, the benefits of positive deviance can be taught through mentoring.Anyone with the desire can modify their behavior and become a Value Architect through this program.

So Positive Deviance for all!

- Rob Comment directly to Rob at R.Slee@midasnation.com

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Last week, the Economist.com editors called GENI, and invited me to particpate in their on-line Oxford style debate series, from August 19-29.  The question posed -- can we solve the energy crisis using exisiting technology or do we need breakthroughs?  The bottom line is we need both.

 Please join in, add your comments, and vote!  http://www.economist.com/debate

This has been a great opportunity to inform a very respected audience to the strategy of linking renewable energy resources around the world.