The Tipping Point
Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like wildfire. At that point, it becomes obvious that something has reached a boiling point and is about to tip.

Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too, can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in
the crime rate.

As human beings, we always expect everyday change to happen slowly and steadily, and for there to be some relationship between cause and effect. The word
“Tipping Point” for example, comes from the world of epidemiology. It’s the name given to that moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It’s the boiling
point. It’s the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards. AIDS tipped in 1982, when it went from a rare disease affecting a few gay men to a
worldwide epidemic.

Ideas, behaviours and new products move through a population very much like a disease does. Ideas can be contagious in exactly the same way that a virus is. A tipping point in this context is the point at which an idea
becomes so pervasive that growth becomes exponential and seemingly surprising adaption happens.

One of the things I’d like to do is to show people how to start “positive” epidemics of their own. The virtue of an epidemic, after all, is that just a little input is enough to get it started, and it can spread very, very quickly.

The greatest fire in the world would have started with a single spark somewhere. We need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that sometimes big changes result from small events, and that sometimes these changes can happen very quickly.

The 80/20 principle states that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the work will be done by 20 percent of the
participants. This idea is central to the “law of the
few theory” where a tiny percentage of people do the majority of work.

What underlies successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can
radically transform that behaviour or belief in the
face of the right kind of impetus. It only takes the
smallest infarction to cause the greatest changes. With the slightest push in the right place, can the world around
us be tipped?

R.S.Bhatia

Don't panic, there's always a rebirth!

FEEDBACK

...I must compliment you on the front page editorial articles, which really make good sense and are supported by apt quotations. I particularly liked"The shift of paradigm" in March, 2006 issue.

In fact, I have shared it with my children both here and abroad as it will help them a lot in their thinking. In fact,
they are fit enough to be a collector's item. Perhaps you
should think of publishing them in a book form sometime!...

Dr. Luis Jose De Souza,
Surgeon / Oncologist, Mumbai

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