Dodging the Urban Doom Loop

Art of Supply

In the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, he writes about the flywheel effect, a prosperous cycle of work and change that eventually picks up speed and builds its own momentum. Anyone that has taken a product to market or started a company has tried to get that virtuous cycle going.

Fewer people talk about the flywheel effect’s evil cousin: the doom loop. Also covered by Collins, the doom loop is what takes down the companies that want to affect positive change but can’t figure out how. He calls it “reaction without understanding.”

If the phrase doom loop sounds familiar, it is because media coverage of the conditions in some of America’s largest cities has been using the term to describe slow but steady societal decay: poverty, crime, lost value, and finally relocation. Many companies are dealing with the effects of this, and the longer it lasts, the larger the challenge becomes.

In this episode of Dial P, Kelly Barner looks at the doom loop concept from both the public and private sector perspective - because in these large cities, the two most definitely meet:

• How Jim Collins' doom loop is playing out in major cities where, despite the best of intentions, nothing ever seems to improve
• The linkages between social trends and business viability
• The impact these changes are having on companies with locations in those cities, and how they are managing the situation in the short and medium term

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Dial P for Procurement on AOP