Good to Great:The Flywheel and The Doom Loop

1. Good to Great
Chapter 8
The Flywheel & the Doom Loop
Mohamed Azmi Taufik

2. Two main organisational performance concepts
i. The Flywheel
ii. The Doom Loop

3. Flywheel  Buildup and Breakthrough
 Breakthrough never happens in one fell swoop
 Step by step, action by action, decision by decision
 Turn by turn of the flywheel
 All add up to sustained and spectacular results
Nothing obvious from “outside”
 No launch event, no tag line
 No miracle moment
 Artfully manage change
Patience & discipline
 Concentrate on continued improvement and the delivery of results
 Simply focused on accumulating results,
 Under promising but over delivering
 Tactfully manage short-term pressures

4. The Doom Loop
 No careful process – just simply doing it.
Frequently Launched New Programs
Made it a big deal to Motivate
Programs failed to produce lasting results
Fell inside the doom loop
1.
2.
3.
4.
 Two common patterns of the Doom Loop from company to company:
1.
The Misguided Use of Acquisitions
o
o
2.
Good-to-great companies used acquisitions as an accelerator of flywheel momentum,
not a creator of it.
The comparisons often tried to jump straight to a breakthrough via an acquisition or
merger
Leaders Who Stop the Flywheel
o
New leaders who step in, stop an already spinning flywheel, and throw it in an entirely
new direction.

5. The Flywheel as a Wraparound Idea
 Each piece of the system reinforces the other parts.
 An integrated whole that is much more powerful than the sum of the parts.

6. Key Takeaways
 Level 5 Leaders
 Getting the right people on the bus.
 Completely understand the three circles of your Hedgehog Concept
 Follow the flywheel model regardless of the short-term consequences.
 The most successful companies evolve over time, and do not dramatically change.
Thank you

7. Are you on the Flywheel or in the Doom Loop?
Flywheel
Doom Loop
 Follow a pattern of buildup leading to
 Skip buildup and jump right to
breakthrough.
 Reach breakthrough by an
accumulation of steps, one after the
other, turn by turn of the flywheel;
feels like an organic evolutionary
process.
 Confront the brutal facts to see clearly
what steps must be taken to build
momentum.
 Attain consistency with clear
Hedgehog Concept, resolutely staying
within the three circles.
breakthrough.
 Implement big programs, radical
change efforts, dramatic revolutions;
chronic restructuring-always looking
for a miracle moment or new savior.
 Embrace fads and engage in
management hoopla, rather than
confront the brutal facts.
 Demonstrate chronic inconsistencylurching back and forth and out of the
three circles.

8. Are you on the Flywheel or in the Doom Loop?
Flywheel
Doom Loop
 Follow the pattern of disciplined
 Jump right to action, without
people (“first who”), disciplined
thought, disciplined action.
 Harness appropriate technologies to
your Hedgehog Concept, to accelerate
momentum.
 Make major acquisitions after
breakthrough (if at all)
 Spend little energy trying to motivate
or align people.
 Let results do the most of the talking.
 Maintain consistency over time.
disciplined though and without first
getting the right people on the bus.
 Run about like Chicken Little in
reaction to technology.
 Make major acquisitions before
breakthrough.
 Spend a lot of energy trying to align
and motivate people.
 Sell the future.
 Inconsistency over time.