In Collins’ Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great, he feels the verdict of history is clear on what makes great companies tick!
Big winners take their flywheel from ten turns to a billion turns. As opposed to companies who crank through ten turns, then decide to start over with a new flywheel. They push that flywheel to ten turns, and again divert energy to yet another new flywheel.
Collins recommends, “When you reach a hundred turns on a flywheel, go for a thousand turns, then ten thousand, then a million, then ten million, and keep going. Apply your creativity and discipline to each and every turn with as much intensity as when you cranked out your first turns on the flywheel, nonstop, relentlessly, ever building momentum. If you do this, your organization will be much more likely to stay out of How the Mighty Fall and earn a place amongst those rare few that not only make the leap from good to great but also sustain it to become built to last.”
Collins shares the formula for crafting your Flywheel.
What follows is a shorten version from the book, with my personal comments.
Create Your Flywheel
Here's Collins’ six-step process developed and refined in Good to Great® Dialogue sessions with executive teams.
One of my former customers achieved great success as he discovered and applied the principles of Good to Great. Collins shares a Map in the Appendix on how all the pieces of Good to Great fit together, including the Flywheel. It’s a recipe for Greatness in our next blog. I’ll share my version of my customers Flywheel in the subsequent blog.
Growth demands Strategic Discipline.
Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period of time, to lay the foundations for lasting endurance. It’s the framework for Good to Great:
Positioning Systems is obsessively driven to elevate your teams Discipline. A winning habit starts with 3 Strategic Disciplines: Priority, Metrics and Meeting Rhythms. Your business dramatically improves forecasting, accountability, individual, and team performance.
Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.
Positioning Systems helps your business achieve these outcomes on the Four most Important Decisions your business faces:
DECISION |
RESULT/OUTCOME |
PEOPLE |
|
STRATEGY |
|
EXECUTION |
|
CASH |
We help your business Achieve Execution Excellence.
Positioning Systems helps mid-sized ($5M - $250M) business Scale-UP. We align your business to focus on Your One Thing! Contact dwick@positioningsystems.com to Scale Up your business! Take our Four Decisions Needs Assessment to discover how your business measures against other Scaled Up companies. We’ll contact you.
Next Blog: Map for the Journey from Good to Great
The Flywheel is one piece of the puzzle for building your business from Good to Great. Jim Collins' map for building a Good to Great company is our next blog.