Flywheels and Epidemics
by CRP Partner Gene Baldwin
as published in Franchise Times
A long term track record of excellent operating results does not happen spontaneously. Creating and maintaining a culture of great customer service, low employee turnover and effective cost controls is not something you just wake up one day and find in abundance throughout your company. We all know that good operations come from the leader’s dogged determination to implement proper management and operating principles over a long period of time to the point that these positive ways of doing business become second nature to the organization. This is one of the key messages I took from two recent bestsellers, Good to Great by Jim Collins and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins says that great operations are very much like the rapid spinning of a very heavy flywheel. You see its swift and efficient movement but not the energy and time it took to get the flywheel moving that fast. The author wants the reader to visualize the quest for operational improvements as a giant flywheel that is loaded on a horizontal axis and measures two feet thick, weighs 5,000 pounds, and is thirty feet in diameter. The manager has been charged with turning that flywheel at a rapid pace. Progress is slow at first as the hypothetical manager grunts and groans to get the flywheel turning. It will take him a long time and much energy to get just one revolution. After the second, third and fourth rotations a small amount of momentum is built up and the flywheel turns faster. After some period of time of continuous and diligent pushing, the flywheel moves faster and faster and there is much less effort required by the manager to maintain the flywheel’s fast paced rotation.
A second example given by Collins is the success of the UCLA basketball program. I am old enough to remember some of those great teams. In the 1960s and 1970s, UCLA won ten NCAA national basketball tournaments in twelve years. The sports world marveled at the success of the UCLA program and many tried to emulate the success of its coach, John Wooden. Collins correctly points out that Wooden was the head basketball coach of UCLA for 15 years (1948 to 1963) before winning any national championships. The great coach spent all those years perfecting his style of play. He identified recruited and developed players that fit his system. All that work finally came together in that tremendous run of basketball success. I suppose hardly anyone was watching as John Wooden started his basketball dynasty flywheel turning in 1948. By the late 1960s the whole nation watched as the flywheel of championships move at a rate never seen before.
The similar example of how operational success is produced over time comes from the book The Tipping Point. Essentially, this book is about how epidemics get started and how they multiply so quickly. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, concludes that ideas, product sales and personal behaviors can spread like epidemics. Bird flu is getting much play in today’s press and we are keenly aware of the dangers of this potential pandemic. Everyone is watching for first signs of the epidemic and its spread among a few and then to many. The point at which the epidemic begins to spread at a geometric rate is the “tipping point”. Another example is heating a pot of water on the stove. You wait and wait for the water to boil and finally the first bubbles rise to the surface. Soon the whole pan is roiling with the heat and stream of the boiling water. The water has reached its “tipping point”.
The flywheel, UCLA basketball, an epidemic and boiling water have this in common; they start slowly and are carried along at ever increasing efficiency until they break out into a fast moving pattern that achieves tremendous success.
These principles apply very nicely to a proper attitude about operations. As a manager you know there are no easy answers or “silver bullets” to operational issues. Does your customer service need to be improved? Do you need to reduce hourly labor turnover? Are your workers compensation claims too high? Develop an action plan and see if you can get a few of your people “infected” with the right behaviors. Those right behaviors will eventually become an epidemic of right actions throughout the company. You do not need another high profile kickoff of the latest company initiative.
We live in a world that wants instant results. However, long term sustainable results cannot be achieved overnight. You need to start that flywheel of success moving, be disciplined about applying sufficient energy to increase its the pace of movement, and be patient until it seemingly moves on its own with ever increasing results.
© 2006 Corporate Revitalization Partners, LLC. All Rights Reserved