Last week we looked at the Nokia Story. For over a century this company reinvented itself and embraced change to remain viable and relevant. Unfortunately, its epic success did not last; Nokia slid from 5th place in global brand value to 98th place by 2014. Besides its problems with the mobile phone market, other indicators also point to internal rivalries within management; a fear-based work culture led to disastrous decisions. Managers were reluctant to tell the truth about the inferior operating system on Nokia cellphones and other design problems for fear of being fired.

I’d like to depict the challenges of leading organizational change using the sigmoid curve. A former mentor of mine--Dr. Tim Elmore--first introduced me to the sigmoid curve along with some very revealing insights regarding change.

You can basically chart the rising success of any organization or business along the sigmoid curve. An organization begins at the ENTREPRENEURIAL stage where risk is inevitable, but if it survives what Seth Godin calls The Dip, it will be an EMERGING enterprise ready to take on the world. Eventually, it can become firmly ESTABLISHED, but, if not careful, can end up in an ERODING stage and decline toward non-existence. 

The business world gives us many examples of companies that follow the sigmoid curve. Consider Sears, K-Mart, Blockbuster Video, numerous brick-and-mortar retail stores that failed with the advent of eBay and Amazon, or the music centers that depended on the CD industry to continue. These companies have either declined significantly or no longer exist due to their failure to embrace change as the markets changed.

[Next week I'll introduce a preventative solution to the ERODING stage]