This is one of my preferred analogies to use for helping a business owner see their business from a different perspective and understand how it needs to operate to support their goals.
I use it as it invites imagination and drawing of parallels between something concrete and physical and something more abstract and conceptual.
I’ve found it to be effective at generating an “aha” moment for owners. They instantly start connecting the dots on their own, which is a response I always seek to generate.
What a Vehicle Is
For this analogy, I’m defining a vehicle as a machine that takes you from a starting point A to a destination point B, and a machine as a piece of equipment with several moving parts designed to do a particular type of work. For example: a car, a bike or a spaceship can all serve this purpose.
In this analogy, the business is the vehicle, you are the owner designing and steering it, and your goals are the destination.
The Whole as a Function of the Individual Parts
A vehicle consists of multiple interacting components, each performing its own function, while collectively producing the function of the whole.
Let’s take the classic example of a vehicle: a car. A car is an ensemble of different components. Each component has its own function: the computer provides instructions (coordinates functions such as fuel delivery and ignition timing), the engine produces power, the transmission passes that power on, and the wheels turn. Together, they fulfill the overall function of transportation.
A business works in the same way. It’s also made up of different parts, each with its own role: marketing generates demand, sales converts that demand into customers, delivery fulfills the promise made to the customer, and functions like operations, customer support, finance, and HR keep the system stable and running. Individually, each function does something different, but together they create the forward motion that can take the business from where it is today to where the owner wants it to go.
The vehicle’s function is the outcome that only appears when those individual functions are coordinated. No single component can take you from A to B, but all of them working together can.
That collective contribution is what defines the vehicle, not its individual parts in isolation. An engine on a shelf is not transportation. And a marketing department running in isolation isn’t a business.
For the business to take you to your goals, its parts have to fit together and work as one. A constraint in one part can limit the performance of the whole when it restricts the work the other parts depend on.
Exceptional delivery won’t be enough if the business can’t generate enough demand to produce customers to serve. Equally, exceptional marketing and sales won’t be enough either if the business can’t fulfill what it sold. The business moves only as fast as its current constraint allows. Improving performance starts with identifying the part currently limiting the result you need.
Turning Inputs into Outputs
Just as a car receives inputs such as fuel, electricity and instructions from the driver, a business receives inputs such as time, money, human effort, materials and information. In both cases, the individual parts work together to turn those inputs into something useful.
For the car, that transformation involves converting energy into mechanical power, transferring it through the transmission and turning the wheels. The output is controlled movement that enables transportation.
For the business, the transformation involves the coordinated work of attracting customers, converting demand into sales and delivering what was promised. The outputs are products or services that customers value and pay for. That exchange generates revenue and, when revenue exceeds the costs of running the business, profit.
Designing the Business Around Your Destination
This brings us back to your destination. The business produces products or services for customers. Your goal as the owner might be for the business to provide you with a certain income, greater freedom or the ability to make a particular impact. How you design and run the business determines whether delivering value to customers also moves you towards those goals.
That means the destination needs to be clear enough to design the business around it. What would reaching your goal actually look like? How much income would the business need to provide? How much of your time would it require? What role would you want to play in its day-to-day operation?
Different destinations place different requirements on the vehicle.
If your goal is a dependable income, the business needs to generate enough consistent profit to support it. If your goal also includes working fewer hours, it needs people, processes and clear responsibilities that allow it to operate without your constant involvement. If your goal is to eventually sell the business, you also need to consider what would make it valuable to a buyer and how it would continue operating under new ownership.
Once you know the destination, you can work backwards. What results must the business consistently produce? How must its different functions work together to produce them? And what is currently limiting its ability to do so?
This also gives you a way to judge progress. Alongside measures such as enquiries, clients and revenue, you need to measure the things that show whether the business is serving your goals: the income it provides, the hours it requires from you or the impact it creates.
Your role as the owner is to keep those connections clear: where you want to go, what the business needs to produce to get you there, and what needs to change when it falls short.
This is where strategy comes in: finding a way to reach your goals, considering the limited resources you have at your disposal, and directing attention and resources to the things that can make the biggest difference in moving you in that direction.
A car can be running without taking you where you want to go. So can a business.
