feel the flywheel beginning to build speed-that's when the bulk of people lineup to throw their shoulders against the wheel and push. T HE D O OM LOOP We found a very different pattern at the comparison companies. Instead of a quiet, deliberate process of figuring out what needed to be done and then simply doing it, the comparison companies frequently launched new programs-often with great fanfare and hoopla aimed at "motivating the troops 7 '-only to seethe programs fail to produce sustained results. sought the single defining action, the grand program, the one killer innovation, the miracle moment that would allow them to skip the arduous buildup stage and jump right to breakthrough. They would push the flywheel in one direction, then stop, change course, and throw it in anew direction-and then they would stop, change course, and throw it into yet another direction. After years of lurching back and forth, the comparison companies failed to build sustained momentum and fell instead into what we came to call the doom loop. Consider the case of Warner-Lambert, the direct comparison company to Gillette. In 1979, Warner-Lambert told Business Week that it aimed to be a leading consumer products One year later, in 1980, it did an abrupt about-face and turned its sights on healthcare, saying, "Our flat-out aim is to go after Merck, - everybody and his In 198 1, the company reversed course yet again and returned to diversification and consumer Six years later, in 1987, Warner-Lambert did another U-turn, away from consumer goods, to try once again to be like Merck. (At the same time, the company spent three times as much on consumer-goods advertising as on somewhat puzzling strategy, fora company trying to beat In the early reacting to Clinton-era healthcare reform, the company threw itself into reverse yet again and reembraced diversification and consumer
