Interacting with CXO and Senior Professionals in diverse Industries is my daily job. Generally I do not ask them questions that can make them uncomfortable, but this time I chose to do so. I asked them “How do they ride their down curves as individuals & as professionals contributing to their respective organizations". If some motorists would read this, they would love a down curve where the gravity is on their side, however in business the down curve means that you have gravity against you and you have an uphill task.

Riding a down curve is tricky, especially in current times which oscillates like a pendulum back and forth.

I got several interesting responses worth sharing.

1. Where is the down curve: Most of the organizations , individuals keep denying the arrival of down curve by putting blame on others as the situations are stressful and thus admitting to defeat or being asked to change course is highly unacceptable. So individuals or organizations keep riding the virtual curve and feel above the down curve till they hard land on it.
2. Get the teams talking: Some of the successful leaders create more avenues for dialogue in the organization and act as moderator to ease out differences, preparing combating strategy & competitive strategies.
3. Reach to Mentors: Some reach to Mentors inside or outside the organization to churn out more creative ideas that can excite them to unparalleled levels which rubs off on to the down curve and lifts it up.
4. Shifting Closer to Customer: Some leaders start spending more time with their customers and start shifting more closely to them by marketing opportunities, new offerings and seeking disrupting ideas.
5. Sticking to successful process: Some of the leaders start redoing the same process which brought them the success and keep pushing the organization to follow the process more and more with different ingredients.
6. Wide Open Throttle and Steering control: Let’s come back to Motorist’s mind set. During uphill tasks what motorists would do is to put the vehicle in lower gear to have highest traction mode and press wide open throttle with a tight control on the steering. Some leaders do the same. They engage themselves with the high teeth gears of the organization ( the ones who do not move easily but posses the highest torque) and press hard to ride the down curve ( oops the uphill task) with steering control.

Mukesh Sharma