4 key takeaways from “Turning the Flywheel”

 

Turning the Flywheel Memes

In the world of layoffs, it is very important for organisations to think about sustainability. Turning the Flywheel by Jim Collins provides guidance on how to build a sustainable organisation by building momentum within the firm to achieve success.

#1 Building a Flywheel

  • Create a list of replicable successes achieved by an organisation.
  • Create a list of failures faced by your organisation.
  • Compare the above two lists to create a potential set of components of the flywheel by analysing patterns for what works and what does not work in your organisation.
  • Try sketching a flywheel through the identified components.
  • Concise the flywheel to keep it to four to six components only.
  • Validate the flywheel using the past experiences in the 2 lists created above.

As an example, have a look at
Amazon’s flywheel:

Amazon Flywheel

#2 Momentum Creation

Flywheels are two-sided. The right side defines what needs to be done and the left side provides fuel (revenue per fixed cost for Amazon) to move to the next rotation. Collins guides us to focus on the following for building momentum and turning the flywheel:

  • Hire and grow the employees with the required passion and skill sets.
  • Build and reinforce a culture of excellence (eg: competency framework for employees)
  • Create processes to ensure that the organization is continuously executing as per the flywheel (eg: Quarterly OKR reviews)
  • Build a core ideology to guide the organisation’s decisions and actions (eg: Leadership principles of Amazon)

#3 Core Competency - Hedgehog Concept

Define a core competency of the organization by identifying among the things you are passionate about, what you do the best. Answering the following questions would help in identifying the core competency of the organization:
  • What can you be the best in the world at?
  • What drives your economic engine?
  • What are you deeply passionate about?


#4 Consistency is required to keep the flywheel rotating 

Collins guides organizations to consistently focus on the core competency and continuously execute to keep the momentum. Nailing each component of the flywheel will automatically land you on the next component, subsequently leading to a chain reaction.


Read the book to view more examples of how to build and revise a Flywheel



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