TL;DR
- Big transformations are just a series of small wins shipped daily; for small teams, the secret to engagement is radically decreasing your production cycle time and size.
- Autonomy and front-line empowerment aren’t a gift from management; it’s a strategic necessity that creates the feedback loops required to build AI-ready organizational capabilities; specific attention must be paid to how your intelligence flows in decision making.
- Consistency and a sense of agency are what allow teams to maintain the git needed for long-term durability. In a world where change is the norm, holding onto even small control can have lasting resiliency effects.
After the Big Bang
In executive leadership, we are often tempted by the “Big Bang” implementation—the massive, all-at-once systemic overhaul. But as Jim Collins famously detailed in Good to Great, sustainable greatness is rarely the result of a single “lucky break” or one-time push. It is a flywheel. You start by pushing in one direction, then another, building kinetic energy through iteration. When you stop looking for the magic pill and start focusing on the iterative rotation, the system eventually takes on a life of its own. Going all in on a massive change is not the enemy and can be a great new foundation for the future. However, assuming the job is done at go-live is a trap many fall into.
The Mechanics of Spinning
1. Gain velocity
The most effective way to keep stakeholders—from your front-line care teams to your board members—engaged is to show them what shipped. When we decrease cycle time, we aren’t just working faster; we are learning faster. In smaller operational groups, the goal should be to break the final peak into pieces small enough to be achieved daily. This creates a neurobiological reward loop. As explored in the Progress Principle, the feeling of forward motion is the single greatest predictor of team engagement.
2. Invisible incentives
We often over-index on monetary incentives while ignoring the “Intention” behind our cultural norms. As Ross, Krasten, and Pilat argue in Intention, humans are driven by a need for recognition and clear output expectations. If your culture doesn’t celebrate the small ship or provide non-monetary recognition for iterative improvements, your flywheel will experience friction. Aligned incentives mean that the default behavior of the team matches the desired outcome of the organization. The front-line leader, often the accountable party for such inspiration, is often the least supported in achieving these locally accretive cultures. This represents a significant opportunity to unlock built up kinetic human potential.
3. Connected intelligence
In The Octopus Organization, Le-Brun and Werner describe a system where the “tentacles” (the front line) have the autonomy to react to their environment, while the “brain” (management) provides clear direction and support. To build a true flywheel, you must empower your front-line teams—whether they are in a call center or a physician-led care team—with the autonomy to adjust their workflows. These teams then feed data back to the digital and process teams, creating a continuous feedback loop. This isn’t just good management; it is how you build System 1-3 connection points that remain resilient under pressure.
4. Controlling anchor
During rapid change, change fatigue is the primary enemy of durability. (As we discussed in our previous look at durability of impact change that doesn’t stick is just an expensive distraction). An antidote to this fatigue is a sense of control. Ethan Kross’s work in Chatter highlights that when we feel we have agency over our environment—even in small ways—our internal noise settles. Consistency in rituals and workflows gives teams the confidence to keep pushing the flywheel even when the path is steep.
Call Centers, Engineering and Care Teams
Whether you are leading a team of software engineers, a marketing department, or an HR support group, the fundamental mechanics of excellence are the same. These teams are the primary holders of organizational context. As Cassie Kozyrkov recently pointed out, you cannot build meaningful AI capabilities without deep, high-quality context from the people doing the work.
The front-line knowledge of your current manual slop is the blueprint for your future automation. By taking an intentional view of how these teams operate and keeping the customer at the center of every iteration, you aren’t just fixing a process; you are building the data pipelines that will power the next generation of your organization’s AI capabilities.
Compounding for Customers
The reality is that we are approaching a horizon where transactional work will be done better by machines. Automation alone can strip away much of the current-day “slop” that slows us down. But the path to that future is built through the difficult, iterative work of today. A model that builds this future iteratively—focusing on service and customer loyalty—doesn’t just survive the transition; it builds a massive competitive advantage.
My Perspective
I’ve spent a lot of time in rooms where the goal was “perfection on day one.” It’s a trap. The most successful systems I’ve ever seen—whether in healthcare or retail—were the ones that embraced the “messy middle” of iteration. There is a specific kind of grit required to stay the course when the flywheel feels heavy. But the reward is a system that eventually moves itself. When you focus on the service of the customer and allow your teams the autonomy to learn, you stop being a “manager of tasks” and start being an “architect of momentum.” The future belongs to those who can be steadfast as they iterate their way to the peak.
About the research
This article is influenced by much of the sources found in the Ridgeline Research Graph, specifically the synthesis of “The Octopus Organization” (Le-Brun and Werner) on decentralized systems, “Intention” (Ross, Krasten, and Pilat) on the psychology of incentives, “Chatter” (Ethan Kross) on the neurobiology of control and focus he discusses in the tools section, and “Good to Great” (Jim Collins) and the Flywheel Effect. For more on the long-term stickiness of these systems, see our previous article: Durability of Impact.
