20 Mile Marches

Jim Collins makes things seem so clear and easy to understand. Maybe that is why I love his books. In Great By Choice, he discusses a principle called the 20 Mile March This principle of success is about year over year consistent performance of a company or an organization. You set a goal for acheivement and meet it year over year withoug waivering for greater profits while having some down years in between. The characteristics of a 20 Mile March for a corporation, which is analogous to marching from San Diego to Maine 20 miles per day until you get there, are first of all setting specific performance markers. What do you want to accomplish each year? Also included are self-imposed constraint, appropriate to the enterprise, largely within its own control, a Goldilocks time frame - not to long and not too short - designed and self-imposed by the enterprise and achieved with high consistency. The 20 Mile March will create two types of self-imposed discomfort 1) the discomfort of unwavering commitment to high performance in difficult conditions, and 2) the discomfort of holding back in good conditions. In other words grow by the same amount year over year and every year. The examples of his 10Xer companies with 20 Mile Marches are Stryker, Southwest Airlines, and Progressive Insurance. More to come.