Tell us about your S Curve of Learning——and the popular theory behind it.
Sociologist E. M. Rogers introduced the S Curve in his 1962 PhD dissertation as a way to help us understand how disruptive ideas and products take hold in society. As he showed, the initial rollout is slow, represented by the base of the S; if adoption reaches 10 to 15 per cent, what had been considered ‘novel’ will now be considered ‘worthy of imitation’. This is the tipping point of the S Curve; and beyond it, the diffusion of an idea can be impossible to halt. Adoption is rapid through the steep back-of-the-S (the ‘sweet spot’), until about 90 per cent saturation is achieved. Then — with little room left to influence change — the pace of adoption slows dramatically.
My big aha moment came when I realized that we could also use the S Curve to understand how people learn and grow. Once we select any new job, task or challenge, we find ourselves at the very base of the S Curve. Growth
