The Sigmoid thinking
MAKING SENSE OF
THE FUTURE
Charles Handy,a leading Management philosopher of Europe and author of the book “The Empty Raincoat - Making Sense of the Future”, used the concept of the Sigmoid Curve to make the case for significant ongoing change.
The stories of empires and businesses and individual careers will inevitably carry the end scores of what was achieved and what was not achieved.
It is rare to find records of the “sowing of the seeds of success”, that begin humbly and insignificantly, with only a few people paying attention to it. The present successes and their actions are loud and persistent and grab the attention.
Very little time and energy is available to the explorations and interventions for the future. I would have probably missed this line of thinking had I not by chance read the book by Andrew Grove “Only the Paranoid Survive”.
Andrew Grove led INTEL for several years and he mentions of the significant leap that INTEL took in the 1970s to enter the processor chips market, when the memory chips business was strong. Many of the other players lost out by continuing to produce memory chips.
This is an invitation to the world of sigmoid remodelling of your business, career and life through ILIFESigmoid’s inspiring space for learning and living strategically.
We give you the space and time to pause, look and decide, what makes sense and then sow the seeds of the future.
The seeds of the future are sown long before the harvest. One should invest for the future, when the going is good. Most people are stuck in the comfort of the present activities.
MAKING MEANINGFUL CHOICES
THROUGH NAVARASAS
Life and career are full of cross roads. Life would be dull without them. The question that often goes unstated is “How do I choose a direction that will take me to where I can be myself ?”. ILIFESigmoid offers mid-career guidance, counselling and coaching to creatively take advantage of the unexpected as well as unintended cross roads in life. You can discover and leverage the potential that you have not yet experienced.
ILIFESigmoid’s insightful approach to opening of the mind to a different possibility of “being”, at a cross road, led to the below message from a 32-year-old, after a three-hour session. He had just come out of his IT company.
"My eyes are already moist for quite a lot of things welling up. For once
I’m alive”.
A cross road is a point of confusion and often we tend to avoid and ignore the confusion in our minds, by continuing the path and momentum, we have generated in the past.
A cross road can be an opening to a new context at a time of transition. Recognizing the features of the transition and developing a band-width of emotional responses (through Navarasas), can give you a movement through the transition that you may otherwise miss out.
The Navarasas are nine emotions identified in the India’s traditional dance and drama texts. They bring out experientially, a multi-dimensional emotional space that is available, but often remains the untapped potential. It expands your ability to respond to differing contexts in ways that can surprise you.
ILIFE Sigmoid’s capabilities in
Developing a System
ILIFESigmoid’s systems approach to strategic organization development comes with the intimate understanding of how business and public institutions can be led to greatness.Invisible but significant wastes in Organizations (a Lean Management term) due to leadership, are far more difficult to reduce or eliminate, as they are often manifested through the dysfunctional aspects of the culture and climate.
In the book “Good to Great”, Jim Collin mentions that goodness is the enemy of greatness. In the context of a growing economy, the engine of rapid development is fuelled by the institutional energy and cooperation of cross-institutional work that gets created under very specific conditions of organizational leadership and systems.
Institutional leadership can create a context and a space for immersing its members into going beyond the parts to which they belong. The driving energy of the big picture and its sustenance beyond the current generation is an essential condition for greatness.
Within India, exceptional institutions like the National Defence Academy (NDA), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), IIM Ahmedabad and NIMHANS, All India Radio (AIR) are examples of positive institutional leadership in public institutions.
Their leaders have left a legacy of Institutional ethos and purpose that have developed the robustness of their culture.
ILIFESigmoid offers a nurturing for both public and private sector institutions, through facilitating a living Institutional leadership that promotes:
- the opening of minds;
- embedding an institutional memory of dialogue and
- constant inquiring approach to decision taking, risk taking, and excellence in execution.
ROLE EFFECTIVENESS
Learning from Theater
ILIFESigmoid brings to Organizational Development a key, yet under-addressed aspect of HR in Talent Development.
A major focus and investment of talent development and leadership development is made into developing knowledge and knowledge based practices, tools, and techniques for managing the functional, people and managerial domains.
These are necessary, but not sufficient, to create effectiveness of managers in their own emerging contexts.
Role is a like a vessel or container that brings energy to the ingredients and constituents of one’s actions. The techniques and the tools are necessary for the tangible actions, but are not sufficient for generating individual effectiveness in every role one is required to play.
The context of each person in an organization is unique through the mix of business, product, market, technology, and the socio-economic environment of the organization as a whole.
