Over recent weeks I have found myself talking to various people in the real world in terms of “our thinking is broken”. The context of these conversations was the need to change and improve a series of linked internal processes. Reviewing yet another “management systems standard” approach to resilience for this blog got me thinking about the same problem at a different level.
To better explain this issue I will rely on the thinking of Charles Handy, hence the extension of an earlier stand-alone post into a series.
The Empty Raincoat was published in 1994, but still offers some remarkable insights into issues of contemporary work and society. As I noted in the earlier post, the book starts by outlining the 9 paradoxes that Handy saw in modern society. In this series I just want to focus on the first of his “Pathways through Paradox” – the Sigmoid Curve.
The curve, shown in the graphic above, is described by Handy as providing a “model for life itself”. It can be used to chart the rise and fall of empires, the cycles of nature and the economy, to represent the periods of growth and decline that we all experience in our personal and professional lives.
Let me explain the model in terms of mapping success over time. And for the purposes of explanation I have made a couple of red annotations on the graphic taken from Handy’s book.
During the initial phase (generally the area under the red line) of any new endeavour we can expect that our level of success will drop. We have not learned to be efficient at this activity yet, and we may incur losses during this establishment phase.
The negative slope (the learning curve) naturally gives way to the improvements in our performance as we learn how to succeed. Eventually breaking through the red line and continuing to exploit our new abilities.
From here on we perceive that the sky is our limit!
The rapid increase in success normally mask our arrival at the point where the slope of the curve changes for the worse (around the red dot). Because we are not looking for them we often fail to perceive the weak signals around decreasing marginal returns. We are still increasing our success, just not as fast as before.
Often it will come as a total surprise when we reach the point of no return and enter the perpetual decline phase of the curve. Nothing lasts forever.
But all is not lost, there is hope. More on this tomorrow.
Any comment thus far? Any readers who have used this model effectively?
Footnote : American readers may be familiar with the book under its USA publication title of “Age of Paradox”
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