The document discusses the concepts of the flywheel and the doom loop. The flywheel represents a gradual buildup of momentum through consistent small improvements over time, while the doom loop involves frequently changing programs without lasting results. Good companies follow the flywheel approach, focusing on continued delivery and underpromising but overdelivering, while those in the doom loop lack process and fail to achieve breakthroughs.

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.