Concentrating strategic thinking on the flywheel effect would likely open a door to exploit the advantages from embracing the systems approach in management as flywheels make systems thinking pragmatic and accessible: Collins’ flywheels are easy to grasp in their content, visualization and communication, in addition of having a proven effectiveness track record, hallmarks of a powerful strategy tool.

1. CCoolllliinnss’’ FFllyywwhheeeell EEffffeecctt
–– CCaattaallyysstt ffoorr SSttrraatteeggiicc SSyysstteemmss TThhiinnkkiinngg
Arturo J. Bencosme, PhD ~ September 2017

2. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
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SSttrraatteeggiicc TThhiinnkkiinngg vviiaa tthhee FFllyywwhheeeell EEffffeecctt
Jim Collin’s Flywheel Effect is an element integral to his Good to Great
approach to organizational strategic thinking. It highlights the driving power
that particular reinforcing feedback loops or virtuous cycles –flywheels- can
have in having a good (or mediocre) organization become great and stay on
such a path.
Collins’ Fly-wheel effect is like impelling a heavy flywheel, which takes significant efforts to get it to
rotate initially but eventually, builds momentum… …leading to a threshold into greatness. The main
assumption there is that by choosing correctly the variables in the flywheel, the organization will have a
strategic engine at its disposal.
Paraphrasing Jim Collins, Good-to-Great organizational transformations do not occur just by turning the
flywheel once or twice or by taking a onetime action. Organizations that make the leap from good to
great follow a steadfast process that resembles an accelerating flywheel.
Identifying an organization’s flywheel is tantamount to articulating the organization’s overall strategy.
The flywheel is actually a high level systems thinking model for the organization that makes explicit its
dynamic essence of how to drive it on its greatness path. It is a comprehensive, whole organization
strategy that incorporates components from multiple organization perspectives such as human
resources, clients or beneficiaries, the community and so forth.
Flywheel effect-based strategy execution thus focuses on turning the flywheel: driving systematically
and continuously to advance on a greatness path. In other words, relentless actions, initiatives,
programs and so forth need to be undertaken to impel the variables in the flywheel to get it to turn on a
continuous basis.
According to Collins, great organizations impel their flywheel consistently over time and will not shift
unnecessarily to a different flywheel that would divert or worse yet, dissipate its energy. To be precise,
the idea in utilizing strategically the flywheel effect is to keep on building momentum. It is apparent still,
that the organizational flywheel does not achieve free “perpetual motion”, but instead requires
continued tending to it to maintain the momentum simply because drag forces from within and without
will act against the flywheel.
It is important however, to be always on the strategic lookout. Times and circumstances change, and
organizations need to look ahead and prepare for a new flywheel that will be propitious to continue to
progress.
To figure out a strategic flywheel, Collins suggests a disciplined process that is evidence based. This
process is outlined below.

3. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
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Several Flywheel case studies are available in the literature. To be sure, Collins offers several examples
of flywheel effects in his published works. In all cases, flywheels are high-level dynamic models of
organizations that are useful for strategic work. While Collins suggests basing the identification
of an organization’s flywheel on its historic successes and failures –as illustrated in his case studies-, one
can wonder about how to go about utilizing the flywheel effect to create a different, great future: it is
possible that an organization decides to aim at a great future that is based on premises that differ
substantially from the organization’s past history. The corresponding flywheel will need to be imagined
rather than synthesized it from the past. The organization will thus be on the path to embody a
“proprietary” flywheel that is believed by its leadership to be appropriate to the new vision.
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Pro Nonviolence 1
is a nonprofit organization that helps survivors of domestic violence regain their lives
and reconnect with society productively, and also promotes nonviolence within the community it serves
and within society in general. Deep rooted within this organization is the belief that domestic violence
results in a profound schism between the victim’s self and the victim’s family and the victim’s
community. Pro Nonviolence’s efforts are thus orchestrated around connecting people, donors,
volunteers, and staff to the victims, their families and their community. Pro Nonviolence also actively
advocates preventing the becoming of such victims in society.
What flywheel -reinforcing feedback loop / virtuous cycle- could drive Pro Nonviolence’s advance on a
greatness path? As with most nonprofit organizations, leadership plays a major role as it asserts the
direction for the Pro Nonviolence to navigate in the absence of market-oriented rules. It acts as a
magnet attracting the right people, funds and institutions to the organization’s cause. Having these
resources in hand, managing and innovating operations aim at attaining superior results, in terms of
fulfilling Pro Nonviolence’s mission. With these demonstrated results, its reputation and image within
the community rises and reinforces the leadership move.
1
Case is real, but the name is fictitious.
List replicable successes achieved
and failures/disappointments incurred.
Identify possible flywheel components
To begin sketching the flywheel,
establish first the start component.
Add components to loop back to the start component. (Total ≤ 6)
Refine, test & validate until explaining replicable successes
from the flywheel, and failures when not adhering to the flywheel.
Process for Identifying a Flywheel
Adapted from J. Collins, “How Does your Flywheel Turn?”

4. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
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The depiction below illustrates flywheel effect- strategic thinking-based in Pro Nonviolence. Each of the
six components in the flywheel feeds into and reinforces the next one in the direction of the arrows.
This flywheel was found in part using the historic trend of successes and failures of Pro Nonviolence and
also, also blending this knowledge with intuitive strategic thinking about how to move onto a path of
sustained greatness.
A summary of the six components make up Pro Nonviolence’s flywheel is as follows:
 Affirm Direction – to lead by enrolling followers in a vision and a strategy
 Leverage Believers - attracting suitable people, donors and institutional
collaboration
 Build Organizational Strength –through developing the right culture and people,
leadership, and long term sustainability
 Foster Mastery & Innovation – to attain operational excellence and much needed
innovative psychological work in operations & safety orientation
 Attain Extraordinary Results – to successfully support to victims & cooperating to
prevent domestic violence in the community
 Build Brand – to construct a positive image & reputation within the community.

5. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
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Overlaying the above summary over the description for each component in the flywheel produces a
diagram that is useful for strategic discussions in Pro Nonviolence. This resulting diagram is presented
below.
What should be done to impel the flywheel initially? That is, where to start? For Pro Nonviolence, the
answer has been steadfast leadership in affirming direction.
EExxppaannddiinngg FFllyywwhheeeellss tthhrroouugghh SSyysstteemmss TThhiinnkkiinngg iinn SSttrraatteeggyy
Detailing the components and interactions in a flywheel leads into building a more elaborate dynamic
system perspective on Pro Nonviolence. For example, each of the six components included in the Pro
Nonviolence flywheel is made of and connected to a number of variables, which in turn are connected
to even more variables. Incorporating all those variables and their interconnections into the systems
view on Pro Nonviolence will translate into a complex systems model of this organization.
The resulting causal diagram can very well constitute a step in the direction of building a full systems
thinking model for Pro Nonviolence. The point is however, that Pro Nonviolence strategic progress

6. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
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stems from the reinforcing feedback loop at the center of such model that constitutes its flywheel, and
that should play the role of focal point for systems and strategic thinking.
A number of sub-components can be seen in a systems diagram for Pro Nonviolence’s flywheel shown in
the diagram below. The six flywheel components act now as sectors that organize the systems model
while maintaining the flywheel reinforcing loop under the spotlight.
While the utilization of systems diagrams like the one illustrated for Pro Nonviolence, and the resulting
models to generate simulations have been widely presented and discussed in the literature, their
adoption by management has been rather elusive. Their utilization has remained mostly within the
realm of specialists and a few systems-trained managers. Still, the discipline of systems thinking remains
a cornerstone in Peter Senge’s learning organization paradigm and his systems archetypes offer one
avenue to accelerate the said adoption. These archetypes are made of interacting reinforcing and
balancing feedback loops, that represent typical stories that take place within organizations.
PPRROO NNOONNVVIIOOLLEENNCCEE’’SS SSYYSSTTEEMMSS DDIIAAGGRRAAMM DDEEVVEELLOOPPEEDD FFRROOMM IITTSS FFLLYYWWHHEEEELL

7. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
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Flywheels, on the other hand, are simpler than Senge’s systems thinking archetypes. A flywheel is made
of a single reinforcing feedback loop. They too can be seen as archetypes by incorporating time delays
into them that help understand its dynamics. As archetypes, flywheels tell the stories of organizations
advancing from good to great.
The diagram below shows Pro Nonviolence flywheel with some illustrative delays (the intercepting
double bars). It can be observed in it, that a time inclusive narrative is being followed:
Affirming direction will eventually attract donors, people and granters thus providing the
means to build organizational strength that will take place over time. That will lead into
fostering progressively mastery and innovation to enhance operational excellence and
safety to produce extraordinary results. . The results attained drives brand building
which is a slow process by nature and one that reinforces and propitiates the direction
affirmed by leadership..
Understanding the presence of these delays will help with timing appropriately the initiatives to drive
the flywheel. Most useful, while this flywheel was developed for Pro Nonviolence, its level of abstraction
makes it a suitable candidate for becoming a template –a systems archetype- for flywheel centered
systems thinking view on nonprofit organization strategy formulation.

8. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
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Strategy Maps, Systems Thinking and the Flywheel effect
David P. Norton’s remarks (in the sidebar) about the challenges
facing management for embracing the systems approach to further
the realism and usefulness of the strategy map/balanced scorecard
framework are still as relevant today as when they were made back
in 2001. The Systems Approach -through methodologies for
implementing it such as Peter Senge’s Systems Thinking and Jay
Forrester’s System Dynamics- attempts to cater to efforts to bring
together an organization’s parts into a coherent whole. That
integrative quality is very much suitable and needed for strategic
reflecting, planning, managing and leadership. Nevertheless, a
major barrier against embracing the systems approach -in
management in general- and in strategy, in particular- stems from
the complexity involved in the models and diagrams that are
created within this approach: variables are presented in causal
diagrams depicting interactions and delays among them forming a
web of feedback loops. While such representations strive to offer
visualizations of the dynamics of organizations, they can be
challenging to understand and even more so to utilize them for
strategic discernment.
Robert Kaplan’s and David Norton’s Strategy Map
approach which underlies constructing Balanced
Scorecards, on the other hand, leads to developing
simplified pictures of those interrelationships and
captures some of the complexity in organizations:
the interrelationships among key variables are presented through
linear cause-effect linkages depicted by arrows forming strategy
trees. This approach has proven to facilitate constructing useful
test beds for designing, learning and communicating strategy, and
for measuring strategy implementation. Those cause-effect
interrelationships allow visualizing basic assumptions about the
strategy on hand. They surface the hypothesis underlying strategy
so that they can be vetted or changed. Strategic thinking within the
Kaplan & Norton’s approach is undertaken when establishing the
“strategic themes”. These are partial generic strategies such as
operational excellence, product innovation, accelerated growth
and so forth that occur frequently in most organizations. Each of
these themes will be specified and detailed to give content to the
strategy that the organization at hand must implement to move
toward its vision.
In fact, within Kaplan & Norton’s approach, the
organization’s overall strategy is viewed as a set of
mutually supporting strategic themes. After the
strategic themes have been clarified, each of them
… Bob Kaplan and I have
long believed that
Dynamic Systems
Simulation would be the
ultimate expression of an
organization’s strategy
and the perfect
foundation …
… We have long been
frustrated with the slow
pace at which executives
have embraced system
dynamics. The strategy
map approach, however,
has created momentum.
Strategy maps fall short of
a true description of
reality. As Barry points
out, they don’t address
time delays and feedback
loops. However they do
force executives to make
explicit their assumptions
of causality. They do,
then, provide a framework
to test this hypothesis…
… Our fondest hope is
that, when history books
are written, it will said
that strategy maps and
balanced scorecards were
the Trojan horses that
made system dynamics a
standard tool of
management.
David P. Norton’s response to
Barry Richmond,
“A New Language for
Leveraging Scorecard-Driven
Learning”.
Harvard Business School
Publishing, Vol.3, No.1,
January-February 2001

9. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
9 / 11
is decomposed into key strategic variables across multiple perspectives on the organization: finance,
customers & community, internal processes and organizational learning & growth. Arrows representing
the cause-effect interrelationships among the key strategic variables complete the strategy map. Key
performance indicators will be established next to measure the implementation of the overall strategy
through the results obtained in those variables. Strategic thinking and strategy execution through
Kaplan & Norton’s balanced scorecard / strategy map approach has evolved into a worldwide
management staple. Books, periodicals and surveys highlight its utilization in all sectors for describing
strategy and for driving and measuring performance.
A Strategy Map Counterpart to Pro Nonviolence’s Flywheel
An adaptation of the components in Pro Nonviolence’s flywheel can be utilized for building the
corresponding strategy map. The resulting strategy map illustrates an essential difference with respect
to the flywheel approach. While the former suggests linear cause-effect thinking, the flywheel suggests
a dynamic, feedback loop nature typical of the systems approach. The diagram below depicts the linear
relationships ascending through the perspectives on Pro Nonviolence in an attempt to encompass the
components included in its flywheel. A caveat: Even if each of the components included in the strategy
map diagram were to be decomposed into several sub-components, strategy map’s linearity will still be
present. Strategy maps do not lend themselves properly for representing organizations as dynamic
systems. Flywheels, on the other hand, bring along the intellectual comfort of having a more realistic
representation of reality thanks to its dynamic nature.

10. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
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Flywheels are strategic by definition. Thus all variables included in the flywheel and the delays among
them are of strategic significance. Consequently, adopting a flywheel mindset leads to undertaking a
number of initiatives aimed both at impelling the variables and affecting the delays among them in
order to implement a well synchronized flywheel-based strategy. In line with Kaplan & Norton premises,
the objectives for each of these variables and delays are strategic objectives: accomplishing them signify
that the strategy is actually being implemented as planned.
Establishing appropriate measurements for each of the variables in the flywheel and the delays that
describe its dynamics bring to life a set of key performance indicators. They will serve the purpose of
monitoring and managing strategy implementation within a dynamic context. These indicators are also
important for strategic learning that is, for vetting the hypotheses underlying the flywheel.
This dual aim –strategic variables and the delays in their interconnections- constitutes a direct
application of systems thinking that expands the scope of strategy implementation a la Kaplan &
Norton. In fact, flywheel thinking focuses on strategic variables similarly to what a strategy map would;
all strategic themes underlying the corresponding strategy map such as operational excellence and
brand building will be intertwined within the flywheel; and considerations with respect to the time
dimension provides a dynamic systems perspective on the resulting overall functioning of the
organization. The latter convokes visualizing multiple organization components being all driven by the
flywheel momentum.
CCoonncclluussiioonn
Concentrating strategic thinking on the flywheel effect would likely open a door
to exploit the advantages from embracing the systems approach in
management as flywheels make systems thinking pragmatic and accessible:
Collins’ flywheels are easy to grasp in their content, visualization and
communication, in addition of having a proven effectiveness track record,
hallmarks of a powerful strategy tool.
While full systems representations of organizations can be developed properly by those endowed with
the necessary skills, focusing on the flywheel effect facilitates management and leadership in general
sharpening their systems perspective on the organization. This can be of substantial help for the
organization’s strategic guidance beyond that which can be attained through strategy maps / balanced
scorecards, while remaining congruent with incorporating multiple perspectives on the organization in
its strategy. Collin’s flywheels offer indeed the possibility for finally readying management for
embracing the systems approach, rendering the foundation for having systemic strategy focused
organizations.

11. Collins’ Flywheel Effect – Catalyst for Strategic Systems Thinking A. J. Bencosme - 2017
11 / 11
BBiibblliiooggrraapphhyy
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Collins, J.C. (2017). How does your flywheel turn? A Good to Great ®
Strategic Tool". Retrieved
www.jimcollins.com , August 28th
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Kaplan, R., & Norton, D. (2004). Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes .
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Kaplan, R., & Norton, D. (1996). The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action. Harvard
Business Review Press.
Kaplan, R., & Norton, D. (2000). The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies
Thrive in the New Business. Harvard Business Review Press.
Richmond, B. (2001). A New Language for Leveraging Scorecard-Driven Learning. Harvard Business
School Publishing, Vol.3, No.1, January-February 2001
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