An enabling condition for effectiveness of an employee, executive, manager or leader is the ability of the individual to connect to the role through role choices he/she makes in a dynamic response system.
The drama of organizations is played out by individuals who are constantly moving within their comfort zones and also stretching themselves to fit the responses to their personal inner dramas that are not visible.
Cultures of organizations are formed by an interplay of all these role sets that emerge while the inner dramas remain unseen and unaddressed.
ILIFESigmoid has developed processes that will enable individuals and teams at different levels to examine their roles; this will lead to greater role effectiveness.
Changing the paradigm of L & D
Questions for the CEOs/CHROs/CXOs: Do you want to enhance engagement of your employees and executives? Do you wish that your people could be more effective? Do you believe that the future belongs to those who invest and create the future now?
If you have yes as your answer to any of the above, ILIFESigmoid is the solution provider that you should meet.
ILIFESigmoid brings to individuals and organizations (including business firms, colleges, R&D Institutions etc.,), the capability to develop customized learning.
At the Corporate level, ILIFESigmoid facilitates strategizing the learning and development interventions through systems for effective learning and their effective application.
Invest in the right paradigm of L & D
The objectives of investment in L&D should go beyond knowledge transfer and competency development. ILIFESigmoid focusses on engagement at emotional level that will enhance role effectiveness and clarity of shared purpose of the teams.
ILIFESigmoid has developed the processes for raising the bar of individuals and organizations.We address the challenge of getting the ecosystem right to optimize on the investment.
“What does make a business distinct and what is its peculiar resource is its ability to use knowledge of all kinds – from scientific and technical knowledge to social, economic and managerial knowledge. It is only in respect to knowledge that a business can be distinct, can therefore produce something that has a value in the market place.” Peter Drucker
In Sanskrit and most other languages, we have a proverb “Yathaa raja , thatha praja”. This means “as is the king , so is the subject”. Our experience with organizations is slightly different. We observe that the response of the staff is corresponding to the style of the leadership.
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The Sigmoid Curve
Have you wondered why our logo has two curves with a common island like shape in the middle. The sigmoid curves or S shaped curves in our logo reflect the focus of ILIFESigmoid’s focus in learning. Each S curve represents the process of investment, development, growth and decline of a career, a profession, a product, a business model or a technology or an idea.
When one is in the same S Curve and has reached a steep growth phase, the learning is incremental and becomes short term focused. It also tends to perpetuate the comfort zone that gives a sense of stability and equilibrium. But such stability could be deceptive at the turning points in life of an individual or organization. The transition to a new direction, path or pattern is essential for long term survival and growth.
Managing such a transition, in the life of an organization or individual or career, is a critical aspect of survival, growth and success. ILIFESigmoid focusses on the critical point at which one takes the first steps to look for the next curve. This is when the most difficult learning happens. It is a point of inflection, where one has to walk on the old curve and yet invest in the new S Curve. But there is no guarantee of success in this investment. It is also more difficult to accept that the “letting go” of the past success is essential, in fact inevitable, in the future. These moments are filled with doubt, fear, restlessness and a gravity like attraction to the old ways that led to the present success.
ILIFESigmoid supports this process through offering the knowledge, the emotional support and the insights and understanding of real life challenges. Each person’s or each organization’ transition is unique and often people look for assurance that someone has already tested and tasted the success in the new S Curve. That is not necessarily the best approach. In fact it is the cause of many of the failures of change management in both personal and organizational lives. Often people tend to use the old S Curve structure, framework and approaches to manage the transition and the new S Curve.
ILIFESigmoid will convince its clients on the need to think and act afresh for the S Curve to be seeded with the ingredients that will lay a strong foundation for the success in the new S curve. It may also may necessary to give up on a false start and discover the S curve afresh. This learning calls for patience, perseverance and courage which are the hallmarks of successful leaders.
ILIFESigmoid gives the desired level of instability and stability that will create the learning space for one’s new S Curve. The investment in this process has to reach a threshold level so that the new S curve can become the bread winner or winning proposition. This investment is in terms of one’s energy and time for individuals and in terms of resources and support provided in organizations.
As technology, life styles, and environment rapidly change and become short lived or unpredictable, the S curve durations could become shorter and one may face as much as 4 to six major transitions in adult life. Therefore the learning for transition that you can learn from ILIFESigmoid is a long term investment for the future transitions also. And surely we will learn from your experiences and challenges.
Welcome to ILIFESigmoid and create a sea of opportunities for yourself. If you want to prevent becoming obsolete in your career and profession, we create a process of reinventing and remaining employable or being in business without dependence on the environment to give one a place.