The Flywheel Effect

Happy Friday, 

If you run a team or an organization, you want the benefit of a Flywheel Effect.

The flywheel effect in a business and organizational context is derived from the mechanical flywheel, a device used to store rotational energy that builds up speed slowly but retains energy and maintains its momentum once it gets spinning. It refers to building momentum gradually through a series of small, consistent, and often repetitive actions that compound to create sustainable growth and success. 

If you view your current organization through that lens, it’s easy to spot things that add momentum and things that put the brakes on. For example, exceptional recruiting adds momentum, but leaders who manage those new employees into apathy and indifference definitely apply the brakes. 

The first challenge is identifying the three or four core drivers of your organization’s flywheel. Then, it's about ensuring that each of these drivers consistently reinforces and compounds the others. 

For example, these four:

1.     Values and Purpose - Your why: why your organization exists, why people should join, and why they should care deeply about its mission and success. Your why is then reinforced by:

2.     Leadership Strength (at all levels) - Good leaders connect your 'why' to the actual work experience.

3.     Effectiveness of Your Communications - A way to express and consistently reinforce your why.  

4.     Proclivity to Innovate and Implement—Implementing innovative things that make your organization excel and become exceptional.

Avoid flywheel short-circuits:

Values and purpose: They appear on the organization's website and mouse pads, but people don't believe they're real because they aren’t integrated into the work experience.

Leadership: No explicit expectation that 'leaders' actually possess or demonstrate real leadership skills.

Communications: Internally, they come from ‘corporate’ and are written in corporate-speak. Externally, they wander from the theme and blend.

Innovation and Implementation: The idea of innovation is motivating and easy to promote but much harder to implement. Guts, entrepreneurial instincts, and clear coms are required. Too little of any can result in employee frustration and misunderstanding.

Like a physical flywheel, significant effort is required to get started, and initial efforts and returns might seem small or insignificant. But over time, the accumulated efforts lead to increased momentum. As the flywheel gains speed, it requires less effort to maintain its motion. The system becomes self-reinforcing and can continue to grow with relatively less input compared to the initial stages. Each success builds on the previous ones, creating a compounding effect that delivers momentum, resiliency, accomplishment, satisfaction, and greater profitability.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." Aristotle and/or Will Durant.

True for both organizations and individuals. What drives your flywheel?

Have a freewheeling weekend!

Dave

Your feedback and blowback are welcome: dave@goodnewsfriday.com

All past topics are still available at @goodnewsfriday.com

Written by me, not ChatGPT, with speed assist by Grammarly.