Growth Catalyst

Tenkan-Ten, a word you do not hear often or regularly. One gets questioned quite often ‘what does it actually mean?’. Well, let’s sort that big question mark out. ‘Tenkan-Ten’ means ‘Tipping Point’. A tipping point is the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change. This change mostly cannot be reversed in any way as the impact was too large.

How does this mirror the first edition of the growth catalyst that ASICS has launched? It mirrors it in its philosophy - the philosophy of “smaller parts being brought together to trigger a big happening”. The philosophy that also Malcom Gladwell has attempted to create a unique style of scholarship that navigates between science and popular culture. Gladwell has for sure earned the wrath from all sides because of his theory and philosophy he has portrayed. For example, many scientists accuse him for being too simplistic, yet on the other side the mainstream media accuse him of bringing private scientific concepts to public display. Nevertheless, his books that hold his theory has sold over 3 million copies and continues to become assimilated into popular discourse.

The famous statement in The Tipping Point is that “Ideas and products and messages and behaviours spread like viruses do”, where Gladwell considers the birth and progress of social movements equal to epidemics and which few elements need to come together to help an idea reach the point of critical mass, where its viral effect becomes unstoppable. The book hosts three main lessons that help readers spread their own ideas.
The first lesson: An idea spreads like fire once it reaches its tipping point

The second lesson: Three types of people are responsible on getting their ideas to tip - Connectors who they have a massive social network, with many acquaintances and allow ideas to spread from one social group to the next.

Salesmen  that boast about ideas they love and their incredibly positive energy is contagious.
Mavens who hoard information, in order to be a source of great tips to their network, the people of which they greatly influence with their advice.
The third, but not least lesson: If the idea is not sticky, it will never tip - Gladwell calls this the stickiness factor. It answers the question: “Is your idea memorable enough to make people take action?”
With “Tenkan-Ten” given as the growth catalyst’s name, ASICS represents the small parts getting built together like a puzzle to achieve the startups’ tipping point significant enough to cause a larger and more important change.