Continuity Forces: The Flywheel of Inertia

Why should an organization maintain continuity in its strategy? A set of forces keep pulling it to be glued to the current business reality and also the manner in which it is being carried out. These are the forces of inertia caused by the organizations themselves. The larger and better performing the organization is, the larger would be this flywheel of inertia. In the current business domain, this momentum helps the organization to steer through the obstacles and grow over time. For leaders in their own area, it is extremely difficult to drastically change the course of this continuity flywheel. It requires substantial amount of organizational energy and efforts to change its course of action. It is a paradox that the forces that contribute to better performance in the current situation may become counterproductive to lead change. Some of the important continuity forces are the following: strong core ideology, large customer base, huge infrastructure, investment in technology, well-established culture, core competence, brand, supply chain and distribution network, and high level of business performance (Fig. 4.1). Not all of these continuity forces are inertial in nature and need to be overcome for purposeful change; some of them may be vital or desirable and may be strengthened further in order to exploit their current momentum along with some dimensions of change.