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Key points
- Success often comes from intentionality and perseverance rather than luck or random chance.
- Positive deviance is about finding unique solutions by observing and learning from outliers.
- Small shifts in mindset, like seeing more possibilities, can lead to extraordinary achievements.
My son has an unusual superpower—he can spot four-leaf clovers faster than anyone I’ve ever met. No joke—he can find five in under 10 minutes, leaving the rest of us still squinting at the ground, wondering if we’re just unlucky or in need of an eye exam. I asked him once how he does it. “Simple,” he replied with the confidence only a 16-year-old can muster. “I look around where I find one because it’s a mutation. If there’s one, chances are there will be more growing nearby.”
At first, I brushed it off as beginner’s luck—maybe he was a leprechaun in a past life or just had a sharper eye than the rest of us. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was on to something. His little trick wasn’t just about luck; it was about pattern recognition. He’d discovered a practical method rooted in science rather than superstition. And that got me thinking: What if success works the same way?
Why We Should Study Success, Not Just Failure
We often treat success as an accident or something magical that happens when the stars align. Yet, success isn’t a fluke. It’s not the elusive pot of gold at the end of a rainbow or the territory of lucky charms. Success, like my son’s knack for finding four-leaf clovers, has patterns and methods that are worth studying—perhaps even more than our failures.
Psychologist Jerry Sternin popularized the idea of positive deviance, the concept of identifying and amplifying the behaviors that lead to success, even in challenging environments. The theory? If one person or group is thriving while others around them struggle, it’s not because they have access to radically different resources or magical four-leaf clover hunting skills. It’s because they’re doing something differently—something worth noticing, studying, and replicating.
Luck Isn’t in Leprechauns: The Science Behind Positive Deviance
Take a moment to consider what we usually do when faced with a problem. We focus on what's broken. We dive deep into root-cause analysis, examine worst-case scenarios, and conduct post-mortems to figure out what went wrong. All useful, sure, but what if we also studied what went right?
Research on positive deviance flips this traditional approach by asking a different question: Who is succeeding against the odds, and what are they doing differently? It’s like my son’s strategy of finding four-leaf clovers. He doesn’t keep searching in barren patches; he studies the one spot where he’s already found success and looks for patterns. Instead of seeing that first four-leaf clover as a random anomaly, he treats it as a signal—a clue that there may be more to discover.
Turning “Luck” Into a Learnable Skill
Here’s the thing: Finding four-leaf clovers is statistically improbable, with only about 1 in 5,000 clovers bearing an extra leaf. But my son’s strategy boosts his odds exponentially. Why? Because he’s not relying on chance. He’s leveraging knowledge.
Just as his clover-finding trick isn’t about being lucky, success in organizations and in life isn’t about stumbling onto good fortune. It’s about recognizing where things are working and then digging deeper to understand why. Once you do that, you’ve turned “luck” into a systematic approach.
Think of it like baking: If your chocolate chip cookies come out perfectly soft and gooey every time, it’s not because you’re lucky. It’s because you follow a recipe, measure the ingredients just right, and adjust the oven temperature to get the exact result you want. If your friend’s cookies always come out hard as rocks, they should be asking you for your method—not just tinkering with the burnt batches. That’s the essence of positive deviance.
3 Steps to Stop Treating Success Like an Accident
If you want to find success—whether it’s finding four-leaf clovers, thriving in a competitive industry, or navigating a career pivot—consider this: Stop acting like it’s a fluke. Start studying it with as much rigor as you would a problem. Here are three ways to get started:
- Start by studying your wins, not just your losses. When was the last time you analyzed a success in the same detail you dissected a failure? We tend to treat our victories like they’re unicorn sightings: rare, beautiful, and impossible to explain. But every win has variables worth unpacking. Ask yourself: What made this project successful? Was it the timing, the strategy, the team? Keep digging until you uncover the underlying factors that made the difference.
- Look for the outliers: Who is the “four-leaf clover” in your organization? In every team, there’s usually one person who gets the best results in a way that seems effortless. Maybe it’s the sales rep who closes deals with tough clients or the teacher whose students always outperform. Instead of shrugging off their results as “luck” or “natural talent,” ask what they’re doing differently. Look for patterns in their behavior, approach, and mindset.
- Scale up the success: Create a positive ripple effect. Once you identify a success pattern, experiment with ways to scale it up. It’s like finding that one patch of four-leaf clovers and wondering: “What would it take to grow more of these?” Small tweaks in how we approach success can have an outsized impact. Can you share these insights with the broader team? Use the winning formula on a larger project? The goal is to turn isolated successes into a sustainable strategy.
The Takeaway: Success Is a Science, Not a Superstition
So, the next time you see someone succeed, don’t dismiss it as luck. Be curious. Ask what patterns are present that might explain their success. We’ve all been trained to find problems, to troubleshoot and deconstruct what isn’t working. But what if we took just a fraction of that energy and applied it to uncovering why things are working?
As for my son, he’s still finding four-leaf clovers at an astonishing rate. And while I’m still stumbling around in the grass, squinting for signs of extra leaves, I know one thing for sure: It’s not magic—it’s mindset.
Success, like a cluster of lucky clovers, might just be a matter of knowing where to look.
References
Sternin, J., & Choo, R. (2000). The Power of Positive Deviance. Harvard Business Review.
Marsh, D. R., Schroeder, D. G., Dearden, K. A., Sternin, J., & Sternin, M. (2004). The power of positive deviance. BMJ, 329(7475), 1177–1179.
