The Flywheel concept was first introduced by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great. It’s a metaphor that symbolizes compounded investment of effort.
In the world of mechanical engineering, a flywheel is a device–a wheel–that stores kinetic energy. Collins asked his readers to imagine themselves pushing the heavy wheel on its axle. As you push the flywheel forward, it begins to move slowly, almost imperceptibly in the beginning. You continue pushing and the flywheel spins more, gaining speed as it completes a first and then second rotation. You continue this way, pushing and pushing, causing the flywheel to rotate faster and faster.
At some point, the momentum of the flywheel takes over and the device spins under its own power. Now, Collins points out that it is impossible to determine which push caused the flywheel to gain momentum. Indeed, it was the combined effort of each push, compounded with the previous pushes and combining with those that came after, that caused the flywheel to reach terminal velocity.
The Flywheel model has implications for inbound marketing, customer service, and any manner of other business applications.
A business flywheel as a way for a business to define its guiding principles. Each section of the flywheel feeds the one after it, which in turn feeds the next, and so on, until the Flywheel completes a rotation and the process starts over again. If you remove one section of the Flywheel, the momentum is lost and the whole process falls apart.
An Integrated Business should always have its own Flywheel. It’s a way to show what is important to the organization and how each of these priorities helps the company achieve its goals.
Loading…
Want to print your doc? This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
Flywheel