Ahhhh — momentum!

Isn’t it a great feeling when you finally have it working in your favor? When all the pieces have fallen into place, at the right time, allowing your company to speed towards its objective… When it happens, it’s epic. It’s like riding a freight train roaring down the tracks – and you just keep picking up speed.

Of course, when momentum is working against you, it’s just the opposite. It feels like, no matter what you do, you just can’t get the train to move along. Things take too long to complete, people aren’t on the same page, obstacles rear their heads at every turn, and even the best incentive plans don’t seem to make a difference. It’s frustrating.

So what do you do? How do you create or re-create momentum in your organization so you can execute swiftly on the strategy? When faced with this question, it’s easy to revert to popular management platitudes. You’ve probably heard that you must “communicate a clear vision,” “create sound systems and processes,” “offer compelling incentives,” “set realistic expectations,” “reward desired behavior,” and much more. This advice is valuable but also misleading. Furthermore, its relative value is dependent on context and may not be the answer in every situation, all the time. To get real, lasting, universally applicable answers, you’ve got to go deeper.

So how do you actually gain momentum and steer your organization in the direction you want it to go? And what are the common obstacles to creating and maintaining momentum?

There is a secret to creating organizational momentum. Surprisingly, this secret has been hidden in plain sight for the past 300 years. In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton published Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis, a text in which he laid down the basic laws that govern the movement of physical objects in our universe. Ever since, these have been popularly known as Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. Physicists and engineers use them even today to design just about anything that moves or is impacted by the motion of other objects. What’s surprising is that, even though an organization is not a physical object, these same three laws can also be used to better understand and influence the momentum of an organization. In other words, Newton’s three laws of motion can be used to understand the speed and direction of organizations of all sizes, much like rockets traveling to Mars. Once you understand the basics, it’s easy to spot these laws in operation all around you and to learn to work with – rather than against – them to increase the momentum of your organization.

To learn this universal model to rapid business execution, bookmark this page. Then click on each link below in sequence. As you read each section, you’ll build your knowledge of the elements of organizational momentum, how to accelerate it, what’s blocking it, and how to remedy this. This guide assumes that you already have a clear understanding of your strategy as well as how to manage the four fundamental PSIU forces at work in your organization.

The Business Execution Guide

1. The Physics of Executing Fast
2. WARNING: Vision & Values Can Kill Your Company
3. The 5 Classic Mistakes in Organizational Structure: Or, How to Design Your Organization the Right Way
4. The Most Important Process in Your Business: Or, How to Make Good Decisions and Implement Them Fast
5. The Motivation Myth: Or, How to Really Get Your Employees to Work Harder, Smarter, Faster
6. The Misaligned Organization and What to Do About It