Navigating your personal 'S-Curve'

You may know and even worked on strategic initiatives that includes the ‘S-Curve' as an illustrative model. Essentially, it looks at a ‘Y’ axis (representing growth or performance) and ‘X’ axis (representing elapsed time) and plots an s-shaped link that shows how new products and services start off and then grow before beginning a decline. It is at the top of the ‘S’ that organizations are encouraged to be thinking about ‘reinventing’ themselves for the next ‘S-Curve' as what goes up invariably comes down. It’s great fun when illustrating strategy in a workshop about business re-invention and has been made famous by the likes of McKinsey and Company. 

I’ve always thought that the ‘S-Curve' would also have relevance when it comes to an individual’s skills and competencies. It turns out that I’m not the only one thinking about this as I found an organization that excels in this (credit where credit is due!) https://cultivatedmanagement.com/future-proofing-career-s-curve/

The career ‘S-Curve’ sits in the same family tree as ‘Life Long Learning’ but with a bit more directive focus. I’ll use myself as an example of bringing the career ‘S-Curve’ to life. I work at the cross-roads between academia and industry. I wish I’d known this space existed 20 years ago as I would have pursued a PhD and gone down the academic track. However, I am where I am and it’s in a pretty good place!

I was, until recently, very happy in the great city of New York and working for a superb academic institution that is Columbia University. With the title of ‘Vice Dean, Executive Education, Columbia Business School’ I was even thinking about retirement property and visited my first ‘Cruises for Retired People’ website. I felt very lucky but also had worked hard and studied hard to bring that luck to fruition! However, something was not quite right. I wanted to make sure that I was not just comfortable but contributing my skills and experience to a bigger cause. What does that mean?!

The opportunity came to work with an online learning platform, Coursera, that was not only a world leader in that space but also doing some fantastic things in helping people, who wanted to learn and better their lives, who had very little chance of getting a formal education be it because of financial, personal or time-related circumstances. That was it! Online education is a growing area that has really benefited from a technology boost and changes people’s lives. I would be able to help bring great world-class academic content to new learners on a global basis. Time to let go of the comfort zone and start a new career ‘S Curve’. So far it has been fantastically eye-opening and great learning experience. Moving from NYC to Silicon Valley and working with some of the smartest, caring and hard-working people I’ve ever encountered. Already we’re working with academic institutions, global businesses and governments to bring education to many people who have different motivations to learn. Be it for personal interest, future-proofing your talent, providing for your family, creating your own business or as part of your own career ‘S-Curve’. Just have a quick look at this and you’ll see what a huge difference this new approach to learning can make:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2019/02/13/google-certification-clarksville-hub-tech-jobs-homelessness/2743215002/

Whether it’s to future-proof your role, to change direction completely (e.g. FT Journalist Lucy Kellaway who became a Mathematics teacher in London and started ‘Now Teach’) or really challenge yourself to reach new heights, start by knowing where you are on your personal ‘S-Curve'. There’s a lot changing in the world and it’s happening very fast. It seems that every week there’s a new list of careers and jobs that will be replaced by robotics, machine learning or artificial intelligence. All of this presents new opportunities just waiting to be explored.  You can allow your personal ‘S-Curve' to direct your life and career or you can sit in the driver’s seat yourself and drive through the curve yourself.