How To Master Second-Curve Thinking In An Age Of Unreason
The twists and turns of the career and business road ahead in a rapidly changing world
Will ever faster changing economic cycles continue to impact your future business? You bet!
It’s not just Covid-19 that is changing the way we work. No sir! There is so much more than this pandemic going on. Some experts are predicting the fastest, deepest, most consequential technological disruption in history coming our way in the next 10-years. We may even be entering a moment civilisation has never encountered before. Is this an age of unreason, or a rapidly changing world? Who know’s right now, but one thing is highly likely - converging technologies will completely disrupt businesses and the way we go about our working lives. So, how do you deal with rapidly changing cycles and what new new skills and mindset will get you there?
The age of unreason
During the Dotcom era of the 90’s decade, we witnessed unprecedented change due to the emergence of dazzling new scalable computing power and technology. Today, technology is continuing to revolutionise our lives and dramatically reshape our work cultures and perspectives of work. Back then, in the Dotcom boom, business guru and writer Charles Handy, in his book, The Age of Unreason foresaw how these changes would profoundly affect our lives as we move further into the 21st-Century. He envisioned that work and life would mean continually reinventing ourselves and to be re-grounded in a new sense of success focussed on life-long learning, connection, community and purposeful direction.
Handy predicted the demise of full-time employment and the rise of the personal portfolio economy (ie multiple jobs and or career activities). We are witnessing this emergence today, 25-years later. Individuals will aspire beyond working for organisations and instead become the masters and experts of their own brand and careers. Again, this is playing out too where people have several jobs, roles or career paths. He also predicted that businesses would have to respond to ever-increasing waves of faster change cycles. Besides, he said, companies will become ever more reliant on hiring independent expert know-how to deploy transformational change.
Looking back, Handy’s predictions are certainly shaping today’s reality.
Change and the Sigmoid Curve
When we stand back and analyse change, it follows a predictable pattern that can help us to make sense of change, and where we are going. Here’s a ‘handy’ model:
Handy suggested that all change initiatives can be represented by the above S-shaped curve which has intrigued humanity since time began. This curve-logic sums up all human activity, work projects, new products, implementations of strategy, the rise and fall of companies, governments, empires and all life itself. It all starts slowly as a new endeavour, then builds up experience, it ascends to a crescendo of success, then after a while, it wanes and eventually gets spent.
Ever faster Change Cycles
We know that way-back in history past change cycles came around in hundreds of years. During the industrialisation era of the 20thcentury, change cycles meant jobs-for-life were no more and change began happening in decadal cycles. At the start of the new millennium change cycles compressed further to every 3-5 years. But, today, technology is forcing adaptive change at multiple levels in annual and even faster cycles. For example, Hi-Tech products such as smartphones become outdated by faster, better, more efficient, smarter hardware every year – and last year’s model - ‘so last year!’ Ever advancing Artificial Intelligence (AI) means associated software updates are rolled out to those products even quicker.
On top of all this, AI and supercomputers will mean many of today’s jobs will cease to exist tomorrow but, we can’t even begin to guess what those new jobs will be in tomorrow’s world. Current predictions inform us that automation and AI will mean many manual-based jobs will probably disappear. But, the truth is 'resistance is futile'- playing the Luddite never worked before and is certainly not the answer now. Technology advancement and AI is an inevitability. Instead, we need to embrace future curves, ride the waves of change and learn to adapt and change our mindsets and skillsets along the way!
The paradox of our times
Handy said that ‘The paradox of our times is that by the time you know where you ought to go [and what you need to change], it’s too late to get there. More dramatically, if you keep going the way you are, you will miss the road to the future.’Bummer isn’t it?
The paradox, perhaps of our times, is that we have to deal with even more paradoxes! For example, as technology inexorably advances on its own non-linear change curve it will create more unemployment and unrest. But, at the same time, it creates gaps in higher skillsets, as well as demand advances in our consciousness too (we will expand on this point shortly).
So, we will have to learn more complex ways of interacting and working together and not only with each other but, ironically with AI too – another paradox!
So, we are indeed living in an age of unreason and uncertainty. But, how do we make sense of all this change for ourselves?
Perhaps an even more crucial question is, how do we find belonging, purpose and identity to live in a truly mobile and globally connected community?
Read on dear reader, read on:
Ta-Da! Enter Second-Curve Thinking
Thankfully, there is a get-out-of-jail-card beyond the above curve – the secret is to create a new second curve before the first one peters out.
To understand Second-Curve Thinking requires a more disciplined approach and learning to become aware of the signs and to feel the vibes, and the winds of change earlier while the first curve is still in full flow - before the First Curve dips down (see the infographic above). This is where resources and energy are optimised and available to get the new Second Curve going and through its initial stages of experimentation.
Handy calls this Second-Curve Thinking.
So, the above Sigmoid curve depicts anticipating a future change at Point-A, or at the cross-hatched area, but before Point-B.
It all seems logical enough but, counter-intuitively we instinctively find it hard to act on Second-Curve Thinking, because we’re still on a roll on the First-Curve Thinking. The trick is to start reinventing ourselves when things are going just fine, so we anticipate and overtake the 'decline-phase' of the first curve.
Or we can wait it out – Point-B Thinking!
But, if you are at Point-B and want to make change happen - then it’s already too late! And you’ve failed to read the signs.
By default, human nature tends to react to change only when it’s staring us in the face and we run out of choices or options – that’s at Point-B. But, at this point, the resources and energy have dwindled and it is much harder to kick-start a new initiative here. Like redundancy and finding a new job, for instance. Other common examples are a small businesses running out of steam, or producing a product or service that is no longer relevant etc.
