Good to Great: Flywheel Animation 10

Posted by Jimmy'z on April 21, 2007

Jim Collins and his team of researchers set out to find the top turnaround companies that made the leap from good to great. Good to Great is the result of that massive research project. The team started with 1,435 good companies and narrowed them down to 11 that became great, based on their performance over the last 40 years. Jim wrote an article for FastCompany on Good to Great back in September of 2001 which gives a really good overview of the Good to Great principles.

One of my favorite principles that Jim outlines in this book is the principle of the Flywheel. When companies make the leap from good to great, analysts and newspapers go crazy and wonder what big thing that they did to make their company great. The reality is that it took a lot of work and buildup over time.

All of the good to great companies had level 5 leadership, and had done things right. They had the right people on board, and had confronted the brutal facts. They had found the one thing that they could be the best at, that they were passionate about, and that drove their economic engine. In other words they had embraced the hedgehog concept. They had a culture of discipline, and used technology to accelerate their business, although technology wasn’t their driving force. All of these elements together were the constant pushes that they made the flywheel turn.

In his book, Jim describes the flywheel as a “massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about 30 feet in diameter, 2 feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds.” He says that it’s your job to turn this wheel and get it going as fast and long as possible. Turning this flywheel is like moving a company in a way that it will begin to produce results.

Here is my Flash animation that illustrates this concept:

It’s been almost a year since I did any kind of drawing/animation with Flash, and this took way to long to do, but I think it makes for a good visual of the flywheel concept.

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  1. Jennifer Marstaeller Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:50:41 MDT

    Jimmy,
    Your Flywheel animation is exactly what I’ve been looking for! I’ve been scanning the internet to at least find a useable graphic to use to describe the flywheel concept but yours is perfect! I was wondering if I would be able to get a copy of it to use. Our organization is in the middle of a fundamental change to our direction and many of our leadership team have taken the principles of Good to Great and are attempting to now apply them in our new world. Please advise if and how I could use your animiation. Thanks!
    Jen

  2. Andrew Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:29:09 MDT

    Jimmy,

    I am in agreement with Jen, this is really a GREAT way to explain the flywheel. I have a PPT to make on Good to Great on 23rd July, is there any possibility of getting a copy to use. (Naturally, I will acknowledge the source)

    Andy M

  3. Jimmy'z Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:52:02 MDT

    Sure. Feel free to use the flywheel animation. I appreciate the source acknowledgment.

    You should be able to download the swf file from this link:
    http://jimmyzimmerman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/flywheel.swf

    –
    Jimmy

  4. Bill Wight Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:51:38 MDT

    Thanks for the great animation. I will make it part of my presentation to the team about taking on board the principles in Good to Great. Love your work.

  5. Andrew Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:31:41 MDT

    Hey Jimmy,

    I would like to use the flywheel animation in a PPT presentation. we don;t have web access so can’t access the link. Is it downloadable as an mpeg or something?

    Cheers

  6. Andrea I Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:24:37 MDT

    Hey Jimmy,

    I would like to use the flywheel animation in a PPT presentation. However, I would like to use the image and just talk through the narration – rather than have it appear on the screen. Do you have an image only flash file that you could email? THANK YOU!

    Best,
    Andrea

  7. Dhiraj Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:26:30 MST

    Amazing clip !!!

  8. Brad Warren Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:23:13 MST

    Would Love to get this in a power point format. It is really great. Great book.

    Brad

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