Recently, my wife, Emma, created a Tuscan-inspired white bean soup for dinner without a recipe and based purely on random ingredients in our kitchen.  To me, her ability to make a gourmet meal out of thin air is nothing short of miraculous. I don't have this same ability to improvise a meal, I need to follow a recipe.  Recipes are powerful. For example, on every bag of Tollhouse chocolate chips is a recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  If you follow the recipe, you will get a consistent result every time.

Do you have a clear recipe for long-term success in your business?  You are probably a master at your craft and can achieve success in your business like Emma does in the kitchen. However, this is not scalable with the rest of your team. Does your team know the recipe and how they contribute to long-term business success?  Without a clear and simple recipe, this is what your team will look like:

Our role as leaders is to manage human energy. It is our role to align our team and give them a clear direction to move forward together in the same direction.

As a Pinnacle Business Guide, I coach my clients on how to implement a business operating system (BOS) to help achieve their Pinnacle or Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) while at the same time helping the business owner to have the freedom they dreamed of when they started their business. The various elements of the BOS weave together to harness and focus the business's human energy. Tools such as the Strategic Vision and Execution Plan, Strategy Square, and Talent Assessment form the bedrock of the BOS. 

As leaders, we need to convey our recipe for long-term business's success clearly. I believe the tool that does this most effectively is the flywheel. Jim Collins introduced the concept of the flywheel in business in his book, Good to Great. The concept is so powerful, that Collins wrote a separate monograph just about the flywheel concept. The purpose of the flywheel is to clarify and simplify the business model to create focused, sustainable, and self-propelling growth. 

According to Wikipedia, "A flywheel is a mechanical device that uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy, a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed." I like to visualize a large, heavy mechanical wheel that takes lots of small pushes in the same direction. Eventually, it has stored up so much energy that it spins seemingly all on its own. So too in our businesses, if our team is making small, incremental pushes in the same direction, eventually, the wheel will spin on its own. 

“In creating a good-to-great transformation, there’s no single defining action, no grand program, no single killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, and no miracle moment. Instead, it feels like turning a giant, heavy flywheel. Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward. You keep pushing, and with persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You don’t stop. You keep pushing. The flywheel moves a bit faster. Two turns...then four...then eight...the flywheel builds momentum ... sixteen...thirty-two...moving faster...a thousand...then ten thousand...a hundred thousand. Then, at some point, breakthrough! The flywheel flies forward with almost stoppable momentum,” wrote Collins.

The flywheel simply and graphically conveys to the team the business model that leads to success. The flywheel is our version of that Tollhouse cookie recipe. 

The best way to understand the concept is to look at another company's flywheel. Here is Amazon's flywheel from 2001, as shared by Jim Collins:

Each step leads to the next. Amazon's flywheel starts at the top by providing lower prices on more offerings, which leads to increased customer visits. This, in turn, attracts third-party sellers, which allows Amazon to expand its stores and expand its distribution. This growth in revenue per fixed costs is Amazon's key economic driver and constraint; each new distribution center requires enormous capital. Amazon ties its financial success to increasing revenue per fixed costs like those distribution centers; the more products flowing through, the more successful they will be. This increased profitability allows Amazon to expand its offering at lower prices. Imagine, in 2001, Amazon was only an online bookstore. Amazon quickly became "The Everything Store" as written about in the 2013 book of that name by Brad Stone.

In this Amazon flywheel example, you can see that each component sets up the next component. Each step is almost an inevitable consequence. Each turn builds on the energy from the previous turn. 

The flywheel is a simple, yet powerful, way to convey your business's recipe for success. In our business, the flywheel holds a prominent place. It lives on posters in every location and we discuss it during all of our planning meetings. We consistently and constantly communicate our flywheel recipe to the entire team. We know that as long as we keep spinning our flywheel, we will achieve our BHAG. 

As an entrepreneur, you have a choice. You can be an army of one, constantly improvising amazing dishes in the kitchen, or you can become a true leader and clearly communicate your recipe for success. This will allow you to harness the human energy of your team, create lasting, long-term business success, and achieve your biggest goals.

Ryan Kalmbach is the CEO of Johnstone Supply, The Orion Group, with 12 locations and 125 employees in California. He has more than 20 years of experience in operating a family distribution business. The core passion at The Orion Group is to partner with its customers and employees to help them to grow. Contact Ryan at ryank@johnstonesupply.com or https://www.powerofjsog.com/.