The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

This is the second last chapter in the book, Good to Great, and it was actually one of my favourites. I enjoyed the concept. The concept being:

• Good-to-great (g2g) transformations often look dramatic, revolutionary events to those observing from the outside, but they feel like organic, cumulative processes to people on the inside.
• No matter how dramatic the end result, the g2g transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, not miracle moment.
• Sustainable transformations follow a predictable pattern of build-up and breakthrough. Like pushing on a giant, heavy flywheel, it takes a lot of effort to get the thing moving at all, but with persistent pushing in a consistent direction over a long period of time, the flywheel builds momentum, eventually hitting a point of breakthrough.
• The comparison companies tried to create a breakthrough, instead of slowly generating momentum. They lurched back and forth, failing to maintain a consistent direction. This was the Doom Loop.
• Those inside the g2g companies were often unaware of the magnitude of their transformation at the time. Only later, in retrospect did it become clear. They had no name, tag line, launch event, or program to signify what they were doing at the time.

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I learned from this chapter to just keep going in doing the right things, instead of being worried about creating some sort of quick program to become great. Just keep pushing on the flywheel and let its momentum build up!