"He said that the adoption of any new idea (in this case, the idea of doing business with India) would follow the pattern of a bell-shaped curve, with different groups of people coming in at different points in time after the idea was launched. The first to embrace the idea would be 2.5% of the relevant population that he called ‘innovators’, followed by 13.5% who heTiny minds inside
labelled as ‘early adopters’. Over time they are followed by the much larger numbers of the ‘early majority’ and the ‘late majority’ (34% each), and finally the last to come on board the idea bandwagon are the ‘laggards’ (16%)."
I've always heard about we having two minds that think opposite to each other. I personally think that we have not two or three but many tiny minds who have their own saying. We actually consult listen to each of these tiny minds before we arrive at any thoughtful decision. For outside world, one may look like a careless or irresponsible person but don't you think that he never thought about being careful and responsible? Its just that in the decision making, his careless and lazy tiny minds dominate those poor careful ones. Its up to you, the CEO, to enforce some rules upon yourself to manage behaviour of these tiny minds.
How many you have?
You may be wondering what point i am making here? or What is the analogy between above article and this thought? Well, here is the idea. Recall the last time when you came across a new idea or concept from your colleague or from newspaper or from some advertisement. How did you respond to it? What did your mind say about this idea? Now imagine that you know 100 of your tiny minds and their opinions, determine how many are in the 'innovators' zone as mentioned by Rama, How many behave like 'laggards' i.e. traditional? Put all of them into one of the five zones he mentions and plot a curve.
Do you adapt easily?
Curve? Yes, curve. To be precise, five zones starting from Innovators (venturesome), Early Adopters (respectable), Early Majority (deliberate), Late Majority (skeptical) and Laggards(traditional) on X-axis and number of tiny minds on Y-axis. Do you see a bell-shaped curve as Rama mentions above? not exactly?. OK. Can i can say it'll be quite like that only? Interesting. Pick the topmost point on it and look at the x co-ordinate of the peak of the curve. This co-ordinate is the one that gives an idea about your adaptability factor. More innovative tiny minds more adaptable you are initially.
Bringing out personal change
Key is that, when one wants to bring a change in the organisation called 'You', start moving majority of tiny minds into the 'innovators' zone!
