Category Archives: Momentum

Real Leaders Understand Team Momentum

Momentum

I’ve been thinking a lot about momentum. I posted about business momentum here just a few days ago. I said:

Momentum: you see it in team sports often, as one team executes a great play or there is a stroke of sudden luck, and the momentum changes. You see it in life too, like when getting more exercise helps you to eat better, which helps you to sleep better. What about business?

Business momentum is one element of business that relates to leadership.

It’s about teams. Teams sense a change in momentum. The unexpected happens. Bad luck or good luck. A favorable mention in major media, a system goes down at a critical time, somebody leaves. Leadership takes …

  1. Seeing and understanding the momentum shifts. I think that’s often very hard, because you need vision from above and afar, stepping back. When you’re right in the middle of it, it’s hard to see; and 
  2. seizing the moment to move the momentum in the right direction. Bad news might take something dramatic to get the team refocused. Stop, refresh your vision, review your plans, put some drama into it.

Think of the coach who calls time out to gather the team and affect the momentum. A lot of business is about teams, so is momentum, and that means leadership at its best (or lack of leadership at its worst.)

(Image: bigstockphoto)

The Phenomenon of Business Momentum

Momentum,

Momentum: you see it in team sports often, as one team executes a great play or there is a stroke of sudden luck, and the momentum changes. You see it in life too, like when getting more exercise helps you to eat better, which helps you to sleep better. What about business?roller coaster

It’s physics. Momentum vs. inertia. It’s something we know, we recognize, but we don’t fully understand. Or at least, I don’t.

Over the last generation we’ve seen big momentum shifts, such as the swing from Mac to Windows in the 1990s and back to Mac in the last five years; the momentum shift from Yahoo! to Google in 1999; and shift to Facebook from Myspace in 2005.

I’ve posted here about the startup momentum of the Silicon Alley in the last five years.

And here’s a challenge: how to codify business momentum. How can we measure it? Sudden shifts in page views, tweet mentions, Facebook fans, Yelp or Amazon reviews? Klout.com has its secret algorithm for measuring online influence, which starts me thinking … what about momentum?

I googled “business momentum” and there’s not much there. The third item is this one, which I posted here on this blog.

Are we content to say we know it when we see it? Is that enough? Or can we know it better, analyze it, and understand it?

Your suggestions are welcome. I’m fascinated by this, but is it just me?

(image: bigstockphoto.com)

It’s Easier to Maintain Business Momentum Than Overcome Inertia

Advice, Business Mistakes, Entrepreneurship, Management, Momentum

Actually my title for this post is a shortened version. It should have been:

In business, just as in physics, and in life in general, it’s easier to maintain momentum than to overcome inertia.

My two best examples are neither physics nor business: diet and exercise. spinning topYou know full well what I mean. Keeping the healthy routine, in either one of these, is easier than letting go and restarting. I’ve known this one from both sides. I’m sure. And I’ll bet nobody’s arguing.

I’ll bet that with those examples in mind you can think of a lot of examples in business. Of course there are the blogs, Twitter and Facebook presences, email campaigns, newsletters, word of mouth in general, awareness, branding, plus a lot of things related to tools and systems, plus teamwork, and even human nature.

Where I see it a lot, because of my special focus, is in business planning. To make planning work for you and your organization, it’s better to keep it going, keep it in mind, keep it easy to access, keep bringing it up and reviewing and revising. If your planning is about a document in a drawer somewhere, then it’s not very useful.

Don’t let down. Ease off if you have to, but don’t let down entirely. If you do, it’s too hard to get the momentum going again.