A Conversation With Jim Collins: EO Is A Flywheel of Flywheels

I had the chance to interview Jim Collins, the author of timeless books on building great companies like Built to Last and Good to Great. He is known for a “twin studies” research methodology where he compares an industry leader to a competitor that didn’t succeed to determine what factors lead to outperformance. He is my all-time favorite author. 

Jim gave the Entrepreneurs’ Organization community a compliment I’ll never forget: “EO is creating a flywheel of flywheels.” 

The flywheel is Jim’s concept of the momentum that builds over time from continuous growth and operational improvement. Creating and sustaining a flywheel should be the goal of every business. (I’ll be writing a series of posts on Jim’s insights and my thoughts on how they apply to the EO community.)

This flywheel of flywheels might be EO’s biggest contribution to our member community. Because at the core, it is what allows each member to achieve their aspirations. It works like this.

When you’re around other business owners with shared values, you create connections that will help you learn faster and go farther. 

This creates a broader and deeper entrepreneur ecosystem that brings more entrepreneurs into the community. Attracting more members broadens and diversifies the community, and accelerates each member’s pace of knowledge acquisition and personal development. 

This cycle creates the shortest path for you to achieve your aspirations, regardless of whether that goal is to grow your business to $10M or $100M or beyond.

The idea of a broader and deeper ecosystem is inspiring. Entrepreneurs have a natural affinity to gather and learn from each other. But many first-time entrepreneurs do not realize there is an ecosystem. They go it alone. And alone is in most cases inefficient. 

When you are part of a community of like-minded entrepreneurs that share your values to think big, be bold, and never stop learning, you are more likely to want to bring in new members. 

This is what Jim meant by a flywheel of flywheels. EO at the center adding momentum to the momentum of every member’s business.