Momentum. McQueen Michael

around and fight back. The reality is that momentum is equally potent when it is working against you (something we will explore in the pages ahead).

      We all know that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. Why? Because the gravity of inertia has a tremendous pull that can be hard to break. Busy people are already in motion, so getting things done is no big deal.

      Remember, energy is built from energy – speeding up that which is already moving is far easier than getting an inert object (or person, or organisation) off go.

      REASON 02

      Momentum is attractive

      Everyone wants to be on a bus that's going somewhere. There are few things more appealing than being part of an organisation, a movement or even a personal relationship that is on an upward trajectory.

      Momentum truly gives you an unfair advantage when it's working on your side.

      By the same token, the first hint of stalling or waning can cause even the most steadfast and loyal devotees to start considering their options.

      Better still, like attracts like. Happening places attract happening people. Inspiring places attract inspired people. Even great opportunities seem to be attracted to places of great opportunity. Momentum truly gives you an unfair advantage when it's working on your side.

      I was reminded of this recently when lining up for breakfast at a happening café in the rural outskirts of Sydney one Sunday morning. When my wife and I arrived, having driven 40 minutes to get there, the line was out the door and a staff member at the head of the queue informed us that there'd be a 50-minute wait to be seated. We'd heard from a few friends how good this café's food was, so we decided to stick it out. When we finally sat down to breakfast almost an hour later, the queue was twice as long as when we'd arrived. While the breakfast was good, in reality there would have been five cafés within a five-minute drive of it that would have been as good – and likely had no wait for a table. But regardless, we, plus hundreds of others, fell for the hype and lined up anyway because this café was the hot place to be – it was a business with momentum.

      When you've got momentum on your side, you don't need to develop clever strategies for recruiting staff or persuading customers – both will be attracted to you because you are going somewhere and they want to be a part of it.

      REASON 03

      Momentum is protective

      Just as love covers a multitude of sins in the personal realm, momentum covers a multitude of sins in the professional arena.

      Having momentum working for you makes you appear more talented and clever than you really are. When momentum is on your side, you get disproportionately more than you deserve through the power of leverage. Conversely, when momentum is working against you, it's easy to appear ill-fated and incompetent – when neither may actually be the case.

      Momentum also provides a powerful sense of stability to any organisation or individual. If you think back to when you learned to ride a bicycle as a child, you will recall how you came to realise that speed is your best friend. Naturally, this seemed counterintuitive at first; typically, an unsteady rider will assume that the lowest speed possible is safest. The reality, however, is that a bike is at its most unsafe and unstable when moving slowly; forward momentum is the key to setting off and staying upright.

      Having momentum working for you makes you appear more talented and clever than you really are.

      When the tide turns

      While we all love the sensation of momentum and the benefits it offers, the reality is that we also know how it feels when momentum starts to dissipate or disappear.

      The language my clients use is again often the clearest indication that they sense the tailwinds of momentum have abated or even become headwinds of lethargy:

      • ‘We felt like we had lost our mojo – we were doing all the same things as before but now it felt like we were going through the motions. The spark just wasn't there.'

      • ‘It was as if things came off the boil. We were no longer the flavour of the month. Our growth plateaued at first and then began to nosedive.'

      • ‘I noticed the culture internally start to shift. Staff members seemed despondent – as if everything was a bit ho-hum. Passion and enthusiasm gave way to indifference and even boredom.'

      • ‘Suddenly even the simplest tasks felt like a hard slog – the effortlessness of going with the flow gave way to a daily grind of drudgery. It felt like we were constantly up against it.'

      • ‘Little things started to get blown way out of proportion. Even the most minor setback was cause for frustration and bitter infighting. It's like we took our eyes off the ball and turned on each other.'

      CASE STUDY

      Tough times

      @ Twitter

      A few short years ago, Twitter was the undisputed runner-up to Facebook in the social media world. More recently, however, a host of new, hotter social apps have taken the spotlight.

      At the time of writing, apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, Dubsmash, WhatsApp and Pinterest all rank ahead of Twitter in download rankings. Further still, Instagram's monthly active user count of 300 million is roughly equal to that of Twitter and industry insider Tero Kuittinen suggests that it won't be long before Snapchat is nipping at Twitter's heels too.3

      Twitter has failed to achieve the mass-market appeal of other social media platforms. One commentator sums it up this way: ‘Ask someone, anyone, “Is your mother on Facebook?” And they will likely answer yes. But you ask the same question of Twitter, the answer is almost always no.'4

      The numbers indicate that it isn't just mothers who are failing to embrace Twitter. Twitter's user growth stalled during mid 2015 and in the fourth quarter even shrank by 2 million monthly active users.5 While the company's share price had hit a record high of US$74.73 in December 2013, by early 2016 this had plummeted by almost 80 per cent.6

      There are myriad reasons for Twitter's momentum woes.

      According to Kuittinen, one of the main things Twitter lacks is the ‘fun, adventurous, funky, experimental' feeling users get on younger social apps such as Snapchat and Dubsmash. Twitter has been slow to make the platform more visual; however, its acquisition of the live-video app Periscope in early 2015 could help.7

      A second key drag on momentum is that Twitter is just not easy enough to use. Even Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey was forced to acknowledge this in an October 2015 tweet: ‘Our work forward is to make Twitter easy to understand by anyone in the world, and give more utility to the people who love to use it daily.'8 Dorsey and other Twitter executives have acknowledged that jump-starting growth momentum will require rethinking fundamental parts of the service, such as the 140-character limit.9

      For Twitter, the stakes are high. They must engage a wider cross-section of new users lest they become, as one technology commentator friend of mine recently described it, the BlackBerry of social media.

      Starbucks coming off the boil

      In October 2006, the US coffee giant Starbucks was rapidly losing its mojo. The company's shares began a decline that would last more than two years and leave them trading at $8 (down from $40 at their peak). In the face of global economic turmoil, many started to feel that the brand was, as the Financial Times put it in 2010, ‘a poster child for the frothy excess of a bygone era'.10 Clearly something needed to be done – and fast.

      In January 2008, Starbucks' founder, Howard Schultz, returned as CEO, telling analysts, ‘Just as we created this problem, we will fix

3

Chaykowski, K 2015, ‘Add this to Twitter's growth woes: a flock of younger social apps threatens to eclipse it', Forbes, 15 June.

4

Goel, V 2014, ‘Twitter has a problem with your mother', The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 February.

5

Koh, Y 2016, ‘Twitter woes mount as user growth stalls', The Wall Street Journal, 10 February.

6

Russolillo, S 2016, ‘Why Twitter should eyeball Yahoo's past', The Wall Street Journal, 9 February.

7

Chaykowski, K 2015, ‘Add this to Twitter's growth woes: a flock of younger social apps threatens to eclipse it', Forbes, 15 June.

8

Koh, Y 2015, ‘Twitter names co-founder Jack Dorsey as CEO', The Wall Street Journal, 5 October.

9

Koh, Y 2015, ‘Twitter to cut up to 8 per cent of workforce', The Wall Street Journal, 13 October.

10

Rigby, R 2011, 28 Business Thinkers Who Changed the World, Kogan Page Limited, London, p. 149.