At such times, it’s only when we stand back and reflect on the circumstances leading up to finding ourselves at Point-B, we start to piece together where we missed the signs and took a wrong turn – isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing?
Therefore, Second-Curve Thinking requires us to adapt to a smarter more disciplined thinking approach to predict and work on change around point A instead.
The reinvention game
In today’s economy, Second-Curve Thinking is very relevant indeed. I began this article describing the rapid changes we are all subjected to in the ever-advancing technological era. While some careers may remain more stable than others (teaching and caring professions for instance), many of us will be forced to rapidly and continuously change the strategic direction in our businesses and working lives to respond to these advancements. More pertinent perhaps, Second-Curve Thinking will be about reinventing yourself along the way. It is not merely about organisational change anymore. It will become much more personal.
Mentioned earlier was the notion of a portfolio economy in the advancing technology change - meaning many of us will have to manage the twists and turns in a rapidly changing world. Inevitably, that, in turn, will involve mapping our personal branding through many Second-Curve changes during our careers in the next 10-years!.
It will become common for us to regularly re-invent and reposition ourselves during our working lives. We will need to continue to redefine and re-adjust what is important for us too. And for many millions of people earning a living will mean seeing things differently with new eyes. It will mean our work will become highly personal and have to align more and more with who we truly are (our authentic self). We will need to continue to develop a new sense of connection, community and purposeful direction to our work. To boot, reinvention change curves will be perpetual and ever-changing.
There is a difference between career change and approaches to work. Reinventing our careers might, for some, very well occur a handful of times during our working lives. But, reinventing our approach to our work in response to the ever more rapid technological change cycles, will undoubtedly occur much more regularly for the majority of working people. Such adaptation will become a standard part of working life. And we will all have to take our own ever adapting portfolio of skills and experience with us. Flexibility to adapt to Second-Curve Thinking for our own careers will the be name of the game.
Interestingly for businesses, average retention of staff at the end of the 90’s was roughly six-seven years. Today, staff turnover is about two-three years or less. For organisations, reinvention means new leaders, not the incumbent ones rise up to take the helm of new start ups that take advantage of the energy behind new Second-Curve Thinking.
Success focussed skills and life-long learning
I predict that as part of managing our portfolio careers and reinventing ourselves, we will not only need expertise and know-how, but success focussed skills as well. For example, the ability to work with others in high-performance teams will be crucial.
Learning success focussed skills and life-long humanistic learning will become part-and-parcel throughout the whole of our careers - such as soft-skills and emotional intelligence. Humanistic skills are vital for teamwork - aiding us to operate cohesively and collaboratively. Having a learning attitude for the whole of our lives will be vital too to remain ‘with it’, flexible and agile.
Interestingly, as technology marches relentlessly ahead, then the demand for these humanistic skills increases too. You simply can’t ignore these.
Developing your inspiration and superpowers
Also, small businesses will need to invest in creating high-performance cultures as well. This topic is gaining a lot of traction in the business world today.
Another equally important aspect of success and life-long learning is developing your mindset. Research around this concept continues to proliferate. This is about working on yourself internally, on your attitudes, behaviours and beliefs to get out of the way of and overcome your self-deceptions - this is your fixed mindset (see blue zone of the infographic below). By default, a fixed mindset stops you from facing change.
Change is also perceived to be harder the older we get as our mindset becomes more rigid and fixed. In Japan, they have a saying for older people that refuse change – they call them wet leaves that stick around. But in the portfolio economy, change sticks around and so our minds will have to remain agile instead of atrophying regardless of age!
In contrast, as you can see from the red zone in the above infographic, developing a growth mindset creates personal intrinsic resources and resilience that helps you to remain positive, optimistic, to better deal with the unknown and handle uncertainty. This is where we use our inspiration to grow and to develop into our superpowers. Developing superpowers are intrinsic in each of us, we merely need to do the hard work to deserve the right to access them.
Your superpowers help you to align yourself with your purpose and who you truly are as well as your inherent strengths.
In short, we all need to learn to become ‘less sticky’ with familiarity and embrace second-curve thinking as a way of life instead. These skills will be the enablers of the future that will keep you relevant.
Conclusion
So, are we entering an age of unreason, or a rapidly changing world in the next 10-years? Who know’s. Covid-19 has certainly been a major disruptor that’s come right out of the blue. But, perhaps, it’s more the later - how do we deal with a rapidly changing world? Here are some sign-post pointers to help you navigate this rapidly changing world:
Adopting Sigmoid curve and Second-Curve Thinking allows you to remain relevant and competitive for both individual careers and in businesses.
In the technology lead economy of 21st-Century, automation will change the notion of your work and more people will have portfolio careers.
Advancing technology will create more super-rapid change cycles and you will have to reinvent the notion of your own career many times.
As our economy advances you will need the balance of both extrinsic expert know-how and intrinsic humanistic skills to remain agile, relevant, resilient, purposeful and profitable too.
As you adapt to continually changing cycles, your consciousness levels expand too, and you will notice that your work becomes more purposeful and directly contributes to making a tangible difference and a better world for everyone. This is where we enter the innovation and superpower zones.
Transforming from a fixed to a growth mindset, building a strong set of success-focussed humanistic skills and adopting lifelong learning will be the superpowers you need you to master Second-Curve Thinking now and in continually in the future for your business and career success.
End
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This blog is based on a previous blog called, ‘How to Master Second Curve Thinking and Career Success’ published in May 2018. It was co-written with my friend and strategic business partner Randy Wall, President of the Engineering Leadership Institute.
Andrew Jenkins - PDX CEO
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