Jim Collins introduced the world to his breakthrough ideas in the book Good to Great. It’s a book that should be on every must-read list for anyone interested in business broadly, and growth specifically.
One of the topics Jim introduced in Good to Great was the concept of the flywheel.
My background is in technology and software, where the flywheel concept is nothing short of gospel, thanks largely to Jim’s research. A simple way to think of a flywheel is a series of momentum drivers that are naturally linked together. A simplified version of Amazon’s flywheel might look something like this:
Offer the lowest prices on products —> low prices attract new customers —> more customers attracts more vendors —> more vendors leads to more products that can be offered at low prices.
In this manner, the flywheel of Amazon continues to spin. Low prices is what got the initial momentum going, while each subsequent step is the natural result of the previous step.
That last sentence is an important one that is often overlooked. To build a flywheel, the links in the chain have to be the most likely result, not just the thing that we hope happens. If we can get the links as close to inevitable as possible, that’s where the magic happens and the flywheel takes root.
The flywheel concept isn’t just useful in business. It also happens to be how personal growth works.
Honest action is what starts the personal growth flywheel. Honest action means we’ve taken a critical look at where we want to grow and the actions needed to get there. It keeps us focused on the right action instead of the easy action.
The natural result of honest action is that we give ourselves evidence for an identity shift. Every action we take is a vote for the person we’re becoming. The more we take honest action, the more evidence we’re giving ourselves for an identity shift. The sedentary person becomes the active person by giving themselves enough evidence to justify the shift.
The natural result of an identity shift is that we raise both our ceiling and our floor. The active person will have a new definition for what good and bad looks like, as they’ve left the old definitions behind with their former selves.
The natural result of raising our ceiling and floor is reassessing our growth areas. What got us here won’t get us there, so we continue to assess the major areas of our life and adjust accordingly.
The natural result of reassessing the major areas of our life is continued honest action. At this point we’ve evolved to be a person oriented towards growth, willing to take the actions necessary to elevate ourselves. The flywheel has taken root, and our best selves becomes the most likely outcome.
The reality of a flywheel is that if any component of it isn’t working, none of it will work. If we’re taking unfocused action instead of honest action, we’re not giving ourselves evidence for an identity shift and the flywheel slows. If we’re not raising the bar for ourselves, the flywheel slows. If we’re not reassessing our growth areas, the flywheel slows.
But if we put our energy solely into taking honest action, we overcome the initial inertia, momentum builds, and the flywheel begins to do the heavy lifting. In this manner, our growth becomes effortless and inevitable.