We started this book with an analogy of a rocking horse to demonstrate that motion doesn't always equate to progress. However, it is important to remember that there can be no progress without motion. If anything you've read in our book suggests that motion is not a necessity or is somehow a bad outcome, then that is an unintended consequence. The proverbial rocking horse comes into play when that motion is misdirected because this is when progress is not the outcome you achieve.

There is no right or wrong way to ensure that motion is directed as intended and that progress is always as expected. There are multiple ways to approach any project or challenge, not one track to follow. The key is to compare and contrast your options: are they efficient or inefficient; cost effective or expensive; enjoyable or exhausting; satisfying or a struggle?

Throughout the eight chapters in this book, we have explored a set of principles that you can adopt in your organisation to stack the odds in favour of progress being the logical outcome of your activities, regardless of the scale of the outcome you're focusing on. We have broken these down into what we believe are the three core themes of the business ecosystem: the principal (leader), the crew (team), and the season (enterprise environment).

In our Formula 1 team, the principal sets the priorities, the crew provides the momentum, and the season is the race schedule and environment in which each race takes place. As a business, you need leaders to be setting a clear direction and communicating the overarching purpose of an organisation or its initiative; your team needs to align with that purpose and have enough autonomy to perform at their optimum level; and finally, your organisation has to adapt to the wider environment and have the ability to pivot, otherwise your business can't stay ahead. When all three are aligned, you achieve progress. It is the combination that enables significant progress to be made because if even one of these themes is missing, it can lead to fatigue, chaos, or obsolescence for your organisation.

When you look at the best Formula 1 teams in the world, you can see how all three of these themes come together to enable exceptional performance and progress towards a desired outcome, whether that's to win the race on the day, or to gain additional points towards the broader championship race. In business it is no different. Your desired outcomes may differ from those of your competitors, but the commitment for progress towards defined outcomes will be the competitive advantage you need.

Shift gears to accelerate your progress

Among the key principles we have called out over the last eight chapters are the need to not only set a clear direction of travel for your organisation or initiative, but, also to find the right methods of measuring your progress. You need a strategy that is flexible enough to enable you to pivot and adapt as the world around you does the same.

Autonomy is a key concept in Part Two, where we explored the need for your organisational culture to support your team to work towards and deliver the progress you are striving for. This autonomy comes from alignment behind your organisation's purpose and a clear understanding of your direction of travel. In the final part of this book, we looked at how your business can become more adaptive, and the need to do so, to keep up with the ever-changing world we live in. You have to control what you can and be prepared to respond to that which you can't.

The main principles in Part Three focus on not only navigating challenges outside your organisation, but also in spotting the opportunities that these events present. Knowing when to go for the albatross can significantly accelerate your progress.

It is highly likely that you are already following a few, many, or even all of the principles we have outlined in this book. If you are able to implement even one more, your odds of a successful outcome should increase. While it is typically through the combination of these behaviours that success is compounded, we would caution against trying to boil the proverbial ocean. You don't need to try and win the battle on many fronts at the same time. Focus on improving one area, then move onto the next. In doing so, not only will your progress accelerate, but it will do so sustainably.

The key is to view each of these principles as a behaviour, and behaviour change can have a positive effect on both a small and a large scale. Although we have shared examples that span organisations, know that these principles are just as effective and useful for individuals as they are for C-suite teams. Our hope is that all who read this, regardless of their current position or the size of the organisation they work for, will find value in what we have shared and see opportunities to alter their behaviour to help drive meaningful progress.

Whilst writing this book, we would always joke about who was early or late to our sessions because we both believe that there is no such thing as being on time; you're either early or you're late. It's the same approach we take with our clients. Often businesses will score themselves in a neutral way. For example, when asked to score something out of five, many people will pick three because it avoids being positive or negative. However, this can hold businesses back when assessing their own current state. We have talked about turning headwinds into tailwinds in Chapter 6. This is about assessing whether something is helping you move forward or holding you back as it is an important distinction.

Having the mindset to look at each of your capabilities and candidly say that “this is holding me back or driving me forward”, is the key to knowing what changes are needed to transform motion into progress.

Throughout this book, we have created a set of exercises that are designed to spark ideas that are appropriate for your situation. We have not sought to create exercises that will solve specific problems because every situation and business is unique. The principles we have outlined can be tailored to suit any situation, and our hope is that as you work through these exercises, you are able to see how you can apply them to your organisation and move closer to becoming an adaptive organisation.

Our final exercise is to pull together all this information to help you better understand what is helping you or stopping you from making continuous progress. The difference in our approach to traditional maturity assessments is that we've tried to factor in the complexity that sits behind being an adaptive business. We have pulled together the information shared in this book from the principal, the crew, and the season to look at all the aspects in your business that we believe will help you transform motion into progress, whilst trying to recognise the value and complexity of the relationships among all of these capabilities.

Progress accelerator

We have an exercise on our website www.motionintoprogress.com to help guide you to get a view of your current state that aligns with your purpose and enables all of your teams to deliver the best possible customer experience.

We also hope that you have enjoyed reading this book as much as we have enjoyed writing it. If you take only one thing from what's included in these chapters and find it useful in your business, we have met our goal. If you take more, that is a bonus.