Momentum

• Sir Isaac Newton discovered that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.

• During a 2-hour flight an MD8O jet airplane burns approximately 50% of the fuel it is carrying building the necessary momentum required to takeoff.

The energy required to build momentum is significantly greater than the energy required to maintain or increase momentum. Jim Collins, in his hugely popular book, Good to Great, talks about how great businesses become great. In this fantastic book Collins refers to projects as flywheels. (The flywheel is a massive steel wheel that is critical to the operation and requires a great deal of energy to start turning and is of course a metaphor representing important activities.) Once the flywheel is turning, it becomes much easier to maintain the momentum, if effort is continually dedicated to the activity. In order to get the flywheel to turn faster, it is simply a matter of committing more energy.

When you get moving you are well on your way to building necessary momentum. The momentum you build will help you move forward to reaching your goals. However it is very important to understand that you are going to invest the most expensive-time in your effort to building momentum in the beginning. Starting your flywheel to turning will require a considerable amount of time and energy.

Obviously, if you stop dedicating time, energy and effort, your flywheel will start to slow down, wobble and eventually stop completely. Then, all of the time and energy you dedicated to building momentum will be lost. You must determine what your most important flywheel is and then you must dedicate your energy and effort to build and maintain momentum. Choose wisely, and make sure you are indeed working on the most important flywheel and once it is moving, you can devote energy to other flywheels. Never take your eye off of the most important flywheel and always keep the momentum.

Great companies build and maintain momentum by focusing on and dedicating energy and time to turning their most important flywheels.