Book Preview · Part 1, Chapter 4

Levers of Control

The Four That Control Any Business

The below is an excerpt from Part 1 – Chapter 4 of Craft: The Expedition of Business:

The Wright brothers, our friends from Chapter 2, spent decades tinkering and toiling with mechanisms, gadgets, and gizmos of all types before finally setting their sights on airplanes. A short five years later, they were ready to make history on a December morning at the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

It was cold, windy, and miserable; but it was also perfect conditions for flight. Wilbur had won a coin-toss to be first in the saddle, but his attempt to be "The First in Flight" had ended with a crash a few days prior. Orville would be at the controls.

The motor was humming, the wind was blowing, and once the restraining wire was cut, the plane started bouncing down the launch rail. Speed increased, wind rolled across the airfoil of the wings, wheels lifted off the rails, and there it was. Orville was in flight.

We can all relate to some version of toil and struggle before finally, success. I thought and schemed for some time before launching my first business. Landing those first clients, seeing the first checks roll in, hiring the first staff. No one is going to commemorate my story in a state motto or on a license plate, but the feeling seems parallel to Orville's as things finally got off the ground.

I don't know his specific reaction, but as he was soaring high above the ground in a contraption that made the flying car from "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" look like a Learjet, part of me suspects his reaction was just like mine and that of many business leaders new at the controls: "Oh shit, now what?"

For Wilbur, that answer lay in the levers he had at his disposal. A lever for the speed of the engine. A lever for the angle of the wing. A lever for the pitch, roll, and yaw of the plane.

For me, the answer was in levers as well. Four of them. The four levers that any business is trying to control. Those that get (and keep) their organization soaring.

Keeping the plane in the air was about E.U.R.Y. and finding the right balance and tradeoffs between the four.

Every business has a form of the E.U.R.Y. model. They are all paid to do work. Something their customer or client can't or would prefer not to do themselves. An opportunity they forgo because the resistance between them and the outcome they desire is too great.

The business exists because it can amass the energy needed to do the work. Unify it in a single direction. Lower the resistance to doing the work. And finally, maximize the yield they receive for a job well done.

These are the four variables of the infinite number of paths to success, and each business does (and should do) it differently.

Example: Local Plumbing Company

The question isn't whether a business is pulling each of these levers, but how? There are limitless ways, and an equal number of suggestions of what's best. Books, courses, podcasts, consultants, coaches, and gurus. There is a river of information, but it all flows towards pulling one of the four levers.

How Common Business Advice Maps to the Four Levers

Best practices, effective strategies, common tactics, and even the clichés; they all find a home here. It's our job as leaders to sift through all the information we come across. To figure out how it best serves us when sitting at the levers of control.

Pulling the Right Lever for the Right Decision

So, just how do we pull those levers?…

The next decision you make, stop and ask — what's the intent here. Raise the energy? Unify it better? Lower the resistance? Or maximize the yield? Sharper decisions come from better thinking — see A Better Framework for Business Decision Making and Mental Models and First Principles Thinking.

This is an excerpt from Craft: The Expedition of Business by Zack Tomlin.

Further Reading