Sigmoid Curve

Creativity and the Sigmoid Curve

Yes, I know.
The Sigmoid curve sounds like a medical device and an unpleasant one at that.
But it is a remarkably simple business tool. I discovered the Sigmoid Curve through the great business thinker and writer, Charles Handy.
How can a such a simple curve be such a revelation?

It looks like a wave or whale breaching the surface of the ocean. As Handy eloquently puts it, “The sigmoid curve sums up the story of life itself. We start slowly, experimentally, and falteringly; we wax and then we wane. It is the story of the British Empire and the Soviet Union and of all empires, always.”
Curiously enough, it is also the story of a product’s life or a company’s rise and fall.
But there is life beyond the curve. “The secret to constant or sustainable growth is to start a new sigmoid curve before the first one peters out.”
Look at the figures below.

The right place to start new thinking or innovating your business model or innovation is at point A, where there is the time and resources to get a new curve though its beginnings and before the first curve begins to dip downward.
That would be a blinding flash of the obvious.
But the problem is that this is the time when a company or individual is getting the opposite feedback. All the messages coming through are that everything is fine, that it would be ridiculous to change when everything is working so well.
What Handy echoes is that change, real change, comes when you are looking disaster in the face, at point B on the curve.
The effort to overcome the downward cycle is immense and often unachievable.
Think GM. Think Blockbuster. Think Circuit City.
The second curve, whether it’s a new business model, a new product, a new way of operating, a new customer base ahs to be different.
The key to evolved success is about having the foresight and discipline of managing the second curve.
Creatively, it means drawing the first curve and making the best guess of where your company, product or service is on that curve. Then, exploring the idea of beginning the second curve with individuals devoted to developing it.
Handy cites a study (now a decade old) that of 208 companies studied over 18 years only 3 lasted the course of the whole 18 years. 53% could not maintain their records for more than two years.
The results of the high-performing companies mentioned and lauded in the landmark book In Search of Excellence echo these results. Few companies on the list, still maintain their position. And the rate of change in the S curve is accelerating.
So where are you on your S curve? Mark your X on the spot.
It is not a rallying cry to change for change alone, but a clarion call to anticipate the future with an openness to plant of the seeds for a second and third life your organization.

bron: http://creativitycentral.squarespace.com/